The Woodsman's Journal Online: November 2024

Saturday, November 23, 2024

Getting Paleo Fit...Take Steps to Manage Your Inheritance Wisely©

Author’s note -- I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

To read part one “Getting Paleo Fit...The Why!©” go HERE

Humans, like bears, are omnivores and can eat either plants or animals, what is eaten often depends on what is available. However, ever since Homo erectus, 50,000 generations, or 1.5 million years ago, humans have become more carnivorous, in fact anthropologists, believe “...that meat-eating has played a significant role in the evolution of Homo, not just Homo sapiens”.

To get the meat that we needed to survive, humans evolved to maximize their stamina and brainpower. This allowed us to use a hunting strategy called “persistence hunting”. This method is also called “endurance hunting” and was described by anthropologist Eugene Morin as the “spook and run” technique. To run our prey down, humans evolved bipedalism, an increased capacity to sweat and decreased body hair to help cool our body while running, a complex respiratory system, long legs, plantar arches and long Achilles tendons that both work as leg springs and a large proportion of slow-twitch muscles fibers, which are slow to fatigue.

Up until the end of the Ice Age, 390 generations, or 11,700 years ago, humans were apex predators, and the world was full of megafauna: mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, cave bears, and more. In modern hunter-gatherer societies today, big-game hunting is generally a male behavior; but before the end of the Ice Age, it would have required the participation of everyone, whether driving or dispatching large megafauna. So, Great Grandad and Great Grandma, 84,000 years ago, would both have been buff marathon runners!

We evolved for movement and exercise and the body remembers, even if we’ve forgotten. So, what did Great Grandma and Great Grandpa do, all those generations ago, to keep strong, healthy and fit? To start with they got up and walked, everywhere, all the time, every day!

So, get walking. Get a step counter and see how many steps you take in an average day, and then set a goal to increase it. Work up to at least 10,000 steps a day by adding in blocks of 2,000 steps. 10,000 steps in one go is a walk of an hour and forty minutes, so break it up and spread it out throughout the day. And get outside to get your steps in, outdoor exercise gives you sunlight that will stimulate vitamin D production in your skin. If possible, walk in a natural setting, since research shows that a 60 minute walk in nature improves memory performance and attention span, compared to the same length of a walk in an urban setting. And an hour and forty minutes of walking outside on trails or grass will burn about 400 calories, which over seven days of walking is about ¾ pounds (340 grams) of fat.

And don’t forget that this is only about half of what modern hunter-gatherers walk every day. And that there are other things that you can do to build fitness and burn calories during your day.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Getting Paleo Fit...Learning How to Stay Alive!©”, where we will talk about what to look for in an exercise plan to get paleo fit!

I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site. I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Agam, Aviad; Barkai, Ran; “Elephant and Mammoth Hunting during the Paleolithic: A Review of the Relevant Archaeological, Ethnographic and Ethno-Historical Records”, Advances in Quaternary Studies: The Contribution of Mammalian Fossil Record, 2018, Vol. 1, No. 3, https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/1/1/3#, accessed November 23, 2024

Banksy; “Fast Food Caveman”, from Pyramid America Framed Plexi Posters on Amazon.com, https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Pyramid-America-Caveman-Graffiti-enmarcada/dp/B01NBC0CIB, accessed November 12, 2024

Ben-Dor, Miki; Sirtoli, Raphael; Barkai, Ran; “The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene”, Yearbook of Physical Anthropology Article, March 5, 2021, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24247, accessed November 20, 2024

Herzig, Ilana; “From Hunter to Marathoner”, Archaeology, September/October 2024, page 19

Hora, Martin; Pontzer, Herman; Wall-Scheffler, Cara M.; Sládek, Vladimír; “Dehydration and persistence hunting in Homo erectus”, Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 138, 2020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248419300077#:~:text=It%20has%20been%20argued%20that,et%20al.%2C%202009), accessed November 19, 2024

Hora, Martin; Pontzer, Herman; Struška, Michal, Entin, Pauline; Sládek, Vladimír; “Comparing walking and running in persistence hunting”, Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 172, 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248422001075?via%3Dihub, accessed November 19, 2024

Mayo Clinic Staff; “10,000 steps a day: Too low? Too high?”, [© 1998-2024 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research], https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/10000-steps/art-20317391, accessed November 23, 2024

Nuffield Health; “The truth behind walking 10000 steps a day”, [© 2024 Nuffield Health], https://www.nuffieldhealth.com/article/walking-10k-steps-a-day-fact-fiction#:~:text=The%20idea%20of%20walking%2010%2C000,and%20the%20idea%20caught%20on, accessed November 23, 2024

O’Keefe, Evan L., Lavie, Carl J.; “A Hunter-Gatherer Exercise Prescription to Optimize Health and Well-Being in the Modern World”, Journal of Science in Sport and Exercise, Vol. 3, 2021, pages 147 to 157, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42978-020-00091-0, accessed November 14, 2024

O’Keefe, James H., et al.; “Achieving Hunter-gatherer Fitness in the 21st Century: Back to the Future”, The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 123, Issue 12, pages 1082 to 1086, https://www.amjmed.com/article/s0002-9343(10)00463-8/fulltext, accessed November 14, 2024

O’Keefe, James H., et al.; “Cardiovascular Disease Resulting From a Diet and Lifestyle at Odds With Our Paleolithic Genome: How to Become a 21st-Century Hunter-Gatherer”, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Volume 79, Issue 1, pages 101 to 108, https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)63262-X/fulltext,

Pires, M. M.; “The Restructuring of Ecological Networks by the Pleistocene Extinction”, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, May 30, 2024, Vol. 52 No. 1, pages 133 to 158, https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-earth-040722-104845, accessed November 22, 2024

Shideler, Karen; “10,000-step approach to health really works”, The Hour, July 2, 2002, page A7, https://books.google.com/books?id=5g4hAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA4&dq=%2210,000+steps%22&article_id=4151,144153&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizzKar7vKJAxVsMlkFHSwvId8Q6AF6BAgMEAI#v=onepage&q=%2210%2C000%20steps%22&f=false, accessed November 23, 2024

Stein, Jeannine; “10,000 steps add up to good health”, The Daily Gazette, November 24, 2002, https://books.google.com/books?id=AHwuAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA39&dq=%2210,000+steps%22&article_id=6179,5934209&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizzKar7vKJAxVsMlkFHSwvId8Q6AF6BAgNEAI#v=onepage&q=%2210%2C000%20steps%22&f=false, accessed November 23, 2024

The Walking Site; “10,000 Steps A Day”, [© by TheWalkingSite.Com 1998-2023], https://www.thewalkingsite.com/10000steps.html, accessed November 16, 2024

Wikimedia; “imagen”, by Sandritaverooka, June 10, 2015, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ejemplo_evolucion.jpg, accessed November 13, 2024

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Getting Paleo Fit...The Why!©

Since the beginning of modern humans on this planet, about 84,000 generations (2.4 million) years ago, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers. In fact, modern humans evolved as hunter-gatherers and natural selection has designed us to survive and thrive in the wilderness, not as specialists, but as generalists. For our ancestors, every day was a challenge and exercise wasn’t optional, but a lifelong requirement, simply to eat and to keep from being eaten!

However, 350 generations ago, just a short 10,500 years, the world changed when some early Middle Eastern peoples switched from being hunters and instead began planting crops and tending to domesticated animals. Ever since then technology has been increasing by leaps and bounds. Just seven generations ago the Industrial Revolution began, and the Space and Computer Age is just two short generations old!

Unfortunately, compared with the snail’s pace of genetic change, technological and cultural evolution moves at a light speed and this quantum leap in technology has resulted in large reductions in the amount of physical work required simply to stay warm and fed. But modern humans are still genetically designed to need and require the same amount of exercise and activity that our hunter-gatherer ancestors expended every day. But in the 21^st century, with our increasingly sedentary, highly convenient, ultra mechanized society, our increasing physical inactivity has surged to become the 4^th leading cause of death, with obesity becoming the 5^th cause of an early death!

Today three quarters of Americans are overweight or obese. Currently in America more than 80% of the adult population are not meeting the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s Physical Activity Guidelines, and the average adult walks only about 5,000 steps, a mere 2 miles (3.2 km) per day. The average hunter-gatherer typically takes 16,000 to 17,000 steps, or about eight miles (13 km) each day. Meanwhile, American children spend more than 7 ½ hours in front of a screen. The rate of high blood pressure (hypertension) is a shocking 90% among Americans today and cardiovascular disease is the number one killer, accounting for 41% of deaths. What is worse it is projected to double in the next 50 years!

It is time to get back to basics and get paleo fit like our hunter gatherer ancestors.

Don’t get dead, come back next week and read “Getting Paleo Fit...Take Steps to Manage Your Inheritance Wisely©”, where we will talk about how to get into the same shape as our Great Grandad, 84,000 generations ago.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

The Walking Site; “10,000 Steps A Day”, [© by TheWalkingSite.Com 1998-2023], https://www.thewalkingsite.com/10000steps.html, accessed November 16, 2024

Wikimedia; “imagen”, by Sandritaverooka, June 10, 2015, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ejemplo_evolucion.jpg, accessed November 13, 2024

Sunday, November 10, 2024

It’s Time to Tune Up Your Palmer Furnace!©

Daylight saving time ended in the United States last weekend, and it’s time to tune up your Palmer Furnace!

What’s a “Palmer Furnace” you ask? Well, it’s an innovative, and time tested technique for warming up when it is cold outside. It was named after Dr. Arthur N. Palmer, a speleologist who taught at the State University of New York at Oneonta, by his students.

“The Palmer Furnace, as perfected by Arthur N. Palmer. When you are cold, you sit down. Remove your carbide lamp from your hardhat. Pull out your shirt from your body and hold the lamp at the bottom edge, so that the heated air rises through the “chimney” between your body and the stretched-out shirt. After a few minutes, you will have a toasty, warm belly and a better attitude...” – From Caving Basics, 1982, page 39.

Besides a shirt or coat, you can use a poncho, a trash bag (with a slit for your face), a piece of plastic, a mylar survival wrap, or a blanket to block the wind and wet, and to channel the heat of a burning candle, a heat tab, a carbide lamp or even a pinch of C-4, around your core!

Don’t sit on the ground, it will suck the heat from you, sit on a closed cell, foam pad, a dry log, or a heap of evergreen boughs, dry leaves, or branches piled at least four fingers high when compressed. If nothing is available to sit on, or time is a factor, crouch down with only the bottom of your feet on the ground.

Dig a small hole four inches wide by four inches deep (10 cm x 10 cm) in the ground between your feet, line it with a square of aluminum foil, to reflect the heat and light from your heat source. Be careful to keep open flames away from any material. A four inch (10 cm) high, one ounce survival candle will burn for 3-¼ hours if sheltered from the wind. A ½ ounce (14 gram) tealight candle in its aluminum cup will also burn for between three and four hours.

Build A Palmer Furnace Kit

So, before you go out into the woods this fall, tune up your Palmer Furnace kit or build one, and ALWAYS remember to slip it into your pocket before you leave your house.

· 1 Five ounce (140 grams), contractor grade, heavy-duty 55 Gallon, 3.0 Mil, 38"W x 58"H, trash bags. Rip or cut a face hole about 5 inches (12.5 cm) below one of the bottom corners of the bag 5 to 10 inches (12.5 to 25 cm) long.

· 1 ¾ ounce (21 grams), BIC full size lighter.

· 4 ½ ounce (14 grams) tealight candles.

· 1 ⅛ ounce (4 grams) 12 inch (30 cm) square piece of aluminum foil.

The total weight of a Palmer Furnace kit is less than ½ a pound (224 grams) or about the weight of two 3.29 oz (92 gram) SNICKERS® Milk Chocolate Candy Bar Sharing Size, so there is no excuse for not carrying it with you when you adventure.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Pearl; “Pearl’s Cold Climate Survival Candle”, United States Army Aviation Digest, Volume 18, October 1972, page 40, https://books.google.com/books?id=fX_PMHbuxfQC&pg=RA8-PA40&dq=shelter+candle+heat&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjhh-Cy28aJAxXohIkEHZPnFAI4ChDoAXoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=shelter%20candle%20heat&f=false, accessed November 9, 2024

U.S. Department of The Army; Guide For Platoon Sergeant, PAM 350-13, [Headquarters, Dept of the Army, August 1967], page 87, https://books.google.com/books?id=0h25AAAAIAAJ&pg=PP7&dq=pam+350-13&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9u9if5dCJAxUgpIkEHbwEJcUQ6AF6BAgMEAI#v=onepage&q=pam%20350-13&f=false, accessed November 9, 2024

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Now that we have brought our Frankenstein Tropical Chocolate Bar recipe back to life, it is time to mix it up, see how it tastes and if it can survive for one hour in a 120^o F (49^o C) oven without getting soft and gooey!

To make the bars for the taste test, I made a batch of 6 one ounce (28 gram) bars using the 1957 modified, D-Ration Bar recipe, multiplied by six, as shown in “Hershey’s Tropical Chocolate Bar, Part Deux, It’s Alive, Bwahahaa!©”, HERE.

The Mixing!

Okay, so my first attempt was a complete failure, it did make a great tasting hot chocolate powder, but it had the texture of mummy dust! After a quick review of my recipe and some further research the mistake was obvious.

Curses! Cocoa butter, I missed an ingredient, no wonder my monster was a pile of dust and not a creation that could be easily molded. Either the list of ingredients from Hershey’s Community Archives changed between 1957 and the 1970s, or, more likely, it was a red herring put into the list by Hershey’s to keep people from recreating the recipe!

· 8 squares (60 grams) of Bakers Unsweetened Baking Chocolate

· 8-½ tablespoons (66 grams) of powdered sugar

· 3 tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons (30 grams) of nonfat dry milk powder

· 1 tablespoon (12 grams) of cocoa butter. NOTE -- scant the tablespoon by approximately ½ teaspoon, since 1 tablespoon of cocoa butter weighs 13.6 grams.

· a smidgen, no more than ¹/₃₂ teaspoon (less than ½ gram) of ethyl vanilla

To melt the Bakers Unsweetened Baking Chocolate, use either a microwave or a double-boiler on a stove.

Microwave the chocolate in 30-second intervals, stirring between each, until the chocolate is mostly melted and only a few tiny pieces remain, about 1 1/2 minutes in total.

Mix in the remaining ingredients and press into a mold. If the mix appears to be too liquid, add another ½ teaspoon of nonfat dry milk powder.

Let cool, remove from the mold and enjoy.

However, due to an utter lack of 100% food grade cocoa butter in my local area, the conclusion of your regularly scheduled article, “Hershey’s Tropical Chocolate Bar, Part Deux, The Taste Test!©” had been delayed. It will return as soon as the cocoa butter arrives.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

How Many Wiki; “How to convert”, https://www.howmany.wiki/wv/--teaspoon------to----gram, accessed October 31, 2024

Johnson, Bob; “Cardboard Dehydrator”, Boy’s Life, November 1978, [Boy Scouts of America, North Brunswick, NJ], page 71, https://books.google.com/books?id=j6cUbIYsP6EC&pg=PA72&dq=%22of+four+13-cent+u.s.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjomaS37rSJAxVAkYkEHf2mOYEQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=%22of%20four%2013-cent%20u.s.%22&f=false, accessed October 29, 2024

Wikimedia; “mad scientist with a transparent background”, by J.J., July 15, 2003, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mad_scientist_transparent_background.svg, accessed October 29, 2024

Wikimedia; “Promotional photo of Boris Karloff from The Bride of Frankenstein as Frankenstein's monster”, 1935, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frankenstein%27s_monster_(Boris_Karloff).jpg, accessed October 29, 2024

Wikimedia, “Maniac1” 1934 film Maniac”, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maniac1_copy.jpg, accessed October 20, 2024

About Me

I live near Buffalo, New York and have more than 25 years of experience in the outdoors. I enjoy being in the wilderness, paddling a canoe or exploring the woods, when I am not researching survival, woodcraft, camping skills or life on the Old Northwest Frontier of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I am a published author and I have been a guide for Birchbark Expeditions and an Outdoor Skills trainer for the Boy Scouts since 2014. I am also a martial artist, having studied several different combat arts over the past 30 years. Currently, I am the author of The Woodsman’s Journal Online and BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.

The Woodsman's Journal Online

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Saturday, November 23, 2024

Getting Paleo Fit...Take Steps to Manage Your Inheritance Wisely©

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Getting Paleo Fit...The Why!©

Sunday, November 10, 2024

It’s Time to Tune Up Your Palmer Furnace!©

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Hershey’s Tropical Chocolate Bar, Part Deux, The Taste Test!©

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