#AskPaulKirtley 12 - Starting Bushcraft Schools, Storing Knives, Burning Trash & Cooking Starches

Description

Welcome to Episode 12 of #AskPaulKirtley, where I answer questions about bushcraft qualifications and starting a bushcraft school, where to store a bushcraft knife, burning rubbish and cooking foraged starches.

#askpaulkirtley is your chance to ask Paul Kirtley questions about wilderness bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor life.

Ask Paul Kirtley is a regular Q&A show (also available as a podcast) with leading bushcraft instructor Paul Kirtley, founder of Frontier Bushcraft and author of Paul Kirtley's Blog. Find out more here: http://paulkirtley.co.uk/ask-paul-kirtley/

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Tags: askpaulkirtley,Paul Kirtley,questions,answers,podcast,Bushcraft,Foraging,Cooking (Interest),Starch (Chemical Compound),Camping,qualifications,bushcraft school,cooking starches,tubers,tuberous roots,burning rubbish,campfire,fire,bushcraft knife,corrosion,storage

Video Transcription

in this episode we're going to talk about bushcraft qualifications and what you need to do to start up a company we are going to talk about where to store your knife and your fire steel so they don't corrode we're going to talk about burning rubbish I'm going to talk about cooking our starches from tuberous roots when we're foraging welcome to episode 12 of a sport Kurtley now I've come outside of my usual woodland environment here only to the edge this way and I am sitting on the fence literally as well as figuratively and not quite in the field but if you look over there it's an absolutely stunning evening it's very autumnal I love those skies that you get at this time of year and I just thought I'd come out here and share this with you also it's too dingy in the in the woods to record this so this this this is the last of available light and so we'll dive straight into the questions and again and the nail some email questions still catching it with the emails and also maybe hit a speak spew pipe speak pipe a question or two at the end as well I'll read these as long as I can actually see them okay so this question is from Christopher perio stone and he says my question is what course or qualification is required to run a bushcraft teaching course and set up a company to run bushcraft courses and simple answer is none you don't need any qualification because there is no such qualification if you watch the previous episode I talked about why I think we need a basic NGB award because basically you can set one up tomorrow and the main difficult

you may have is getting some insurance and to do that because frankly I wonder if a lot of people offering bushcraft training do have appropriate insurance both in terms of professional liability and public liability for the things that they are teaching and the place that they are teaching them and I know we have to even as a leading provider jump through quite some hoops to get good comprehensive insurance good quality insurance from a proper activities insurance provider and I suspect someone man and their dog operations do not have insurance that worries me as well it's another reason why we may need an NG be and but anyway that's that's aside I know that we're well insured that we have proper insurance that we have more insurance that we need and you know we do overseas expeditions as well where we get insurance for that but basic bushcraft teaching you don't need anything in terms of qualifications and that doesn't mean to say that you shouldn't seek some qualifications and and teaching bushcraft isn't just about bushcraft there are plenty people who are good at bushcraft who would be terrible at teaching it before they gained any training in teaching and instructing and coaching and mentoring that's as completely separate skill set and that's before we start looking at doing corporate work where you're supposedly producing various outcomes using bushcraft as a medium for corporate development for team building and those sorts of things there's a lot of charlatans out there and the reason why there are a lot of charlatans out there is there is no barrier to entry and so the only real barrier to entry and the only real competitive advantage that you have because anybody can build a nice website these days and anybody can make themselves look good is being really good at what you do and the people who have been around long enough in this industry have survived for long enough because they are good at what they do and I think in some ways that keeps the industry healthy because the people who are crap fall by the wayside eventually but I do worry about somebody getting hurt or injured or eating something they shouldn't eat and being poisoned at some point but I've talked about that and addressed that in previous ish

but to answer your question you don't need anything but I would recommend seeking out some of the better quality instructor training programs if you have no experience at all and John Ryder runs a good one and that is ratified through the ncfe he runs that to a high level there are other people who've tried to replicate that more poorly and they don't have the understanding and they've kind of slipped it through the ncfe ncfe ratification in a way that doesn't really as far as I can see sit with the the the values that really should be held there but that's again a different issue John Ryder runs a good course and but equally just if you if you don't have bushcraft skills go and get some bushcraft skills and go and learn from somebody who knows you can pay for that or you can find somebody who will share that with you and for you know you can trade for other things you know however you want to do it I'm not saying go and do bushcraft courses because I run a bushcraft school frankly I don't make a lot of money out of making but running bushcraft courses anyway and the point is what you're paying for really when you go into a bushcraft course is getting that skill set and that information in a distilled concise efficient way over a relatively short period of time of course you can go and learn all of these skills yourself you can learn by trial and error you can watch youtube videos you can get books you can learn you can get bits and pieces of other people there's nothing wrong with that either but if you're intent on setting up a business I would say get a good grounding in personal skills there's a little owl flying around out here somewhere I can hear it calling and get some basics get some basic skills good foundation of skills and then and get some good if you don't have it get some training in teaching as well and coaching and mentoring and then that will stand you in good stead for starting to teach bushcraft and there's a lot of people who are interested in bushcraft who just want to teach bushcraft because they think oh that's something I'd like to do that is a road to doing things very badly and get good training in the fundamental pillars of what it is that you need to be a professional and you will do well and good luck to you and if you need any more advice drop me an email and I'm happy to talk to you about that good good alright next question and I'm have to run through these quickly notes were losing the light and this comes from Mike mayo and he says I've heard people say that a leather sheath is the worst place to store a carbon-steel knife when not in use as moisture can condense and damage the steel is this a myth or true also I have a mish metal fire steel which is horribly pitted corroded and begun to turn to powder this has been stored in a sealed the ziplock bag with desiccant to impede moisture so I have no idea why the rod has corroded can you all your five steals protect the art from oxidation without altering their effectiveness really enjoy your blog as well as your videos cheers from across the pond well Mike thanks for the questions and related questions they're basically about protecting two of your most important pieces of equipment from corrosion while they're in storage genuine concern a lot of people have yeah carbon steel knives can and corrode over time but if you keep something at a constant temperature and a constant humidity you are not going to get condensation on it it's only when temperatures go up and down and it's only when humidity goes up and down you get condensation on the surface and if the leather sheath goes away slightly damp and people say oh well it went away bone dry if you've had it outside it won't be bone dry unless you're in the Arizona desert or somewhere where the humidity is very very low and it's very very dry it's very very arid most environments are going to have a lot more atmospheric moisture than your home particularly if your home is air conditioned and even if it's just centrally heated it will have more moisture and therefore there will be a change that goes on bringing that leather into the house and and so I would say certainly keep them separate for a little while after you brought them in if they're going to be inside for any length of time but once they've settled and if as long as your temperature of your room doesn't go up and down too much you can probably store them but i would still oil it and camellia oil is particularly good it was a traditional japanese treatment for saw it's very light as an oil and that's very good so make sure your sheath is well dried camellia oil on the blade put it away and I I store all of my knives in the she's the ones that I use and I don't really have any knives that I don't use some get used more often than others and that's what I do if I'm leaving them any length of time dry them off make sure the sheath is fully dried sharpen them up polish them up dry them off again and just use a metal polish clean it off camellia oil back in the sheath leave it it's fine it's a working tool if it's a little bit tarnished when it comes out of the sheath again deniz polish it up again and it should not be heavily corroded or pitted or even slightly corroded as long as the temperature in your house isn't going up and down massively or in if you store it in an outside shed or a garage that isn't heated then maybe over the course of the year or the winter or whenever it's stored it might be going up and down a lot in which case put it in somewhere where it's got a more stable temperature alright and it's the same of the Pharaoh steel and frankly you know Farrah steals mishe metal or Pharaoh rods or what you want to call them they will corrode even with a slight bit of moisture even in a pocket you know I can have wet trousers for a day my fire steel in my pocket at the end of the day it will be slightly corroded and that just went over there it will be slightly corroded and it be that kind of greeny and oxidized ation on it they oxidize very very easily that's why they they spark so well yeah and I've stored them in bags before and it's really remarkable how much moisture is trapped in there and over time corrodes them and i would i would say it's better if you're going to store it and say draw at home along with your knife just leave it out of a bag and because then as you're not trapping moist air around it for any length of time if you see what I mean and frankly just scrape it off it'll use fine and if you want to put a bit of oil on it that will work as well but I don't tend to consider myself too much they're relatively inexpensive and a bit of corrosion on the edge isn't going to stop and working and but if you want to store them for any length of time and if you've got a nice hand some people do custom handle then maybe you want to store them and a bit more carefully okay I'm just going to check the gain on this camera because and we are losing the light it's at maximum gain okay we may have to just do this pretty much in the dark because I've got that camera on maximum gain now fright so had that question next question we haven't done a nap sport currently in the dark before so you know they're always in the woods in the daytime you know better change it up a bit and if Martin Tomlinson's watching I'll probably have a different you know maybe just a black screen on this one a sport currently number 12 no picture of me pulling a silly face or anything and I know you like to comment on that and okay next question and this is a good one this is for Kevin Parker and he says hey Paul as I strive to be a better woodsman I could do with some advice I get out a lot with in the woods with my daughter who's seven and we do our very best to leave no trace and leave minimal impact on the woods which that's fantastic Kevin good stuff which everyone was as diligent as you and this said I've told her all ways to burn her sweet wrappers etc on the campfire to make sure we don't have don't leave litter but wonder if this is acceptable as these so I'm having difficulty reading this is getting so dark acceptable as these ten to have plastic coatings or strictly take home everything we take into the woods thanks Kevin okay good question keV and a lot of people could do with taking a little bit more care about what they put in the campfire and don't put in the campfire and personally I don't think there's an issue with burning plastic in the fire I think the main issue with it with you or even your daughter certainly your daughter is making sure that she's not breathing in the fumes from burning plastic on the fire that's not going to be good for health short term or long term and i have a strict rule in my camp no burning of rubbish when I'm cooking food on the fire either particular directly on the fire sub annex and roasting fish and meat of the fire no burning rubbish because that's going to put some residue on to the food but other than that I generally like to put rubbish onto the fire if i can because I'd rather it go that sort of thin cellophane wrapper is just going to end up in a landfill somewhere I was speaking to somebody recently who is a professional in recycling and most recycling plants cannot recycle small thin bits of plastic because when they heat them up they shrivel down to nothing and they can't collect them very easily so until that can be recycled and I think the best thing to do is burn it in your fire rather than take it home put it in the bin because it's only going to end up in the hole in the ground somewhere and unfortunately and but just make sure you're not breathing it in directly and you're not cooking food over it and the one caveat I would say if it's got foil in it and I see so many campfires these days with foil and in the in the remains in the charcoal in amongst the dog ends and if it's got oil in it then I don't burn it because it's the such small pieces of foil it's very very difficult to pull out the fire when you're finished you're going to leave aluminium into in the local environment there which is an ideal so hopefully that answers your question kev i would say carry on burning them as long as you have foil in them you probably can't see me now last question i'm going to leave speak pipe for future episodes do you not think sorry this is from thomas and do you not think it is said that maybe means sad i'm not sure that things that was common knowledge for just a few generations ago now people have to pay big money to relearn and how do you think that the knowledge about bushcraft will be in the future we will need to go courses to obtain these skills or do you think we will learn not to lose these skills again thomas and so there seems to be connection there in your question that bushcraft courses cost a lot of money and I don't think they do and you would probably think oh well he will say that because he teaches bushcraft but as I say I didn't get into this to to earn a lot of money hey I just realized this camera has got a it's got a infrared setting on it which i rarely use yes so people I'm looking at the screen over i'll look at the look at you know this is the first episode of ask paul curtly in infrared so ask for currently goes infrared and i'm not going to make like a badger this is a sort of thing you can film badges there's a really good camera this and for filming wildlife at night i've not done much of it but i forgot it had an infrared setting so anyway and it's going to be black and white but that's cool and certainly going to keep martin Tomlinson interested I'm going to go sit back on the fence again hopefully you can just see me there good so question about courses paying for knowledge and yeah I mean I think I think some of the knowledge that gets taught on bushcraft courses was probably more commonly known by people in general particularly when we were more rural societies in general people would know more about what foods to eat from the hedgerows they would be able to sustain themselves more from the land just by random foraging particularly in Northern Europe in the UK I think that was the case even if they were involved in farming people will be picking things from the hedgerows until relatively recently I know just a couple of generations ago I mean I grew up in the countryside it you know I had several different places where I lived as a child but it was always countryside and you get the old people who are many of whom are now dead but you get the old people who would know mushrooms they would know what to forage from the from the hedgerows whereas young people didn't know that and I was unusual in that and I would want to learn that from them and they found that unusual and so that's one thing I think young people haven't bothered to learn from the older generations because we've been we've become more removed from the environment where we can take those things also particularly in first world countries we've become more wealthy and food supplies have become better if you think about what things were like after the Second World War versus what they're like now food is much more plentiful and food is available from all over the world and we don't need to go to the hedgerows for variety but that means that you have to make a conscious effort to learn that and a lot of people don't make that make the effort and then when people do decide they want to learn that knowledge they haven't got anybody to learn from and other than go and perhaps pay for somebody to teach them and there isn't an issue with paying somebody to teach because if somebody can sustain a living from teaching it means they're teaching a lot okay that means they're good that means the information and knowledge that they have is valuable and because if they're crap they'll go out of business that go and do something else people won't go back to them so if somebody's been teaching for a while I was teaching full-time it tends to mean that they're good they should be able to get the information across to you effectively and in an efficient manner and and I don't think there's anything wrong with paying it's the same as if I want to go and learn the guitar if I want to learn guitar well I'll go and pay a good teacher and I won't go and pay a crappy teacher of course I could go and learn off my old uncle who's been playing in a in a band for years or whoever if that's available to me but if it's not then I'm going to have to go and pay somebody for the knowledge or trade with them in some way so that i get the knowledge so that's that's the first thing and i think then other things that are taught within bushcraft courses weren't necessarily skills that were available unknown to everybody I think what bushcraft as a as a as an industry if you like or certainly as a as a discipline within outdoor education has provided is a collection the collaboration of skills and a culmination and bringing together of skills from all over the world that weren't known to people here and you know even 20 years ago when I was first getting interested in bushcraft nobody had really seen anybody do fire by friction now we see it on television all the time you know when I first went on a bushcraft course people on that course had never seen somebody like fire by friction before either in person or on television whereas now we have people coming on our courses who have seen fire by friction they've tried fire by friction they may not have done it very well or they failed and that's why they want to come on of course but they're much more familiar with the concept and that's a good thing but still it needs somebody to teach them and efficiently and it also raises the game for us as instructors you know you have people that have got a much better baseline level of knowledge there's a little bat flying around here which is fantastic and much better baseline level of knowledge and therefore and you have to you have to teach to a higher standard or you're able to teach to a high standard but as I say in the past people didn't even know that that skill sets still existed and they used to be lots of jokes about rubbing sticks together and rubbing two Boy Scouts together now people you know even lay people in the street know that it's possible to go into the woods and get some materials and create fire by friction that so in that way that sort of dissipation that was most is out into wider society the knowledge is going out there that at least it's possible even if people don't practically know how to do it they're still going to have to seek out the teacher to learn how to do it and same with feather sticks you know are all those old fuss sticks that were so badly drawn and so badly done in the old books and the standard of feather sticks has gone up massively there's two bats flying around now which is fantastic I doubt they won't show up on the camera unfortunately but it's nice to see them you know the standard ought you know sharp cutting tools well applied technique really good feather sticks I'd never seen that in books before and you know that not very long ago at all books or magazines or videos so some standards have raised so knowledge that wasn't available generally is more available generally now than it's ever been particularly with the internet you can get more free information now then I could get paid information when I first started learning bushcraft and survival skills 20 20 25 years ago and so and you know we had one or two books that were our Bibles and it was hard to get information otherwise and now you can get old books of resurfaced a lot of things have been reprinted on the internet for much less money than the antiquarian books newer books have been written as free video so there's more and more information than ever so you don't need to pay for it if you don't want to but I think the issue is having a filter having an efficient learning process having a mentor if you're going to pay that's what you should be paying for you should be paying for good quality mentorship to get you up the skills curve more quickly than just trial and error and learning on your own and otherwise don't pay for it learn yourself and go through the trials and tribulations of some of those things clearly with wild foods though you need to be particularly careful on and fungi in particular mycology I don't think there's any question there go and learn from somebody who knows you can't do with that by trial and error you can do fire by friction by trial and error and don't do edible fungi or even edible plants by trial and error go and learn from somebody who knows what they're doing

that could be an old aunty who knows the old ways but otherwise pay for somebody who is looking after the knowledge you know that's what they're doing and that you know you know that takes time and effort to get to that level and people should be rewarded for that because otherwise the knowledge will go right since we are on infrared I'm going to come a bit closer but since we're on infrared I am going to do one of the speak by questions because we've got time I was just a bit concerned about the light going it went I will remember the solution and we're going to speak quite question

hi Paul Steve Cosell here just wanted to say thank you for your ask Paul curtly and the podcast enjoying those and I know they take a lot of work and effort and I think there's some fantastic information on there and grateful to you for it so thank you also wanted to say I just looked at your Instagram account I am NOT on Instagram but I popped in there and had a look and saw the photograph of greater read mace and the silver weed and I noticed on the comments with the silver weed that you spoke about the value of cooking the storage org and the underground part of that plant because it makes more more of its nutrition available to us when we consume it and I wanted to ask you based on that a generalized nutrition question as to whether more nutrition is is available available across the board when you cook food I've I say this because I've heard about this thing called a raw diet that some people swear by and I'd also heard conflicting evidence that certain foods you get more from them if they're uncooked and others argue that you get more from them if they are cooked obviously I'm sure you can overcook everything and boil all the nutrition out of it so it's it's useless to your next to useless but I wondered if given you cook it the right amount all foods gave you a greater nutritional reward if you did cook them first if you know about that off you're able to give me any information about that I would be very interested to know thank you somewhat long but a very very good question Stephen the caliber of question that questions that's coming in these days is excellent and of that type I'm very very happy to answer and even if it is along the question and very very worthwhile so yeah I think to a certain extent you partially answered your havin question there and yes you can overcook things and you can damage the new nutrition in them and that's certainly true of things with vitamin C in them for example you know one of the the famous historical cases is and they realized that that lemons and citrus fruit were beneficial in terms of preventing scurvy and so what they did was rather than providing fresh fruit to start off with they boiled they boiled the i think it was lemons boiled the lemons it was either lemons or limes boiled the lemons down and took that to see and they basically knackered all the vitamin C all the ascorbic acid in there and it didn't really help prevent scurvy and so yes you can and there are clearly other you know green vegetables even things like broccoli I think you're best off and you know somewhat under cooking and overcooking them to get the best nutritional value from them and but I think anything was kind of like a high cellulose content is you're not going to digest that very easily when it's raw and you may get it down you more easily if it's cooked and but particularly starches and it was in the context of starches that we were talking about underground storage or organs and so complex carbohydrates things that don't taste sweet on your tongue but do provide sugars that they are stored as glycogen in your liver and your muscles in your blood and give you energy and directly rather than your body having to transform them you know in a way thats a protein has to be broken down into into component parts and that's a slower process so carbohydrates which are going to give you still relatively slow burn energy compared to simple sugars compared to sucrose and dextrose and fructose and all those but some those you are going to digest more easily if they're cooked the classic example I can give you that everybody can relate to as a potato yeah raw potato versus cooked potato and which is better to eat and it's not just because it's easier to chew it's because you get more available starch from the cooked than you do from the raw it's as simple as that and it's the same with a lot of tuberous roots that's why we cook them and carrots parsnips turnips and all of those things we cook them and it's the same with the wild versions you want to be cooking them to get the most nutrition from it's the same with a lot of nuts as well they're much better roasted than they are rule and again you can get more nutrition from them and that cropped up again in the conversation in the podcast with Professor Alyssa Crittenden and in there I can't remember what whereabouts it is in terms of minutes into the podcast but if you are interested in nutrition and living from the land you should listen to that podcast and that's not just aimed at Steve that's lame to anybody who's watching this and because alyssa Crittenden has spent a lot of time studying the Hadza and looking at the diet and looking at how they live and one of the things again have been found is that they get more neutral nutritional value from the tuberous roots that they'd by cooking them and that's in that podcast it's not just me speculating on this this is it this is a known concept within nutritional studies and so on to the raw diets I don't want it you know I don't want to dis anybody I don't want to you know people I believe people are free to do what they want and I believe people particularly when it comes to food and I think the more education about food and more freedom to eat the foods that people want to eat the better and but um a lot of people that I meet or have seen or know of who eat raw food diets and are quite skinny

some of them look malnourished in my view and also when you start looking into the raw diets and I've looked into them a bit just out of academic interest and not something I've participated in and but I say this is somebody who used I used to be a vegetarian many years ago and I was a vegetarian for seven or eight years and but I'm now somebody who eats meat a food that's cooked and I don't subscribe to a fruitarian or raw diet or any other or even the so-called Paleo diet or any of these things and I just try any fresh food and try any good amount wild food ain't fresh food with his little processing as possible and in a good balance and listen to what my body wants but not what my vices want as it were listen to what really works and and also read and look at what works for athletes and what works for people who spend a lot more time than I do studying nutrition and but if you start looking at these raw diets what you'll find is that they start doing things like you know sprouting seeds germinating seeds and that might require some heat to do that and it's all these this is almost like this is cheating around the margins and I'm not casting aspersions but i think what i'm trying to say i think it's very very difficult to get a good wide range wide-ranging particularly for an active person and particularly spend a lot of time outside and you know where you need to require in rely on your strength and your fitness and your vitality and I need to stay warm overnight when you're sleeping outside and all of these things that you need when you're outdoors I think it's hard to do that on completely raw food and I've tried doing hikes for example with without stoves to save weight where I just eat and you know flapjacks and cereal bars and fruit and dried fruit and and none of it was cooked and even that was a struggle with a high energy output and after several days I was just completely knackered and this was in it this was a Mountain walk-in in Scotland and I've never done it since of always taking a stove and fuel because the extra weight is worth its weight in gold and I can cook pasta and on noodles or dried potatoes or rice or something at the end of the day and I can get the the energy that I need from that and that far outweighs the extra weight of carrying the stove and the fuel and and you know that's my anecdotal evidence for the value of cooking starches but there's plenty of other scientific anthropological and nutritional evidence out there as well that that is the case and so flip side is if you want to lose weight don't cook anything because you're not going to get as much from it but in terms so that but that realize that you know that pertains particularly to starch as opposed to green vegetables certainly you want to be cooking your salad you don't really cook in your lemons and but you do want to be cooking some of you meet and some of it more than others depending on depending on what it is clearly and so yeah I hope that helps and I hope that's useful further questions on food and nutrition and drop me a line that's always good to hear from you whoever it is and as I say listen to that podcast with Alyssa crittenden you know I'm trying to bring information to the broader bushcraft community that isn't necessarily easily available that takes people up to the next level but it does require people to to take it all on board and listen to it and you may need to listen to some of those interviews several times to get the full information from them there is a transcript there as well I don't write the transcripts and I have somebody pay somebody to do the transcripts for me so I can't always guarantee that every single technical word is spelled correctly but there are pages and pages and pages and pages of transcript there so you can print those off use those as the basis of notes if you want to when you're listening to those podcasts highlight areas that are of interest to you research them further I often put extra links in those podcasts as well so if you're if you're just an ass kapoor Kurtley watcher or listener and you haven't listened to my main podcast the poor curtly podcast get over to my blog or get over to iTunes and subscribe today and because there's always some really high quality information on there that's that some of the highest quality information that I put out and that's in conjunction with other experts so anyway as it gets dark the bats are still flying around and the moon's out now and the stars are starting to come out beautiful evening out here beautiful autumn that evening I will leave you and i will see you on the next episode of ask ball curtly which will be episode 13 unlucky for some and but hopefully not for me see you then Cheers