Pine Nuts

Why Gather Nuts?

High energy foods are important for survival. Here are the figures per 100g portions. Data source: FatSecret.com

nuts: 630 kCal
seeds: 556 kCal
dried fish: 292 kCal
alexanders:238 kCal
chickpeas: 180 kCal
lentils: 165 kCal
cassava: 160 kCal
avocado: 160 kCal
rice: 129 kCal
yam: 118 kCal
potatoes: 104 kCal
Kidney beans: 89 kCal
banana: 85 kCal
bark flour: 82 kCal
corn cob: 70 kCal
Fruits

Nuts and seeds provide the highest amount of energy by far - because they have high protein, high carb and high fat content - all of which can be converted into energy. 100g provides more than half your daily energy needs. So, it is important to gather and store nuts in winter, and identify sources of seeds. I would highly recommend a 20kg bag of seed for storage - it will last 200 days at 100g per day, and provide for half your energy needs - 20kg seeds

Gathering Pine Nuts

Pine nuts can be harvested during the summer months of July, August and September – by gathering the cones, then drying them out so that they open up. You can create a simple brick kiln to facilitate the drying. Once the cones open, then the pine nuts will fall out. You can leave them shelled, and remove the shells when needed as a source of food. In order to get the pine cones you missed, you can put a tarp under the trees in late summer, and shake the branches hard. This will shake the nuts out of the cones.

Summer Season

All pine trees produce nuts which you can eat. However, some species have much smaller nuts. If you are serious about harvesting your own pine nuts, you should scout out some pine trees in early summer. Pine cones are usually ready for harvesting from July to November, depending on where you live. In Sweden pine cones are available at markets in November.

Choosing your Trees

Look for open shells on the ground : If you’ve got the right type of pine tree and it’s the pine nut harvesting season, you’ll likely see a bunch of these opened shells on the ground among the pine needles, dirt, and other vegetation surrounding the tree. This means that pine nuts have fallen from the cones to the ground and critters have already gotten to some of them. If you don’t see any of these on the ground, you probably found a tree that has the wrong type of pine nuts, or you’ve come at the wrong time. But, if you see those, you’re most probably in luck. You’ve found the right type of tree.

Look for pine trees with easily accessible branches

Look for branches with both opened and unopened pine cones : . If there are no open pine cones, it likely means that the pine cones on the tree aren’t yet fully ripe. You want the closed pine cones- the open ones have already lost their nuts, and in most likelihoods, the animals have already eaten them up.

Look for large pine cones : . You need the pine cones to be big with big pine nuts. If any pine cones have fallen to the ground, it’s a good idea to inspect them. See how big that cone is? Do you see the heart shaped black area towards the center of each scale of the pine cone? That’s where the pine nuts grow, and if the pine cone isn’t big enough to hold large pine nuts, you’re nearly guaranteed that any pine nuts you’ll find will be too small to be worth making the effort. Even if at first you don’t find the type of cone you’re looking for, don’t give up so quickly. Sometimes there will be a few types of pine within one small area. Check out to see if maybe there are large coned pines nearby.

Crawling and Gathering

Drop down on your hands and knees and start crawling over the ground underneath the trees. This gets you close enough so that you can easily spot the nuts that are littering the ground without needing to strain. The nuts you’ll find vary in color from a light brown to a black, with any shade in between possible. Once you find one nut in an area, you'll usually be able to find at least 5 to 20 more nuts in a 2 foot radius easily. The greatest concentration of nuts is usually right around the base of the tree. You can gather a nice 2.5 pounds of nuts in roughly 30 minutes. Not bad at all!

Shaking and Catching

There is an easy alternative method; if it is already late in the season and the pine cones have opened up, then you can use this method for gathering the pine nuts. Put a big tarp under the pine tree. Then shake the branches of the pine tree really hard. This will make the remaining pine nuts (the ones which haven’t been eaten by critters yet) fall out of the cones and land on your tarp.

Dryness and Heat

Carefully twist the closed pine cones until they come off the tree, making sure not to get sticky sap on your hands (it’s worse than super glue!), and put the pine cones all into a bag. Once your bag is full, take the lot home with you.

There are two things that will make a closed pine cone open up: dryness and heat. The easiest way to get the pine nuts out of the cone is simply to lay the pine cones out and let them dry out on their own. It will take a few weeks, but the pine cones will open up. Then you can tap the pine cones and the seeds will fall out. If you don’t feel like waiting 3 weeks for your pine cones to open up, then you can use heat. But if you want them raw, it is best to move to the heater.

Rotten from Good

Even if you harvest your pine nuts on time, there will some rotten or hollow pine nuts. It is frustrating to shell the nuts only to find out it is rotten or hollow. Here is a simple way to sort out the hollow pine nuts:

Put your pine nuts in a big bowl of water
The hollow pine nuts will float to the top
The edible pine nuts will sink to the bottom
Most of the floaters are going to be hollow or rotten, don’t spend your time for them

Shelling the Nuts

Shelling pine nuts is a big hassle and there isn’t a fast way to do it. First you need to leave them to dry for couple of days in a hot climate. You can heat them in the dehydrator at 42 C for 24-32 hours in order to make this process faster. Then you will see little cracked lines. Using the tip of a pointed knife, enter this line and gently separate the nut from the shell. I wouldn’t recommend smashing the pine nut shell because you’ll probably smash the small nut inside too.

Picking tip:The darker the color, the better the nut inside. When you gather nuts from the tarp under the trees, so just picking these.
Cracking tip: Crack the shells with a hammer, gently, just a couple taps to crack it enough to pry it off with your fingers. Set the nuts on a paper towel so they don’t slide around when you’re tapping them.

Prepping for Survival