Humanity didn’t really take off until we figured out how to make use of inedible calories though. Making lots of tea and thin soups in the winter should have been a target for many of them.
One person did quite well finding wild onions but as I recall got some stomach distress from them. Raw onion doesn’t agree with people when you aren’t eating much else. But those greens would have made soup for days.
A big thing that enabled that was having a community.
It's really hard to make a pot if you are trading making that pot with finding food for the day.
That's why when they did the season with couples, they were able to get a lot more done simply because 1 person could spend the day building a shelter while the other person foraged.
The moose guy that won did so because he had a huge calorie surplus from killing the moose. That freed him up to spend pretty much all his time foraging for plants or building shelter.
> Making lots of tea and thin soups in the winter should have been a target for many of them.
Most plants have almost no calories. Soups are useful as a preservation technique but only work if you are constantly adding fairly calorie dense items (like meat) into the mix. If you haven't sourced beans, potatoes, or rice plants then a soup won't really do much to improve your survival.
The benefit of tea or soup is you are boiling the water which prevents a good number of diseases.
One person did quite well finding wild onions but as I recall got some stomach distress from them. Raw onion doesn’t agree with people when you aren’t eating much else. But those greens would have made soup for days.