As the hot weather of summer months approaches, several officials and numerous media outlets reported that due to high temperatures and an overtaxed energy infrastructure, we should expect rolling blackouts. This has already turned out to be true in my region of the Midwest, having numerous power outages. Losing power, and subsequently losing indoor climate control, makes the human body more susceptible to ambient temperatures. Normally, this isn’t such a big deal but can quickly turn into a serious problem if it’s too hot. Having personally experienced heat injuries on more than one occasion, it’s a situation that I take every precaution with.
My inspiration to put this bag together came to me when my significant other ended up needing to spend the summer months in an urban area on the West Coast for work. This is a region of the United States that may be undergoing the first “mega drought” in over 1,200 years. No power, lack of water, and unrelenting heat can be a recipe for a bad time but doesn’t have to be. With minimal preparations, the worst of it can be staved off with ease. The components include redundant ways to prevent heat injuries, keep the body running efficiently, ensure personal protection, and stave off the inevitable boredom that comes with extended blackouts.
The Bag
Having a bag that had enough room for everything while not looking like an operator was important. Camouflage print and “tactical” colors like coyote brown often draw the wrong type of attention. Kitanica’s available colors help maintain a low profile without sacrificing features or functionality. The shoulder straps and reinforced back on the Vespid are cushioned mesh to assist with cooling. This helps keep your core temperature cool during hot weather, especially when you can’t charge your EV and need to move manually from one location to another. The 30L capacity offers plenty of room to store supplies while keeping the hands free, and two easy access side pouches make grabbing water bottles effortless. Four zippers allow access to the main compartment from multiple angles. While inside, a laptop can be nestled in a protective enclosure. There are plenty of inner pockets and three dedicated MOLLE panels for extra storage, should it become necessary but, for its intended purpose, I felt keeping it minimalist was the best approach.
Trickle Charge
USB chargeable fans will help keep air moving should hardwired fans become incapacitated. In case of nighttime blackouts, the USB chargeable Knog headlamp and MPowered solar charging light will keep the darkness at bay. To charge said USB devices, there’s a solar charging radio/flashlight/SOS device that will keep critical electronics running. This particular one has a hand crank and AAA batteries for several layers of charging redundancy. Having a radio allows the listener to tune into local stations that may still be able to broadcast important information in case of blackout emergencies, and the dedicated weather band adds another layer of usefulness. These days, phones have largely replaced wearing a watch, but Bertucci makes a solid timepiece with a glow-in-the-dark face for finding the time if the power is out. A dedicated analog watch can be used to count pulse rate during medical emergencies, or determine approximate cardinal directions, just to list a few useful functions.
Beat the Heat
Staying physically cool during hot weather is only one part of the equation, the body also needs H2O and electrolytes to stay hydrated and keep the body functioning well on a cellular level. SaltStick caps provide buffered electrolyte salts and a small amount of caffeine for an energy boost. Worst-case scenario, Katadyn tabs with a few sealable quart-sized bags will keep the body happy if finding potable water becomes an issue. No power means no Uber Eats, so Nutrient Survival fills in that gap until a trip to the grocery store can be made. Their non-perishable survival food has a long shelf life and is packed with vitamins and minerals.
Beat the Street
Unfortunately, being prepared also comes with the risk of being a target. People who are hungry or thirsty will do desperate things to change their condition. Mission First Tactical makes a civilian-friendly self-defense spray that packs a law enforcement punch, combining CS tear gas, OC Pepper, and UV dye. This is a great non-lethal solution for states with prohibitive gun laws. Wind could be a potential drawback, but the RapidStrike spray boasts a concentrated stream with an 18-foot range to minimize the risk.
Beat the Boredom
Last, but not least, what’s a blackout without a few analog items to pass the time? Playing cards and colored pencils will help keep morale up until streaming services are back in action. Cards are also great if the blackout brings friends and neighbors out of their digital cocoons. Nothing like a little Texas Hold ’Em to occupy the time. If the neighbors are lame, or there’s a need for some alone time, solitaire, or meticulously filling in spaces with color will provide some much-needed catharsis.
Final Thoughts
Exposure to the elements is one of the top killers in nearly every survival situation. Someone suffering from the heat would experience cramps or prickly skin sensations, shortness of breath regardless of how much they’re exerting themselves, rapid heartbeat, and eventually have a stroke with acute organ failure (in that order). When the rug of modern amenities is forcefully pulled from beneath us, having a few simple items and an understanding of the signs and symptoms will make a world of difference.
Water features such as lakes and oceans tend to vary in temperature based on latitude and depth. Even Caribbean Sea bottoms near the equator can reach temperatures as low as 36 degrees F. Luckily, humans rarely venture that deep. Rapid immersions in cold water, however, are still dangerous and can quickly become life-threatening if not prepared. Let’s discuss what you can do to increase your chances of survival.
Survival Times in Cold Water
If water temperatures remain above 70 degrees, a victim may survive quite a while. Once below 68 degrees, survival is unlikely beyond a certain time limit. Even less time exists before exhaustion leads to an inability to remain conscious. To an extent, this varies according to the circumstance and from individual to individual. You could die of hypothermia off a tropical coast if immersed long enough. Body size and build, fat content, clothing, flotation aids, and even psychological makeup play a part.
Above: Cold water survival chart.
Hypothermia
The ill effects of exposure to cold are called “hypothermia.” Hypothermia occurs when body temperature drops below 95 degrees F (35 degrees C). When exposed to cold, the body’s muscles shiver to produce heat. This functions only to a point, after which the victim may appear confused and uncoordinated; as the condition worsens, speech becomes slurred, and the patient will become lethargic and uninterested in helping themselves; they may fall asleep. This occurs due to the effect of cooling temperatures on the brain; the colder the body core gets, the slower the brain works. As hypothermia progresses, organs fail, and the victim expires.
Those suffering from general hypothermia must be removed from the cold and warmed immediately. If the victim must remain on the ground, place a barrier underneath and cover with warm blankets.
Above: Typical hypothermia wrapping technique.
If they can’t be moved to a warm place indoors, place warm dry compresses in the neck, armpit, and groin regions. These are areas where major vessels come close to the body surface and can move warm temperatures to the body core more efficiently. Warm fluids may be given to those who are awake and alert but may be dangerous in those who have altered mental status. Although controversial in some circumstances, a rescuer might “spoon” with the patient and cover with blankets to share body heat.
Assume that anyone encountered in cold weather with altered mental status is hypothermic until proven otherwise.
How the Body Loses Heat in Cold Water
The body loses heat to the environment whenever the ambient (surrounding) temperature is lower than about 68 degrees F. Much lower temperatures cause heat to radiate away more quickly. This happens in water more rapidly than in air due to its increased denseness. As such, when the body’s surface comes in sudden direct contact with cold water, it conducts heat from the body many times faster than cool air.
Above: Always wear a life jacket while boating, especially on large bodies of water.
Events that involve a rapid immersion in cold water include capsizing boats, going overboard in storms, and even falls through the ice during winter hikes. All of these could lead to fatal consequences if the victim fails to act rapidly to mitigate the risk of drowning and hypothermia.
Boat Mishaps
If your boat sinks and you find yourself in cold water, you’ll need a strategy that’ll keep you alive until you’re rescued. Failure to follow this advice decreases the amount of time you have before the effects of hypothermia take hold:
Wear a life jacket. Whenever you’re on a boat, wear a life jacket. A life jacket can help you stay alive longer by 1) enabling you to float without using a lot of energy and 2) by providing some insulation. Jackets with built-in whistles or a beacon light are best, so you can signal that you’re in distress.
Above: A sudden dunk into cold water initiates a “gasp reflex.”
Keep your clothes on. While you’re in the water, don’t remove your clothing. Button or zip up. Cover your head if at all possible. The layer of water between your clothing and your body is slightly warmer and will help insulate you from the cold. Remove your clothing only after you’re safely out of the water. Then, do whatever you can to get dry and warm.
Get out of the water, even if only partially. The smaller the percentage of your body exposed to cold, the less heat you lose. Climbing onto the hull of a capsized boat or holding onto a floating object will increase your chances of survival, even if you can only partially get out of the water.
Position your body to lessen heat loss. Use a body position known as the Heat Escape Lessening Position (think H.E.L.P.) to reduce heat loss while you wait for help to arrive. Just float and hold your knees to your chest; this will help protect your torso (the body core) from heat loss.
Huddle together. If you have fallen into cold water with others, keep warm by facing each other in a tight circle and holding on to each other.
Above: Groups in cold water should huddle together while facing each other.
Don’t use up energy. Unless you have a dry place to swim to, do not exhaust yourself swimming.
Falling Through the Ice
In many parts of the country, lakes freeze to the point that it may be difficult to identify a safe trail to hike. Indeed, a field of newly fallen snow may camouflage a water feature with a thin coat of ice.
Above: After a snowfall, you might not even know you’re walking on lake ice.
Ice must be at least 4 inches thick to handle the weight of an average human. Having said that, this “safe” thickness may be undermined by flowing water just below the surface, which weakens the underside of the ice. Safety is never guaranteed when it comes to walking on the ice.
If you end up on thin ice and fall through, your body will react to the sudden immersion in cold water with an increased pulse rate, blood pressure, and respirations. This is known as the “cold shock response” (also called the “gasp response”). Drowning can occur as your body reflexively takes a breath and hyperventilates as you go underwater. Life-threatening cardiac events can also occur due to the sudden increased workload on the heart. Both are common causes of death in these situations.
Although this situation is difficult without a rescuer with rope or other equipment, it’s important to make every effort to keep calm. You still have a few minutes to get out before you succumb to the effects of the cold. Your main enemy here is panic.
If it’s possible, place your hand tightly over your nose and mouth as you go under. This will minimize the amount of water you inhale with the cold shock response. Then, get your head above the water by bending backward and, once in the air, taking a deep breath.
Tread water and quickly get rid of any heavy objects that might be weighing you down. Keep your clothing on, however; there are air pockets between layers that are helping you stay buoyant.
Now, turn in the direction where you came from; the ice was strong enough to hold you there. With any luck, it still is.
Spread your arms on the surface of the ice. If you have an ice pick (a useful item for anyone hiking on the ice), dig it into the ice as a handhold for support. Then, try to lift out of the ice while kicking your feet to get some forward motion. At the same time, try to get more of your body out of the water.
Above: Spread your arms on the surface of the ice.
Lift a leg onto the ice and roll out onto the firmer surface. Do not stand up, though — you’re not out of danger. Keep rolling in the direction that you were walking before you fell through. This will spread your weight out, instead of concentrating it on your feet. Then, crawl away until you’re sure it’s safe.
Start working to get warm immediately. The wisest hikers will have a change of clothes in a waterproof container available. This allows you to always have something dry to wear if you get wet. Other important items include a fire-starter; get one that works even if wet.
Knowing the Ice by Color
When it comes to predicting the safety of walking on ice, the color may give you a clue as to safety:
Light gray or black ice – This is a sign of melting, weak ice, even in freezing temperatures. Ice can melt even if the air temperature is below 32 degrees F (0 degrees C). This ice will not hold your weight.
Above: Black ice won’t hold your weight.
Mottled or slushy ice – Thawing ice which may appear thick might be mottled in color. This ice may be deteriorating in its center and base. Consider it unsafe for walking.
White or opaque ice – This ice may be caused by snow thawing and refreezing in layers. Porous air pockets in-between usually indicate a questionable ability to hold weight.
Bluish-clear ice – Ice that is high density and strong is often bluish-clear in color. It is the safest ice to be on if at least 4 inches thick.
Above: Blue ice is considered to be strongest.
Areas of contrasting colors indicate an uneven thickness and should be avoided. Larger bodies of water take longer to freeze, and saltwater usually needs colder temperatures, depending on the concentration of salt and other factors (28 to 29 degrees as opposed to 32 degrees F).
It’s important to understand that survival rates are higher when traveling in groups. If walking on a frozen lake, members should always proceed in single file and be separated by several yards. This will guarantee potential rescuers are at hand if someone falls through the ice.
Above: Just because its cold outside, doesn't mean you have to be uncomfortable.
C.O.L.D.
When it comes to preventing cold-related injuries, it’s useful to remember the simple acronym C.O.L.D. This stands for Cover, Overexertion, Layering, and Dry:
Cover: Protect your head by wearing a hat. This will avoid the loss of body heat from your head. Instead of using gloves to cover your hands, use mittens. Mittens are more helpful than gloves because they keep your fingers in contact with one another, conserving heat.
Overexertion: Avoid activities that cause you to sweat a lot. Cold weather causes you to lose body heat quickly; wet, sweaty clothing accelerates the process. Rest when necessary and frequently self-assess for cold-related changes. Pay careful attention to the status of elderly or juvenile group members. Diabetics are also at high risk.
Layering: Loose-fitting, lightweight clothing in layers do the best job of insulating you against the cold. Use tightly woven, water-repellent material for wind protection. Wool or silk inner layers hold body heat better than cotton does. Some synthetic materials, like Gore-Tex, PrimaLoft, and Thinsulate, work well also. Especially cover the head, neck, hands, and feet.
Dry: Keep as dry as you can. Get out of wet clothing as soon as possible. It’s very easy for snow to get into gloves and boots, so pay particular attention to your hands and feet.
About the Author
Joe Alton, MD, is a physician, medical preparedness advocate, and three-time Book Excellence Award-winning author of The Survival Medicine Handbook: The Essential Guide For When Help Is Not On The Way. He’s also an Advanced Wilderness Expedition Provider and member of The Wilderness Medical Society. His website has over 1,200 articles, podcasts, and videos on medical preparedness.
You may know them under a variety of names: T-back knives, push daggers, punch knives, gimlet knives, or even palm knives. The bottom line is that they all do the same thing. You grasp the handle, and the blade protrudes through your fingers. You deliver a cut or a stab as you throw a punch. The idea has been around for centuries. Some Roman gladiators wore a weapon known as a cestus (or cesti when paired). These were leather gauntlets that covered the hand and had a blade, or several blades attached to the top. The gladiator armed in this manner would literally punch and stab for his life. Another variant was the katar of India. This was a long dagger grasped horizontally where the blade seemed to protrude from the fist, and it may have been where the term “palm dagger” originated. The modern version of the T-handle goes back a few hundred years to German immigrants to the United States. This easily concealable design was popular in the Southeastern U.S. particularly with riverboat gamblers, and it eventually made its way out West following the gold and silver rushes.
What is a Push Dagger?
Typically, the profile for this design resembles a T with the handle as the top bar and the blade as the stem. Historically, most of these blades were in a symmetrical dagger design or even a spike. The idea was that stabbing pokes holes in people and two edges were better than one. As we’ll see in this lineup, the symmetrical push dagger still rules the roost, but that’s not always the case. Some makers and manufacturers are utilizing more utilitarian blade shapes. This may be to work around jurisdictions that outlaw dirks or daggers.
Another noticeable trend is the handle design shifting from the traditional T to a hybrid between a T and a 7. There is virtue in this as it gives the user a better grip for fighting as well as if they may want to use the knife for a simple cutting task as opposed to being solely a combat knife. Even with that in mind, don’t look to one of these as your only knife, but think of it more like a backup weapon. They do work well as a fighting blade but can leave a lot to be desired as an EDC knife for many utilitarian tasks. Although, admittedly, a few in this batch are better at that than their forbears. As always, research the local and state laws before you start carrying a push dagger.
Notes: Jason Perry is a custom knifemaker based out of Concord, California, known for tactical fixed blades and stunning chef’s knives. The Little Alien is his take on the classic discreet push dagger. This is one of the smaller ones we looked at. It conceals well, but if you have XXL-sized fingers, it might be too small for you. It’s a well-made piece of 1095 steel with G10 handles and a wickedly done edge. This has a lot of potential as a last-ditch hideout knife. In this case, the short stall in the handle helps secure the blade close to your fingers so that it will not yaw on a punch.
Pros:
Extremely small, but very effective
The edges on this dagger are a testament to Perry’s skills.
The artistry is subtle, but apparent.
Cons:
As keen a cutter as 1095 is, the potential for rust exists on the exposed edge that’s uncoated. If you don’t live in an arid environment, make sure you maintain it.
The sheath does a good job of securing the knife, but it does make for a slow draw as it partially encompasses the handle unless worn as a neck knife.
Notes: M3 Tactical Tech (Modern Mission Mobility) is run by Kevin Moore, a custom maker of knives, tools, and tactical gear. This time out, he took on the likeness of one of sci-fi’s greatest antiheroes and incorporated it into the design of this push dagger. This push dagger has a heft and feel that you just don’t want to put down. The handle fits the hand perfectly. The sheath has a metal clip and wears well on the belt comfortably and unobtrusively. While it looks amazing, this one is not an art knife or collectible you stash away in the safe. It’s meant to be used.
Pros:
The appearance is tactical design meets fine art.
Razor sharp with a single bevel edge, this knife makes for an awesome penetrator against steel drums.
The sheath is simple, but highly effective for both securing the blade and keeping out of sight.
Cons:
Carbon steel has the potential for rust unless you get a coated version.
As M3 is a custom outfit, particular models may be scarce or only available during certain times of the year.
Notes: Mercworx Knives has been producing high-end custom tactical knives for a few decades, but seems to avoid the spotlight to do good work in the shadows. The Custos is an example of one of their push daggers that has a great deal of input from real-world operators. Constructed of S30V or 154CM steel, this blade is a one-piece construction, save for its canvas Micarta scales. The most interesting and most useful aspect is the unique shape of the handle and how it properly indexes when you throw a punch. A lot of thought went into this design, and it shows. The Kydex sheath is extremely well made and keeps it secure on your person.
Pros:
This knife has one of the best push dagger handle treatments I’ve ever seen.
The profile and grinds make this one excellent at penetration.
The sheath keeps the blade secure yet doesn’t slow rapid deployment.
Cons:
These custom knives usually involve a waitlist or a higher price on the secondary market.
The edge could’ve been a little sharper, but it still penetrated different types of material.
Notes: Shivworks is a knife combatives training and edged weapons design team based in the Southeastern U.S. Their knives are intended to conceal well and be brought into action fast to help you fight your way through a violent encounter. The Push Dagger is a testament to the principals at Shivworks putting real-world input from their userbase into their products. This is one of those designs with the handle closer in profile to a 7 than a T shape. Only one edge is sharpened, which may help those who live in or travel to areas where a second edge may be a felony. It indexes well and has more utility use than the typical push dagger. A training version is available as well.
Pros:
Indexes unlike any other due to its handle length and low profile
The edge is sharp and can slash as well as it can stab.
A training option for a fighting knife is a must.
Cons:
The single edge is smart for a number of reasons, but I still prefer double edges for daggers.
These knives are made overseas and can be subject to availability due to global supply chain issues.
Notes: Connoisseurs may find the Heretic Knives Sleight somewhat familiar. It has its roots in an iconic design by custom knifemaker Steve Ryan when he headed up the SureFire Edged Weapons Division and unveiled the forerunner to this knife as the SureFire Bravo. It was a modular push dagger. Rather than let the design die, Heretic Knives resurrected it with more than a few improvements. It’s still modular; you can swap blades and handles with other models for changes in color and texture. The handle treatment aids in retention and lends more leverage for cutting tasks.
Pros:
CPM-20CV offers hardness, toughness, and excellent edge retention.
The sheath is more like a holster, securing the blade and allowing you to carry on the belt, MOLLE, or secured to a pack.
In testing, there was nothing that this blade wouldn’t cut.
Cons:
Deployment from the sheath can take some getting used to if you’re relying on it for self-defense. Practice the draw often, and it’ll work well.
The sheath is a masterpiece, but it can be a bit bulky to conceal.
T-Kell Knives Tarani Close Quarters (TCQ) Tri-Angle (Spearpoint)
Notes: Tim Kell is a former active-duty Marine who turned to knifemaking as a civilian. He has built a large following for his realistic no-nonsense tactical knives, including building this design for Steve Tarani. The Tri-Angle fixed blade is offered in several blade profiles. Handle scales can be spec’d at time of purchase as well as the tightness of the Kydex sheath. This spearpoint model excels as not merely a push dagger, but as a close-quarters fighting blade. It can handle most typical EDC tasks comfortably as well.
Pros:
80CRV2 is corrosion resistant and easy to maintain.
The handle shape is brilliant and shows what you can achieve when you team up a combatives instructor with a knifemaker.
The sheath is one of the more versatile ones I’ve seen.
Cons:
The spearpoint design is close in profile to a dagger but lacks that second edge. While great for legal reasons in many areas, it lacks the true aesthetics of a symmetrical dagger.
Notes: TOPS Knives builds serious hard-use knives for professionals, and this model has been very popular among troops as a boot knife. It comes with a survival whistle should you get lost and need an auditory method of signaling. With its clip-point profile and serrations, it has the characteristics of a great EDC blade turned into a push dagger. The single edge means that it won’t be considered a dagger in some jurisdictions. The Grim Ripper’s strength as a push dagger goes to the handle. Although it’s definitely a T-back style, there’s a ledge for your thumb to prevent the knife from yawing in-CQB, but also lends support and control when using it in an EDC role.
Pros:
The serrations are well done.
The G10 handles with the incorporated thumb ramp are so comfortable that this can work for most mundane cutting tasks.
The included survival whistle is a nice bonus.
Cons:
In spite of the coated blade, 1095 will rust in a maritime or even very humid environment.
Its size makes it less concealable than most push daggers.
Most survival skills are environmentally dependent. The way you’d build a shelter in the arctic tundra is quite different from the way you’d perform that same task in a rainforest. But camouflage is perhaps the most environmentally varied survival skill of all. In nature, we see animal species that are uniquely adapted to blend into the exact colors and textures of their surroundings — mottled brown owls, bright green caterpillars, stealthy tan lions, and so on. Many species, such as snowshoe hares, even change their coats seasonally to maintain concealment year-round. Below, we'll take a look at desert camouflage and movement techniques suitable for the scrub brush and sandy terrain of Arizona.
Above: As shown in our previous camo article by Offgrid staff Patrick Diedrich, the dense greenery and filtered sunlight of the Michigan forest requires a different approach to camo craft.
Some of you may recall our feature article in Issue 54 about Greenside Training’s Camo Craft class. The author of that article, Patrick Diedrich, attended a course in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and wrote about his experiences learning to blend into the dense forest. Around the same time, I also attended a Greenside Training class in a drastically different setting: the Arizona desert. In this article, I’ll briefly examine some of the variations in gear and technique as they apply to the desert.
Considerations for Desert Camouflage
Above: Freddy Osuna of Greenside Training (left) and Corey Clancy of GPS Defense Sniper School (right) compared various camouflage patterns. Freddy is wearing a Raider Concealment shirt with an A-TACS iX chest rig while holding a Desert Tiger Stripe shirt. Each of these patterns proved quite effective in Arizona. The Dutch M93 DPM camo shirt Corey is holding was far too dark for this environment.
Greenside Training founder and former USMC Scout Sniper Freddy Osuna began by reiterating the three main ways humans detect objects: movement, shape, and contrast. In the sparse, low-lying vegetation of the Sonoran Desert, movement and contrast are especially apparent. Clearings and areas with minimal cover (called “low-traction areas” by Osuna) are plentiful, so experienced trackers will spend more time scanning the few “high-traction areas” (i.e. good hiding places). This gives them a strong chance of identifying you there. Move cautiously to avoid detection, and always be aware of your backdrop to limit contrast.
Above: Students spent a large portion of the class learning to observe and scan environments. Becoming more observant will allow you to become more evasive.
Plan your route carefully to avoid large clearings. In the desert, your options will be limited. When you do have to cross a clearing, a painfully slow “skull drag” face-down crawl may be necessary to conceal your movement.
Above: Veils were constructed using materials such as burlap, jute, mesh, string, and natural plant matter. Breaking up the head and shoulders is critical, since that shape is the most identifiable sign of a human silhouette.
There is one upside to the scarcity of dense foliage, and that’s a lack of branches that will be displaced as you pass through. In forested areas with thick brush, every twig you crawl past moves slightly overhead, and a keen-eyed observer will see the difference between breeze movement and animal/human movement. This is still a consideration in the desert, but it’s much less frequent.
Above: While this elaborate veil certainly breaks up the head's outline, the movement of its thin twigs allowed instructors to spot this student quickly. Later, he pared it down to a much sleeker appearance.
The best hiding spots in the desert are often the most uninviting. Get used to baking daytime heat, freezing nighttime cold, and being poked by cacti and mesquite thorns. As Osuna put it, “If you’re comfortable in a position, you’re wrong.” The hellish cholla cactus field ahead is your salvation; the inviting shaded spot under a lone tree is a death trap.
Above: In the desert heat, sweat or sunblock can cause skin to become shiny. It's wise to cover exposed skin as much as possible.
Another crucial factor in the bright desert sun is reflectivity. Whether it’s the glisten of your sweaty skin or a sparkle of light from your watch, the intense sun has a tendency to reveal any shiny object. Half of the students in our first observation exercise were identified by instructors due to the glint of their binocular lenses. Even though they were clad head-to-toe in camouflage fabric and wearing ghillie veils to break up the outlines of their bodies, the glass revealed them in an instant. After that point, we learned to wrap our bino lenses in camouflage mesh with small slits cut for visibility.
Above: Even though the body of this set of binoculars is wrapped in camouflage tape, the exposed lenses catch sunlight and can be a dead giveaway.
Know Your Home Turf
Above: Sparse, waist-high bushes and cacti don't provide much concealment. Crawling on your belly over hot sand may be the only way to stay hidden while moving through some parts of the desert. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Above all, remember that observers in any environment — whether they’re animals you’re hunting or people you’re trying to avoid — are typically operating on their home turf. They know instinctively what looks out of place. This applies to goat herders in the Middle East who have never left a 15-mile radius of their home, and it also applies to your nosy busybody neighbor who knows every inch of the block. Whether you’re in the desert of Arizona or the forest of Michigan, to evade the locals, you need to be observant and methodical. However, don’t play it too safe. Osuna frequently reminded us to be bold in our movements when the opportunity presented itself. Never pass up a chance to sneak past a distracted or lazy observer, because you may not get that chance again.
Above: With the right blend of off-the-shelf camouflage apparel, a carefully-constructed ghillie veil, and patient movement, you can melt seamlessly into almost any environment.
I got a lot of valuable lessons from this class, and really enjoyed learning more about how to blend into the desert that is my own backyard (or detect others who are attempting to do so). For more information on upcoming Greenside Training Camo Craft classes, go to greensidetraining.com.
I often describe our society as “increasingly nonpermissive,” but what does this really mean? For former CIA officer Tony Mendez, the Soviet capitol city of Moscow was the quintessential nonpermissive environment — one in which CIA officers, or other embassy personnel, could assume with a high degree of certainty that they were under surveillance. Given the unrelenting scrutiny of the KGB, activities such as meeting with agents or picking up dead drops were essentially out of the question. The CIA and the officers at Moscow Station were able to develop new tradecraft, including sophisticated disguises developed with the aid of Hollywood makeup artists, to allow them to evade their KGB opponents and begin operating again. Mendez details this, and many other relevant tidbits, in his book The Moscow Rules.
However, as we move into the 21st century, nonpermissive environments have taken on a new meaning. The average person on the street in the United States or Western Europe might not need to fear being tailed by agents of the state every time her or she leaves home (yet), but the digital Panopticon is upon us for data monetization purposes, as well as for reasons of “public safety.” Pervasive CCTV camera deployments, social networking, and advances in the fields of high-performance computing, “artificial intelligence,” and machine learning are pushing us toward a dangerous future very similar to what Philip K. Dick described in The Minority Report.
In fact, for places like China, where facial recognition is already widely deployed, be it at restaurant kiosks for payment and ordering suggestions, or via surveillance cameras on the street corners, the world of The Minority Report is already here.
Above: Unsurprisingly, China has been a pioneer in the field of facial recognition camera systems. They provide the CCP with a fast and effective means of tracking down citizens who step out of line.
So, how does the technology work? Where might we encounter it today or in the future? And how, if at all, can we defeat it and maintain our privacy? Let’s discuss.
What Are Biometrics?
Biometrics refers to a set of technologies, generally used as security controls, which are predicated on that fact that individuals have certain universally unique characteristics. The first thing that might come to mind is fingerprints. Chances are that your smartphone or laptop has a fingerprint scanner and will allow you to log into the system with a simple scan rather than entering a password. As far as a measure of uniqueness goes, fingerprints are top-notch. There has never been a documented case of two people having the same fingerprints — not even identical twins. Theirs may be very similar, but they are, in fact, different.
Some other biometrics that can be used to uniquely identify an individual include:
Iris of the eye
Palm prints
Voice prints
The face
While facial recognition is what the majority of this article is about, it’s important to understand biometrics in general as they have a lot of things in common.
As a cybersecurity engineer by trade, I have a love/hate relationship with biometrics. In fact, what I view as their key disadvantage as an authentication factor is actually what makes them so dangerous from a privacy standpoint. That is, you can’t replace them once they’re lost. If I forget a password, or lose a CAC card, I have recourse. I can have my password reset or have the keys on the card revoked and a new one issued. Not so with my biometrics — they’re permanent.
And, unlike “something I know” (i.e., a password), or “something I have” (the CAC card), the “something I am” is always visible, and oftentimes left behind. So while biometrics are an excellent way to establish identity, I find the way they are actually leveraged as a replacement for passwords is very problematic.
Above: Many of us use biometrics as a convenient way to unlock our devices. However, few consider the security implications of using an unchangeable feature — such as fingerprints or the face — instead of an easily changed password.
Biometric systems are also subject to two types of errors. Type I errors are false negatives, and Type II errors are false positives. In biometrics terms, these are called false rejection and false acceptance. The accuracy of a system is measured by the point where the false acceptance rate equals the false rejection rate. This is called the Crossover Error Rate (CER), and the lower the CER the better. Looked at another way, the lower the CER, the harder it is for the system to be tricked.
Understanding CER is key to understanding both whether it’s worth it to deploy a biometric security control, or how you might go about defeating one.
At a high level, all biometric systems have the same basic components:
Some sort of sensor to take the data input (fingerprint or iris scanner, camera, etc.).
A database containing all the enrolled data (pre-existing samples of the biometric, associated with an individual).
A processing system that creates the mathematical model of the biometric during enrollment and is also capable of real-time processing inputs to match against the database.
If you have a modern smartphone, you’re likely familiar with the process of enrollment. If you have ever worked in a secure environment in government or even the private sector, you’re also likely to have gone through the enrollment process.
The sophistication of the input sensors is of utmost importance. In 2013, for instance, the Chaos Computer Club, a hacker group in Germany, demonstrated an attack against Apple’s TouchID which enabled them to gain access to someone else’s iPhone. By transferring the target’s fingerprint onto a gummy bear candy, they were able to give to trick the sensor into unlocking the phone. In 2017, another German security outfit, SYSS, demonstrated that they could bypass Windows 10’s facial recognition with a specially printed head shot of the spoofed user.
The next most important feature of the system is the enrolled dataset. When it comes to users of phones, computers, or even those granted access to a specific section of a building, that enrolled dataset is pretty small and focused. When scaling up for mass surveillance purposes, that dataset (and the processing power required) starts to grow exponentially.
Above: Unlike humans monitoring security cameras, facial recognition systems never fall victim to distractions or fatigue. They leverage computing power to spot targets with superhuman speed and accuracy.
Facial Recognition: How it Works
Now that you know some basics about biometrics in general, let’s focus on facial recognition in particular. Facial recognition is composed of two major phases. The first is facial identification and the second is facial recognition. Identification is determining “do I see a face” and recognition is determining “do I know who this face belongs to.”
Facial identification requires cameras and a good mathematical model of what a face is or isn’t. Traditionally these cameras were visible light cameras, but the need to function in low-light, especially in surveillance purposes, as well as the need to get high-grade contrast, means many operate in the near-IR spectrum, like night vision devices do.
Facial recognition requires the system to have an enrolled dataset. How exhaustive the dataset needs to be is dependent on the application.
Understanding the two-phase process and their components is key to developing countermeasures, which we will discuss later. But why would people want countermeasures in the first place?
The wide-spread deployment of facial recognition technologies, driven by machine learning (ML) and “artificial intelligence” (AI) systems is, in terms of threats to a free society, second only to the adoption of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). And, just like CBDC, the masses have been conditioned over time to accept aspects of it, or its forerunner, in their lives under the guise of “cool” or “convenient.” Some examples include:
Facial identification helping auto-focus the camera on your smartphone when you’re taking photos.
Facial recognition helping to automatically tag “friends” when you upload your photos to social media.
Facial recognition being used to unlock phones and computers.
Making it cool, fun, and convenient creates a situation where people actively, willingly, participate in feeding the data model. For years, people have been uploading photographs of themselves, friends, and family, to social media sites. These sites then introduced facial identification and allowed you to tag the face with who it belongs to. Eventually social media started offering to tag photos for you, which is fun and convenient, right? Well, it can do that because machine learning models were built and trained by people tagging photos.
Above: Millions of photos are uploaded to social media and tagged every day. Facial recognition models are being perfected through this massive influx of data.
Think of all those photos of people, at different angles, in different lighting conditions, at different ages. If you wanted to build the perfect dataset for an automated facial recognition system, you couldn’t ask for a better one — certainly not the state DMV database or State Department’s database of passport photos.
But what about the model? Just having photos of individuals isn’t enough. Each image needs to be analyzed in order to build a mathematical model of that person’s face. These days, system designers are increasingly relying on technologies like convolutional AI to automate the creation of these models via processes which are opaque to them. However, in general facial recognition models are going to be based on the geometric relations between facial landmarks, such as:
Distance between eyes, ears, etc.
Breadth and length of the nose.
Bone structure of the face (cheek bones, brow ridge, etc.)
Additionally, some of these measurements will be based on measured or inferred depth. These measurements require good lighting and contrasts in order to assess, a situation which has led to no small amount of controversy in recent years. In recent years, there have been no small number of cases where facial recognition technologies, deployed for various purposes, have been accused of being “racist,” either because the sensors have trouble with darker-skinned subjects, or because the training dataset for the machine learning algorithms is predominantly white or Asian.
Because this causes issues with applications that people want to work, such as device security or social media applications, these complaints tend to drive the state of the art in pushing facial modeling, advancing it in the general case.
The Facial Recognition Threat Right Now
Above: Whether you’ve noticed it or not, facial recognition technology is already being used extensively in crowded public places, especially within countries that favor authoritarian control over citizens’ right to privacy.
In China, the future is now. Mass deployment of surveillance cameras hooked up to high-performance computing clouds, with massive datasets, provide an all-seeing eye. People caught merely jaywalking are identified and then put on digital billboards to humiliate them and force social conformity, all in keeping with their social credit system. Facial recognition is tied to digital ID and payment systems. You can go into a fast-food restaurant, walk up to the kiosk, be served, and have your account debited, all from facial recognition. Fun, cool, and convenient, right?
The much darker side is that while social justice warriors in the U.S. and Europe are misguidedly pushing to help make facial recognition technology better at identifying minorities, in China they have developed data models and algorithms which can identify, with a great deal of accuracy, the ethnicity of a person. This technology is being used specifically to target the frequently persecuted Uighur minority population in Western China’s Xinjiang province.
In the U.S., we have protections that China doesn’t have. When the first publicly documented case of police using facial recognition technology en masse came to light in 2001 at the Tampa-hosted Super Bowl, there was a wide-spread outcry about how it was a 4th Amendment violation. Of course, this was pre-Sept. 11, pre-PATRIOT Act, and before Snowden’s revelations that would make this seem like a blip. In the U.S. now, some cities have created ordinances banning the use of facial recognition technology, sometimes due to privacy implications, other times at least in part because of the seemingly disproportionately high false positive rate for minorities leading to incorrect identification and false arrests. (Boston, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, for instance, rolled out their ordinances against facial recognition in 2020 so that police could not use it during the ongoing riots and protests).
However, there are areas of the U.S. where the rules don’t always apply. Borders and checkpoints are one. Automated immigration checkpoints comparing on-site snapshots to your passport photo are becoming well established in the U.S. and other rich countries, offering convenience for greater acceptance of the tech. There can be no doubt that facial recognition technology is being deployed in the surveillance systems of major airports as well.
The same mobile technology that was pioneered and rebuked two decades ago will continue to make appearances at major events and especially at protests. And even when real-time facial recognition isn’t in play, surveillance photographs can be compared to government and open-source data sets (all those photos you put on the internet) for identification. This tactic was heavily leveraged both by government employees and private-sector open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts and digital sleuths after the events on January 6, 2021, for instance.
The Threat in the Future
In the U.S., we’re highly suspicious of three-letter agencies hoarding and manipulating our sensitive data, but many of us hand that same data to social media and tech corporations without blinking an eye. Here, the threat of invasive facial recognition is less likely to come directly from the government and more likely to be privatized. As China is doing now, and as The Minority Report showed, we’re likely headed to a future where the profit-fueled surveillance we have long known in the online world will move to the real world. You’ll walk into a store, be identified, and then based on your likes and internet history, will be offered products in real time. Or, based on your Personal ESG score — a measurement of how environmentally friendly and socially conscious your lifestyle is perceived to be — you might even be told you can’t spend money there.
As the social acceptance of the technology grows until it becomes basic background noise like flushing toilets and flipping light switches, there’ll be fewer and fewer legal challenges, and eventually government surveillance will step up as well. Via “public-private partnerships” in the name of “public safety,” we’ll find the lines increasingly blurred.
At least, that’s my projection.
What About Countermeasures?
Some systems are going to be harder to trick than others. How hard is going to be a function of how good the hardware is, how exhaustive the database is, and how sophisticated the model is. Saying for sure what will or won’t work is therefore hard. However, with some experimentation and research, I have a few things that I know will defeat some systems and may have success against others.
Above: The Android application ObscuraCam can quickly edit out faces and other distinguishing marks. This is perfect for countering facial recognition and methods OSINT analysts might use.
Online Countermeasures With regards to online countermeasures, the goal is to deny the creation of a good data model of your face. This can basically be broken down into two tactics:
First, is adversarial modeling. In machine learning, this essentially means spoiling the dataset with lies. You operate an account as yourself, or otherwise upload photos, but the photos are not of you. You then tag those photos as you, so the data model doesn’t associate your face with your person.
The second tactic, and one that’ll bring you much joy in your life, is to simply avoid playing the game. Get off social media. Spoil all your data, then delete your account. If you never had social media, all the better. Ask your family and friends not to upload photos of you. If they must, blur out the photos.
If you must swap photos online, use secure or covert communications applications to do it, and spoil the photos directly. Applications like ObscuraCam can take advantage of facial identification and pixelate or otherwise redact the photo when you take it. You can also use it to quickly obscure any other identifying information.
Above: Despite obscuring a large portion of my face with this mug, A match was still made at a distance of an average distance of 0.53, which is near the threshold but still a match. A more sophisticated model would likely defeat this.
Real-World Countermeasures Broadly speaking, there are three different categories of countermeasure we can use against facial recognition systems in the wild:
The first type of countermeasure attacks the ability of a system to detect a face in the first place. This is going to include anything from simple face coverings to purpose-driven clothing.
The second type of countermeasure is going to cause a false negative with facial recognition, after facial detection has occurred.
The third type of countermeasure is going to attempt to cause a false positive, making the system think that we’re someone else entirely. We’ll call this the “Mission Impossible” countermeasure.
Above: This disguise is fully defeated facial detection, however the utility of wearing something like this in your daily life is kind of a crapshoot.
Countermeasures you can use in the real world are a tricky topic, as it’s very difficult to know with any certainty what will or will not work against any given model. In a general sense, we can be assured that if simple facial detection and recognition models, such as the open-source Python library and tool “facial_recognition” cannot be tricked, then more comprehensive systems powered with sophisticated AI models will also be immune to countermeasures.
To test various types of countermeasures against a baseline, I used the Python tool facial_recognition, which can be installed on any Linux, Mac, or Windows computer with Python on it. This tool will compute the probability of a match in terms of distance from a known baseline, which is to say a smaller number equals a closer match. By default, anything that is 0.6 or higher is considered to not be a match.
Above: This mask prevented a facial detection, even preventing me from using it as a “known” photo. However, it wouldn’t be enough to counter the surveillance technology used in places like China and shouldn’t be relied on.
For control data, I used the same photo of myself as a known test photo, as well as test photos containing Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Burt from the move Tremors. A distance of 0.0 was computed when the tool saw the same picture side-by-side. It also correctly determined that I am not Zelenskyy or Burt.
Countermeasure Test Results
So, how did the countermeasures fare?
By far, the best countermeasures were ones that targeted facial detection. Full-face covering of an FDE neck gaiter, wrap-around sunglasses and hat prevented any match. A simple black cloth COVID mask was also enough to prevent any face from being detected, however, this should not be considered reliable as Apple’s iPhone is known to be able to make a conclusive match on data points not covered by a mask, when the user is wearing a mask, so long as a masked photo has been enrolled. This tool, however, couldn’t detect a face even when providing a masked sample image.
Above: Simulating a hat with a light on it to obscure my face, this was enough to defeat simple open-source facial detection models. The fact I can still recognize myself leads me to believe that a more sophisticated model might still make a match. I still believe that clothing with visible or IR lights that obscure the face are likely to be effective in many cases.
Illuminating my face with a bright flashlight in such a way that it washed out my features also prevented a face from being detected, lending credence to so-called “Liberty Caps” and other such clothing which contain LEDs to obscure the face from cameras. It may be advisable to use infrared LEDs, since their light will be invisible to the human eye while remaining effective against many camera sensors.
“Disguises” meant to obscure my identity, but not completely obscure the face, had mixed results. Predictably, matches became better as more “known” images were added. Thus, merely wearing a hat and glasses would cause a low-confidence match against an “driver’s license” type photo of me, but once photos of myself with hats, glasses, etc., in various combinations were added, the confidence of the matches became closer. However, there was nothing more conclusive than about 0.25. The use of camouflage face paint in the typical application used to obscure lines and flatten the face (darker colors on higher points, lighter on lower points) reduced the confidence of the match but wasn’t sufficient to completely avoid a match.
Digitally obscuring photos with ObscuraCam did prevent matches from being made as well, which proves that such digital countermeasures are effective against non-real-time facial recognition dragnets such as may be conducted using OSINT sources.
“Mission Impossible” disguises weren’t tested. I have low confidence in sophisticated systems being tricked by anything like a Halloween mask. High-end disguises built out by professional makeup artists may be able to make this work, but I think a false negative is going to be the best-case outcome in the general case at this point in the evolution of the technology.
Conclusion
Facial recognition technology is here to stay, and with profound implications for society in general. Just like any other biometric system, there are certainly uses that bring a legitimate advantage, but there’s also an exceptional opportunity for abuse.
Privacy-minded individuals have options to reduce our exposure, but it’s an arms race like any other. While we in the West enjoy legal protections that those in places like China do not, we have far less protection from the monetary drivers of surveillance capitalism that pervade online spaces and the government’s outsourcing of functionality to the private sector to avoid 4th Amendment challenges. In the long run, it’ll become increasingly more difficult to avoid these systems.
Judicious curating of your likeness online can go a long way to limiting the scope of the threat, and there are simple technical countermeasures that can be applied in the real world as well. These steps may not be perfect, but they’re the best we have right now.
Hopefully, this is one topic where civil libertarians will not let up in fighting the potential for abuse. However, as we continue to see facial detection and recognition technologies integrated into people’s daily lives, the expectation of privacy and fear of abuse will winnow over time. Sadly, facial recognition and biometric surveillance will become another “if you’ve done nothing wrong then what are you hiding?” argument in the next generation.
Thus, the best chance we have is in raising a next generation that’ll be resistant to mass surveillance and tracking, and who will adopt appropriate OPSEC as well.
Concealing your presence isn’t just a skill needed for military operators or backcountry hunters. Knowing how to defeat observational efforts is a lifesaving skill that can be applied in downtown Manhattan just as easily as the jungles of Panama. Predators, both man and beast, seek out their prey on a daily basis, and being able to disappear as a target has wide-reaching implications. Freddy Osuna, expert tracker and former U.S. Marine Sniper met up with a small group of students interested in the art of hiding in plain sight at a Michigan Defensive Firearms Institute (MDFI) training site in the middle of a remote forest to do just that. Our group was diverse, with a wide range of experience and skills, including a former IT engineer, a retired cop, a few bushcrafters, and even a bladesmith. None of us had any formal training in camouflage craft beyond wearing some forest-patterned attire. Each of us, armed with our own optics and a bag of camouflage materials, eagerly settled in to learn the art of sensory defeat.
Whether it’s an animal with heightened senses beyond that of a human, or a person seeking to do harm, the number-one goal of this course is to learn how to defeat an observer. In our case, we had to learn how to stealthily maneuver to a target near trained observer Jerry Saunders, another former U.S. Marine sniper. Right off the bat, in the presence of two formidable instructors, it seemed like a daunting task. However, Osuna and Saunders remind us that we’re starting from square one, and they’re confident we’ll develop the skills needed to accomplish our objective. To kick off the training, we’re given our first nugget of wisdom: It’s not what you wear, but how you manipulate your environment. This ties directly into how we perceive the environment around us.
Observation Theory
Above: Freddy Osuna, owner and head instructor of Greenside Training, starts the class at the MDFI training facility by explaining the history of camouflage and sensory defeat.
Since we’re trying to defeat an accomplished Marine Sniper from detecting us, we focus mainly on the nuances of the human eye. Humans have central, or full field, and peripheral vision, which detect things for three primary reasons: movement, shape, and contrast. Central vision is our daytime, color, detailed vision, which should be capable of identifying a human head at 65 feet in medium contrast shadow. Medium contrast is a baseline of light and shadow you would notice outside on a normal, sunny day. Our peripheral vision operates a bit differently, having mostly black and white vision, and is best at detecting movement. Since Osuna and Saunders will be looking for fragmented shapes of a human body and their equipment, understanding how the human eye perceives the world gives us valuable insight on how to trick that visual perception.
Humans have another unique eye feature going on, known as saccadic eye movement. Ever try keeping your eye trained on something in the distance while you travel in a vehicle? If you have, then you might have noticed how the eye doesn’t track smooth fluid movements, but rather quickly ticks along its target. That’s saccadic movement in action, and it’s a survival mechanism that harkens back to when our ancestors were constantly on the lookout for what was going to try eating us next. Trying to focus on just one spot is not as easy as it sounds. Even with training, being forever vigilant is fatiguing, so humans have also developed a blind spot between our central and peripheral vision to conserve energy. This keeps our focus concentrated on where it’s most beneficial. The reason we do not notice this blind spot is because our brains paint the rest of the picture in with a phenomenon known as perceptual fill.
Above: By using dark colors on more exposed facial features, and light colors in the recesses, we can confuse our brains' visual recognition of a human face.
Knowing that even trained observers will have a tough time fully concentrating gives us some hope we might actually be able to sneak our way through the course successfully. Other factors that affect visual acuity are diet and fitness, drugs, and alcohol, fatigue, and really anything that influences blood flow to the capillaries in the eyes. People who stare at one thing for a long time, such as optics or screens, would benefit by glancing at something green nearby when their eyes are feeling strained. Green colors relax the eyes, perhaps because humans have adapted to distinguish between more shades of green than any other color.
Scanning Techniques
Above: Students fine-tune their optics to be able to read a letter at 1 MOA.
For those doing the observing, having the right tools and techniques can help keep the eyes sharp. Optics, like binos, monoculars, or scopes can keep the eye and mind focused where it needs to be. There is no limit to how much you can spend on a pair of optics, but Osuna reminds us that the most important optic is the one you have, and not to get caught up on having the latest and greatest. To highlight this, Saunders cites the fact that, other than some modernized weaponry, the 4x rifle optic has been the most lethal addition to the U.S. military arsenal. Just being able to see a target, even a little bit better, has resulted in exponentially greater success. For the class, the standard to reach is being able to observe something clearly at one minute of angle (1 MOA). To do this, we test our optic’s capabilities by clearly identifying a letter “E” written with 1-inch-thick lines, at 100 yards.
Correct posture is vital to scanning success. It’s tough to notice discrete details, or slowly moving objects if the sight picture is shaking due to muscle fatigue. Eliminating the poor field of view is as simple as keeping the body comfortably relaxed, erect, with your head over your center of gravity. Sitting or standing in this position will optimize blood flow to the eyes and reduce the negative effects of straining. Using a mounting device like a camera tripod is ideal, but in the absence of a stand, ensuring that the weight of the binos is being supported by bone is the next best thing.
Drawing a hillside on a dry-erase board, Osuna runs us through an example of the Overlapping Strip Search. Searching in this manner is much like reading a book, from left to right, going down to the next line and observing from left to right again. While we’re scanning, we’re looking for high-traction points. High-traction points can be anything, from a bush in the middle of the field, to a vehicle or building. In other words, it’s something that interrupts the flow of your search by catching your attention.
Above: Former Marine sniper and survival instructor Jerry Saunders describes the Micro-Point Scanning Clock method. This way of picking apart a traction point is meticulous and thorough.
Once the scan reaches a high traction point, a new searching method is utilized: the Micro-Point Scanning Clock method. Using a bush as an example, we center our vision in the middle of the bush, then starting at the 12 o’clock position on the top of the bush, we pick apart the edges clockwise around the center. As we’re doing this, we’re looking for things that don’t belong; this is often referred to as “cancer.” Any movements, shapes, or color contrasts that’d indicate a fragment of a human body or its equipment. Since objects in nature aren’t two-dimensional, we must also adjust the focus of our optics as we observe a high-traction object to see further into or behind it, a practice known as “burning through” or “stacking screens.”
As creatures of habit, humans tend to travel in somewhat predictable patterns. We also tend to take the route that offers the least resistance, otherwise known as natural lanes of drift. To help us focus on where observation might pay the most dividends, we’re taught to use the Marine acronym KOCOA (Key terrain, Observation/fields of fire, Cover and concealment, Obstacles, and Avenues of approach). Keeping these natural lanes of drift in mind, moving to change the angle at which you’re observing can reveal sought-after objects that you couldn’t see from your original position. Think of it like trying to get the best view of the stage at a concert through a crowd of people. Sometimes you just need to find the right view through the tangle of whatever is in front of you.
Above: Veil under construction. Notice, even though the veil is under Saunders' hands, without a caption, it would just look like two people picking through the duff. Veg is the edge!
Beyond physiological factors like poor nutrition, other things will affect your ability to detect something out of the ordinary. When we’re exhausted, we have a tendency to speed up what we’re doing in order to get it over with. Haste will leave tons of search areas checked improperly. Discomfort also ties into fatigue, and when we ignore how crucial comfortable posture can be, our muscles quickly reach failure. Not being able to stay focused on your search is a detection killer. If your mind is distracted, you’re not going to truly see what you’re looking at.
Above:Students spend a small break improving their veils and getting ready into the position for the next stalking lesson.
Camouflage Veils and Facial Recognition
Contrary to what we see in movies, practitioners of concealment don’t usually dress head to toe in a ghillie suit that’d make Sasquatch envious. Although full suits can be useful in certain situations, they’re cumbersome and uncomfortably hot after a short amount of time. Instead, we focus on headgear and learn the nuances of constructing a veil. Veils are ideal, because as we’re moving to get eyes on our target, the only over-exposed portion of our body will be the top of our head, and the front of our faces. Veils also allow the wearer to view a target through optics without sunlight glinting on the lens.
“Veg is the edge” is our mantra as we set to customizing caps and boonie hats. After draping and securing some form of netting to our hats, burlap cordage or earth-tone 550 cord is loosely tied in random patterns to the net base. We avoid using black, because black in nature isn’t truly black and stands out as a highly contrasting color. Everything is faded to eliminate any shine, and lighter colors are used to reduce any high-contrasting shadows. This is done with earth-tone spray paints, or simply by rubbing the veils into dirt or campfire ash. Cordage is used to tie leaf litter, or freshly picked ground growing plants into the veil. Veg is the edge! Even after a few short minutes, our veils become difficult to identify if they’re left on the forest floor.
Above: Osuna verifies a students observations after utilizing scanning techniques during and observer drill.
While working diligently on our newly camouflaged headgear, our instructors talk about some interesting ways to stay concealed. Tyvek house covering spray painted tan, for example, makes for an excellent way to stay hidden in the desert. Wood ash from a campfire can help mask the scent of a human from search dogs, or even be used as a form of face paint. High-traction points, the same areas that our gazes are drawn to when searching, are what we need to avoid while staying concealed. While concealed, we want to appear as nothing in particular.
Since birth, our brains have developed a knack for identifying faces, making our facial features high-traction points. We even see face patterns in random objects when no face is present. Our veils will work partially, but under certain lighting conditions, a trained observer will notice a face almost immediately. Breaking up the recognizable image of our face with some kind of camouflage paint is a must if we’re going to try staying hidden. Using light colors in dark recesses, like the eye cavities, the hollows of the cheek, or in the ears and under the neck, and dark colors on high ridges like cheekbones and the forehead creates the visual effect of flattering the face. Leaf litter can be used to smudge or create random lines through the paint, further breaking up face patterns. By using a combination of striping and blotching, someone looking at a properly camouflaged face will experience the unnerving sensation of their vision gliding right past without the familiar recognition.
Above: Using high-powered, Meopta optics, Saunders searches for a camouflaged stalker who is describing the image being held up.
Stalking
Somewhere between observation theory and concealment techniques is the art of stalking. It’s relatively easy to stay hidden when vegged out and sitting as still as a bush. Things get a lot dicier when moving is involved. Movement is one of the primary reasons our eyes decide to focus on something, and it’s the reason that relatively few people escape the gaze of a trained observer.
Above: Trek, owner and senior instructor of Michigan Defensive Firearms Institute, strikes a pose with Osuna, Saunders, and the class before maneuvering to their final stalking lane.
Four main movement techniques help keep detection to a minimum. From fastest to slowest, we’re taught the weasel walk, high-crawl, low-crawl, and, everyone’s favorite, the skull-drag. Weasel walking, or walking in a low crouch, is the fastest way to get around unseen, but even this is a slow and deliberate movement. Care is taken not to break branches or make too much noise that would draw attention, and it’s emphasized that no matter what position the body is in, you should be able to freeze in place without being overly uncomfortable. Although, standing or walking in a crouched position for an extended period of time will certainly cause a fair amount of leg fatigue.
The version of the high-crawl we’re taught is simply moving on all fours, like if you were giving a kid a piggyback ride. It’s a useful position given that you can easily drag a pack, gear, or even an injured buddy behind you by rigging it/them to the back of your belt. High-crawling is also a relatively fast movement, and allows you to get closer to your target while staying below dense vegetation. Moving into the low-craw involves dropping your hips to the ground, and using your upper body and arms to propel yourself forward. Low-crawling is the preferred method to move just within visual range of the target, or if the vegetation or topography doesn’t allow you to move using any of the faster methods.
Above: Concealed on the left of the photo, a student practices the art of staying perfectly still while observing with optics, while Osuna informs the rest of the class he is less than a meter away.
Skull-dragging gets its name because using this technique means trying to melt yourself, including your face, flat against the ground. Moving is meticulous and slow and requires using your fingertips out in front of you to pull, while your toes are simultaneously pushing. No heels sticking up either. The skull-drag technique is for moving while under direct observation, and is so slow, the shadows cast by the sun will move faster than you are able to. All of these movements can be further concealed by using environmental anomalies to mask any noises or movements, such as gusts of wind, or vehicles passing by.
Moving in on the Target
Above: As students trickle in from their stalking lane, they take the opportunity to hone their observational skills by searching for the remaining fieldmates.
Putting all of our newly acquired knowledge together, we were tasked with one final challenge: move close enough to a high-visibility panel so that we could read a 1 MOA message written in front of it … all while trained observer Saunders, armed with 8×56 binos, attempts to catch us in the act. Camouflaged to the max, and donning our veils, we’re secreted to a location in the forest, given a bearing to Saunders’ approximate location, and told to execute our mission.
Above: Moving in pairs, students weasel walk into position before attempting to stalk an area under direct observation.
The topography of our stalking lane requires that we crest a hill, into the V-shape of a corner of the forest edge before being able to see our blaze orange target in the distance. With eight people in the class all jockeying for an ideal position at the same time, it seemed we already had the odds stacked against us. Osuna warns us not to get caught in “pig-trails,” trails that stalkers in the lead have already made. Sure, pig-trails are easier to traverse, but it has the visual effect of a comet leaving a tail, and it’ll quickly attract an observer’s attention. Overpenetration, or getting too close to the observer, is another common mistake that can get you caught in a hurry. Ideally, a stalker wants to use as much natural phenomenon, or screens, between them and the observer as possible, making it much more difficult for an observer, even with high-powered optics, to detect a skull-dragging stalker maneuvering into position.
Above: At the tip of Osuna's extended fingers, a student reads a 1 MOA sign more than 100 meters away with optics.
It takes a little over an hour before everyone completes the stalking lane, with only a handful of our class being detected. Mistakes that got people caught were moving too fast, moving parallel to the observer, not being sufficiently concealed, following natural lanes of drift, or a combination of all of these. Students who pulled their veil down too soon found that its limited visibility slowed their movement too much, and they were stuck behind crisscrossing stalkers vying for position. There was one point where those of us who didn’t get in place quickly enough were practically writhing over the tops of one another like a nest of pit vipers in an attempt to get eyes on the target. Those who experienced the greatest success were students who timed their movements efficiently, without hesitation, and were settled into ideal observation posts before the others.
Above: Dave Wenger of Wenger Blades receives the coveted Black Wolf patch for decisive actions taken during the final stalk, and his overall enthusiasm throughout the course.
Become Nothing
Hunters and military snipers have been manipulating the environment to their advantage since sneaking up on prey has been a tactic. These same camouflage and concealment concepts can be used to blend into a crowd (aka gray man theory), hide your loved ones from invaders bent on violence, or keep your equipment from being discovered and stolen. Proficiency in concealment also means understanding how observers recognize the hidden, and how to defeat their efforts. Camouflage and observation theory are essentially two sides of the same coin, both skills needing to be practiced to increase the chances of success. With a little creative ingenuity, and careful strategizing, anyone can transform from something, into nothing.
From classics like Survivorman to long-running series like Alone, we've enjoyed many TV shows in the broader survival genre. Whether they lean more towards hardcore realism or entertainment value, there's almost always something valuable we can glean from the comfort of our couch — even if it's just “I'm never going to make the same dumb mistake that person did.” The latest addition to this genre, Netflix's Outlast, incorporates a competitive group dynamic that's reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. The series' tagline, “the enemy isn't Mother Nature, it's human nature,” attests to this fact. We spoke with series Executive Producer Grant Kahler regarding the intricacies of planning Outlast, keeping the contestants and crew safe, and what it takes to survive in the Alaskan wilderness.
If you're not already familiar with the show, you can watch it on Netflix now. Otherwise, read on for our exclusive Q&A with Kahler. And for those who haven't finished the series, don't worry, it doesn't contain any spoilers.
Recoil Offgrid: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into TV/movie production.
Grant Kahler: Being in tv production is simply something I always wanted to do. After college I moved to New York and my first job was in tv production on a television show called “Ed” for NBC. I worked in every aspect of production, from directing to accounting, on projects from Bruckheimer films to independent music videos and eventually landed in documentary and unscripted tv production.
What exactly does an executive producer do?
GK: There’s a huge range of responsibilities that an executive producer might be responsible for — from simply helping with the development of a show to physically being in the field and making the show. My role on Outlast was a little of both. I created the format as well as oversaw production from creative to logistics.
How did you get into survival reality shows, and what do you think the draw is for the audience in this kind of program?
GK: I was originally drawn to this type of programming because I simply loved the environments we would shoot them in. I loved being deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia or up in the mountains of Alaska. I have lived in big cities most of my life, so the opportunity to get to go to these far out places has always been a very special perk of the job for me. And I think that is also part of the answer to the second part of the question — I believe that’s partly why people like to watch these shows. It’s in these beautiful places where we get to watch people as we take them back to the basics of human survival. Our society and technology has evolved so incredibly rapidly that I think it’s nice to see what life is like when we strip ourselves of those things — both physically and socially.
And there is always that question that a viewer asks themselves, “could I do it?”
Logistically, what kind of hurdles do you face putting a show like this together?
GK: I make these shows incredibly difficult on myself and my crew because location is always so important to me. With these extremely remote locations often comes massive logistical challenges. But in the end, I think it’s worth it. It makes the experience more real for the cast which often translates into a better show.
I’d say the number one logistical challenge is transportation. I can’t count the number of times we have had to dig trucks out of ditches, race a rising tide to get to a destination, hike around washed out roads, dig vehicles out of snow, or drag beached boats back to the water. We tend to film these shows in pretty extreme environments with little to no infrastructure, so transportation must be reimagined every time in order to move crew and allow for emergency access and evacuation.
Safety & Expert Advisors
What kind of off-set or behind-the-scenes safety precautions are there for the contestants?
GK: For Outlast we always had medics and bear guards on standby in the event of an emergency. We had to constantly be aware that hypothermia or a bear mauling, among many other things, were very real possibilities. So, we employed people to be able to handle those situations.
What kind of support do you utilize, in terms of real-world survival experts to conceptualize or guide the show through production?
GK: I always bring in experts to help figure out the details of a show. On this one, for example, we hired an ex SBS operative (UK Special Forces) who has special jungle warfare, SERE and combat medicine training, among many other things. He’s an expert in all things survival from both his military experience to personal interest so I leaned on him a lot to help with the logistics and some creative decisions.
On Outlast we were lucky to have a Native American village by the name of Hoonah about 30 miles from our location. We employed them to help with safety consultation, plant and animal questions, logistical support and just about everything else you can imagine. We couldn’t have pulled this off without the people of Hoonah.
What it Takes to be a Winner
What do you look for in an Outlast contestant, and how do you find them?
GK: This is hard to answer because it’s never one specific thing. Some people might have a unique skillset while others might simply have an interesting backstory. For shows like this, the only real requirement is that they have some sort of extensive outdoor experience. These are hard-core environments we’re putting people into, so for the sake of safety, they need to at the very least know what they might be getting themselves into.
We typically find cast through online forums, social media or even outdoor gatherings. Oftentimes it’s word of mouth that ends up getting the application to the right people.
Based on your experience/observation, what qualities does a successful contestant have?
GK: At the end of the day, no matter what the format is, a successful contestant is going to be incredibly skilled in all things outdoors. All of the psychological, sociological, and strategic advantages go out the window if someone doesn’t have basic skills. Beyond that, they must be patient. People often don’t understand how difficult these shows can be to get through. Patience can be EVERYTHING, something most people just don’t have anymore.
DISCLAIMER: This article is intended to be a brief overview of the viability of dog food as a worst-case emergency food source, and not a comprehensive guide to food safety or nutrition. Weigh the risks carefully before eating any food not intended for human consumption, and only do so when there is no safer alternative.
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic in April 2020, Regina Loicano lived in abject fear, holed up in her Upper East Side, New York, walkup. She was so afraid of getting sick that she didn’t dare leave her small apartment. She was convinced that deadly germs were everywhere. Three weeks later, what was left of her food was gone and she resorted to eating pet food. Soon, the thought of starvation outweighed her fears of COVID and she tried to make it to the store, but she was so weak, she had to return back to her home. “I’ve been eating cat food and cat chow,” she told her rescuers, “and not been able to leave the house.”
For most, the thought of consuming dog food voluntarily would cause a shudder of disgust, and although our pets are cute, charming, playful, and more a part of the family unit than some actual humans, dogs can be kind of gross. They’re often excited to snack on meat that would repulse us, and the food we slop out of a can into their bowls has a powerful smell of pungent offal meats that are especially appetizing to the dogs. But in a dire emergency, can people eat dog food and survive? Or, like drinking water from a questionable source, does it run the risk of worsening our condition?
Why Would Anyone Eat Dog Food?
Above: At the back of the pantry, after all the “edible” cans of food have been consumed, your emergency situation has left you with nothing but cans of dog food. Are they edible? Are they healthy? Do they taste good? You can find out or you can starve to death.
The last of your food is gone. You ate what you could before it rotted, and the cans of soup and packages of pasta were the last human food left in the house. In the back of the pantry sits a few cans of dog food, and desperation is a remarkable motivator. Starvation is a particularly uncomfortable way to die, and logically, if your dog can eat it, why can’t a person?
Dog food is generally considered repugnant. Since dogs have more sensory receptors in their noses than they do taste buds on their tongues, smell is much more important to them than is taste, so dog food is designed to smell similar to rotting meat and dead animals, things canines over the millennia have craved. To voluntarily consume a can of dog food, one’s situation must be especially dire, an occurrence not uncommon in recent history. Dry dog food has some additional concerns, which we’ll discuss later.
Stories of people resorting to eating pet food have been underreported during nearly every natural disaster and economic depression since canned pet food was available. In the December 16, 1975, edition of the New York Times, columnist, human rights activist, and Professor Edward H. Peeples, Jr., chronicled his personal experiences of eating pet food in the 1950s poverty-stricken South. “At that time, it was not uncommon or startling to me to see dog food patties sizzling in a pan on the top of a stove or kerosene space heater in a dilapidated house with no running water, no refrigerator, no heat, no toilet, and the unrelenting stench of decaying insects. I simply thought of it as the unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of being poor in the South.”
Above: As discussed in our Canned Meat Buyer's Guide, plenty of human food from a can isn't much more appealing than dog food.
“Except for the humiliation I experienced, eating canned pet food did not at the time seem to be particularly unpleasant. The dog food tasted pretty much like mealy hamburger, while the cat food was similar to canned fish that I was able to improve with mayonnaise, mustard, or catsup.”
In times of emergency, economic uncertainty, and extreme food shortages, pet food has been a viable option for literally millions of people around the globe. If it is there, consider eating it. It might save your life; but if you’re standing in the store with a can of dog food in one hand and a can of beef stew in the other, the choice is obvious — buy the stew. It’s made for a human and will taste and smell a great deal better than the food a dog would appreciate.
Most Canned Dog Food Is Safe
Although dog food isn’t intended for humans and the production of a can of dog food it isn’t up to the same standards as a can of soup, eating dog food to solve a short-term nutritional deficiency is unlikely to cause you any major harm. As long as the dog food is cooked and stored properly, there’s very little threat of foodborne illnesses such as salmonella, listeria, and E. coli. The cans are pasteurized, the contents cooked, and the ingredients are strictly controlled by not only government agencies (FDA and USDA), but by consumer watchdogs and animal advocate groups. Most times, people will care more about pets’ wellbeing than that of their fellow humans.
And if illness is still a concern once you’ve opened the can, merely cook it again. At a temperature of 167 degrees F, salmonella is killed, for example. For this reason, it isn’t recommended for humans to eat dry kibble at all, unless it was sourced and stored in a similar way as canned food. Dry dog food is more susceptible to rot as it is exposed to air and contaminants as soon as the bag is opened (proteins break down easily in moist air), and it would take you several days to consume even a small bag of kibble.
Public Health expert Susan L. Busse, BS, RDN, adds: “While dog food is not especially appealing to humans or designed to meet all their nutritional needs, it is generally not considered unsafe for humans to consume for a short time in survival situations. Dog food typically consists of some type of animal protein and grains. The ingredients are seldom as high quality as humans would typically eat, and while it is fortified with vitamins and minerals that dogs need, it’s not likely to meet all the nutritional needs of humans.”
Above: Acana’s Premium Chunks Pork Recipe in Bone and Broth is a new line for the dog food manufacturer. Of the 10 cans, this is tops in appetizing appearance and overall flavor.
But this is where the perception of dog food as being disgusting random animal parts swept up off the floor and crammed into a can loses steam. Although dog food contains all kinds of animal parts that humans wouldn’t order at a restaurant, the fact is, smaller dog food manufacturers are using better cuts of meat, less chemicals, and more natural foods in their ingredients that, combined with cleaner and safer production methods, create a healthier meal for dogs … and for you if you need it.
Case in point: Mitch Felderhoff is the CEO of Muenster Milling Company in Muenster, Texas, a dog food company that makes all-natural dog food for well-heeled customers. Two years ago, for some publicity no doubt, Felderhoff decided to eat his own product — and nothing else — for 30 days. “It’s not that it’s a super healthy diet for people,” Felderhoff shared. “We’re doing it because we want you to know that we’re not going to feed your dog something unless we’ve eaten it first.”
Above: Avoid Canidae’s Salmon & Sweet Potato Recipe if you can. Dogs may love it (ours did), but it lacks a minimum of taste you need to make it palatable.
The results of Felderhoff’s experimental publicity stunt were phenomenal. He lost 30 pounds. His blood sugar and blood pressure went down significantly, and his cholesterol dropped 60 points. “There wasn’t a single thing that was a negative,” Felderhoff added.
Dog Food: A Brief History
Although humans and canines have been faithful companions for over 30,000, the dog food industry is barely 100 years old. Until 1922, with the introduction of canned dog food called Ken-L Ration, very little consideration was extended to the dietary needs of dogs. Draft horses that died in the streets were sliced up and used to feed the local pets, while any leftover table scraps were slopped into a bowl for Fido.
Regardless of the ups and downs of the bourgeoning dog food industry, horse meat was a staple of every brand, so much so, that until 1941 — when horses and tin were being rationed for the war effort, horses were being raised specifically for dog food. The opportunity to create a food without using horse meat led to the introduction of now-popular brands like Purina and General Mills. The first kibble was packaged in cereal boxes in 1956 and by 1964, the Pet Food Institute — the active voice for U.S. pet food makers — convinced millions of Americans that dry kibble was the only option, even though the extrusion process used to make kibble at the time destroyed the nutritional value of the food.
Only when the human health food craze accelerated in the early 2000s, people began to realize that dog food was overly processed and generally unhealthy for their animals. At this time, grain-free and organic kibble became popular, but it wasn’t until the 2016 documentary called “Pet Fooled” appeared on Netflix that the pet food industry’s lack of regulation came to light. It caused a major uproar in the industry and introduced the market to a glut of boutique dog food manufacturers that line the shelves today with the healthiest dog foods the world has yet seen. It is interesting to note that the history of dog food has come full circle, with dogs returning to eating fresh, human-grade food similar to what they ate before the advent of the dog food industry.
What Am I Eating?
Above: Although the sauce in Blue Buffalo’s Blue’s Stew was flavorless, the taste and texture of the beef resembled actual stew the closest.
Traditionally, dog food is comprised of a slurry of animal byproducts, which are scraps of meat (sometimes from dead or diseased animals), ground bones, various organs, skin, and damaged animal meats that wouldn’t pass inspection if placed in human foods. That’s tradition; however, if you look at the ingredients of any modern can of dog food, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between Purina and Campbell’s. For example, the first five ingredients of Campbell’s Chunky Hearty Bean and Ham soup is water, pea beans, carrots, cooked ham, and celery, while the first five ingredients of Merrick’s Cowboy Cookout in Gravy are deboned beef, beef broth, chicken broth, beef liver, and carrots. Campbell’s goes on to list a host of random ingredients used for flavoring, none of which provide much nutritional value; whereas Merrick also includes apples, eggs, green beans, potatoes, and a bevy of vitamin supplements.
Calories: The whole point of eating dog food during a potential starvation scenario is to maintain your calorie intake while providing your body with the materials it needs to stay alive. Dog food keeps a regimented count of its calories in their foods, as the goal of each company is to provide a well-balanced meal for a healthy dog. While calculating a human’s daily caloric need is fairly easy (most adult men need about 2,500 calories to stay active and healthy), calculating a dog’s needs depends on a variety of factors like weight, neutered status, breed, and age.
A single can of dog food, on average, contains about 350 to 450 calories, as it has been determined this is the base needs for most small dogs. A 10-pound dog will need a can a day, while a 100-pound dog will require about five. Given your caloric needs, you’ll burn through a few cans a day if you’re eating modestly, so unless you have several cases of dog food at your disposal, you’ll be trying to survive on a prisoner’s intake. Sure, you’ll be as full as you would if you ate a whole can of soup (the Campbell’s example from above contains 340 calories per can), but the calorie content is still lower than you need.
Protein Needs: Humans are animals, the same as dogs, and we all need protein to survive. Without it, you’ll begin to lose muscle mass, develop anemia (when your cells don’t get enough oxygen), have skin problems, be susceptible to a greater risk of bone fractures, and have an increased exposure to infections. It is the same for dogs, which is why protein content in dog food is so emphasized. An adult human with a low activity level needs about 0.4 gram of protein per pound of body weight each day, while a dog needs about 1 gram per pound.
Above: Wellness’s Hearty Cuts in Gravy had one of the most flavorful meats and the picture on the can offered promise (that frankly didn’t deliver). It was meaty but could’ve benefited from more vegetables.
Vitamin Content: Vitamins are very diverse and perform many different functions in a dog’s body (similar to a human’s body), such as the creation of DNA, bone development, blood clotting, normal eye function, and neurologic function. This is why vitamins are packed into modern cans of dog food, especially the more organic varieties. Vitamins A, D, and E are common among the fat-soluble kind, while the family of Vitamin B (thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxine, niacin, and biotin) are readily available. And if all of those sound familiar, they’re in the foods you eat too and are good for you.
Risks to Avoid
Since dogs have a vastly different digestive system and nutritional needs than humans, their food is tailored to them and not us. This leads to some issues when it comes to cracking open a can of chow for dinner. For example, humans need Vitamin C for healthy skin and a functioning immune system (without it, scurvy sets in), and since humans can’t produce it, we have to obtain it from our food. Dogs can make Vitamin C in their livers, so it is rarely intentionally added to dog food. That said, typical ingredients in most of the dog foods sampled are carrots, green beans, and potatoes, all of which are very high in Vitamin C.
Another health issue found in dog food is Vitamin K3. Known by a lot of names (look for words like dimethylprimidinol, menadione, and/or bisulfate), menadione is toxic to humans in its synthetic form. But only in large quantities, which is rare to find in canned dog food, because dogs can produce the vitamin with bacteria found in their intestines, so it is really not needed. In fact, none of the brands we acquired contained Vitamin K3 or even mentioned the food was a source of Vitamin K.
As with anything, not all dog food is equal, and the cans of food procured for this story were picked at random at a pet store, all around the $3 a can price. That said, these are not the mushy puppy chow you’d find for 60 cents at a discount store, food that’s probably more beaks and bones than real protein and vegetables.
The aforementioned foodborne illnesses can happen with any food product, especially human, so your fears of getting sick eating dog food are valid, as they are with literally any food you consume. If you have concerns that the dog food you’re about to ingest might have been contaminated at the factory, the FDA maintains a list of pet food recall notices at www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/recalls-withdrawals. As of this writing, none of our examples were on the list for 2021-2022.
Above: The squishy glop of Whole Hearted’s Beef and Chicken Dinner was difficult to swallow, as its consistency overpowered any appealing flavor. There might be chicken in it.
Reading the Label
For marketing purposes and to fool consumers into thinking they’re getting more than they’re paying for, pet food manufactures use words on the labels that are highly regulated by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). Because many consumers purchase a product based on the presence of a specific ingredient, many product names incorporate the name of an ingredient to highlight its inclusion in the product. There are the 95%, 25%, and 3% (with) and “Flavor” rules.
95% Rule: This applies to products that contain 95 percent or more of the named ingredient. The cans will usually tout this in big letters on the label. “Beef for Dogs” or “Chicken Cat Food.” It’s tricky to discern what percentage of meats are included. The closest in honesty is Acana’s Pork Recipe in Bone Broth with 85 percent “Premium Animal Ingredients,” but those words mean nothing, as “animal ingredients” can mean any and every part of any animal.
25% Rule: Also known as the “dinner” rule, this applies to most of the cans in this story. “Beef Dinner for Dogs,” “Chicken Entrée” or “Salmon Recipe” means that at least 25 percent of the named meats must be in the food. This is shown on the Purina Pro Plan label as it is a “Chicken & Vegetable Entrée.”
3% Rule: Sometimes called the “with” rule, this states that any food label that contains “with” in the description must contain no less than 3 percent of the meat listed. Common examples include “Made with Chicken” and “Dog Food with Beef.” Note Merrick’s Cowboy Cookout: “With Beef…” is right on the label, as it is on Hill’s Science Diet: “Savory Stew With Chicken …”
“Flavor” Rule: If the label has the word “flavor” in the same font size and color as the ingredient name, the manufacturer is not required to put a certain amount of the ingredient in the food. In fact, the ingredient can be any form of the meat listed, which can include the actual meat, any byproduct of the meat, or the broth of the meat. No cans in this story fall under this guideline, thankfully.
Above: Above: Based on the picture on the can, hopes were high to ride into flavor country with Merrick’s Cowboy Cookout. And although it was a smooth taste with pronounced hints of beef and vegetables, it could stand for some spices.
Taste Test
People throughout history have consumed dog food, whether it was a dare from a cousin, a heartbreaking need from poverty or lack of available food, or as a publicity stunt to sell products. In fact, the term “dogfooding” in business means to use one’s own products, its origins perhaps from a story that the president of Kal Kan Pet Food used to eat a can of the company’s dog food at shareholders’ meetings.
If you’re on the brink of starvation and the pantry is bare, save for a few cans of puppy chow, it’ll be likely you won’t be too picky. Open a can and stave off Old Man Death for another day. However, if given a choice, and to satisfy a sick curiosity, which of the 10 cans of dog food smell and taste the best? We broke down the cans into four groups — beef, chicken, fish, and pork — with most of the examples (five) in the beef category, three in chicken, and one each in fish and pork.
Above: This is the one. Hill’s Science Diet Savory Stew with Chicken & Vegetables is the Author’s Pick for best tasting. Out of the 10 examples tasted, it had the best flavor, reasonable texture, and a consistency similar to an actual beef stew.
Beef: The beef flavors are more appetizing, probably because they look the most like made-for-human stew, featuring strips and chunks of beef mixed with less vegetables than you might expect based on the picture on the cans. The chunks of beef are sizable and easy to eat. The beef by itself is soft, palpable, and require very little chewing as they mush easily in your mouth like wet croutons. The flavors are mild, bordering on bland, but the nose-punching smell more than makes up for the lack of spice. The pâté example — Solid Gold’s Beef Recipe — was particularly difficult to eat, like trying to choke down warm beef-tinted ice cream that just squished between your teeth and matted up on the back of your tongue. It had a semi-sweet dough taste.
The Just Food for Dogs Beef and Russet Potato Recipe wins the award for the most vegetables, but again, the pâté texture of the beef was lathered over everything. Blue Buffalo’s Blue’s Stew resembled actual stew the closest. The beef chunks were a little tougher and the potatoes and carrots were sizable, giving the impression of a normal meal. The sauce was nearly flavorless but hinted of potatoes and butter.
Expectations were high for Merrick’s Cowboy Cookout and Wellness’s Hearty Cuts in Gravy (beef and venison), only because the pictures on the cans looked relatively appetizing (and “Cowboy Cookout” sounds cool!), and although the textures didn’t match any steak we’d ever eaten, at least it offered a mellow, earthy, grassy charm without the stale cardboard aftertaste left by the others like the Just Food for Dogs example.
Above: Purina’s Pro Plan Chicken and Vegetable Entrée tastes chalky. The chicken strips were reminiscent of thick noodles drenched in beef broth.
Chicken: The three chicken samples (technically Whole Hearted’s sample was chicken and beef) couldn’t have been any different. For starters, Whole Hearted’s Beef and Chicken Dinner Minced in Gravy was a slushy pâté that coats your mouth like sticky mashed potatoes; it’s creamy and doesn’t require any chewing, which makes it difficult to tell if there’s any chicken and/or beef in it. Its overall taste was similar to mild baby food. Expect little flavor from the chicken examples, especially Purina’s Pro Plan, aside from a slightly sour, nutty experience, like grandma’s chicken casserole where the only flavor she adds is a little salt.
Hill’s Science Diet Savory Stew with Chicken & Vegetables gets the most points for visual appeal. It honestly looks like stew, though the chunks of chicken look like beef but taste like the closest thing to chicken of the three cans. If it was served piping hot from a camp stove on a cold mountain-air night, with the right spices added, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between its raw vegetal beany flavors and regular human stew. Hands down the winner in flavor, texture, and appearance.
Above: If you like the taste of wet cardboard mushed together by an ice cream scoop, then Solid Gold’s Beef Recipe is for you. It’s shockingly dry for such a wet food.
Salmon: Of the 10 cans of dog food available, the Canidae Salmon & Sweet Potato Recipe is the worst. The creamy texture and mushy stickiness overwhelm any normal tastes you’d expect. You can feel the buttery oiliness wash over your mouth, and it smells like salmon more than it tastes like salmon. It fills the mouth with a bready and doughy flavor like thick unbaked cake. Even if you’re starving, eat this one last.
Pork: There was only one can of pork dog food available at the pet store we visited so there was nothing really to compare it to except for, you know, pork chops on the grill. Surprisingly, Acana’s Pork Recipe in Bone Broth was closer than we thought. The strips, though easily broke down under the slightest teeth pressure, were a little rubbery with a mild aftertaste like bland baked beans and flour. The hints of carrots and pieces of cranberries, pumpkin, and blueberries provides a sweetness we weren’t expecting, giving the whole flavor spectrum a surprisingly pleasing quality (relatively speaking). With some added spices and maybe a few more potatoes, this would make a fine stew.
Above: Just Food for Dogs’ Beef and Russet Potato Recipe had the most vegetables in it but its overall flavor was underwhelming, similar to an overly wet casserole. It tastes like quiche, made by someone who doesn’t know how to make quiche.
Quiz: Which Would You Eat?
In each of these two pictures, there’s a plate of dog food and a plate of people food. Without trying to guess which is which, of the four plates of food, ask yourself which looks more appetizing. Do the chunks of beef drizzled in a lather of gravy and speckled with carrots and potatoes look better than the plate of beans with ham chunks, carrots, and slices of celery? What about the lentils served in an olive oil sauce of organic potatoes and onions?
If you were presented these four plates at a dinner party, which would you take? A? B? C? D? Answers appear immediately below this photo.
Answers: A. Dog food. Blue Buffalo Blue’s Stew; B. People food. Amy’s Organic Lentil Soup; C. Dog food. Just Food For Dogs’ Beef and Russet Potato Recipe; D. People food. Campbell’s Chunky Hearty Bean and Ham Soup
Conclusion
Having brushed our teeth and rinsed with some mouthwash, we were reminded that dogs have been eating people food for thousands of years and thriving. In just over 150 years, dogs went from table scraps and leftovers to harmful kibble to top-notch wet canned food that uses human-grade meat (nearly in some cases), USDA-approved production methods, and the highest level of safety standards set forth by the AAFCO. Dog food has come a long way, and as quality increases, advancement in food technology develops, soon a can of dog food might be indiscernible from a can of human stew.
Overall, if you were in a situation where the grocery stores have been picked clean, head on over to the dog food aisle (better yet, hit the pet store as it will likely be overlooked by the hordes of hysterical panic shoppers) and look for the expensive cans of dog food that are produced by niche companies that tout real meat and high-quality vegetables. You’ll likely have a pretty good meal, something survival snobs might have passed over (and starved to death).
Welcome back to our dive into the world of gear! In this edition of Gear Up, we explore the latest innovations and reliable classics that are key to staying prepared for any challenge. From cutting-edge technology to time-tested tools, our focus is on equipping you with insights and information that keep you one step ahead wherever the journey of life may take you. Whether you're bracing for the unknown or fine-tuning your preparedness kit, join us as we unpack the must-haves for this month.
Miller Bros Blades M-4
NOTES That's not a knife. This is a knife! Miller Bros Blades is what happens when a group of makers listens to their hearts and acts accordingly. Focusing on overbuilt knives and swords, they create a product with jaw-dropping aesthetics that can be put to the test without worrying about damage. The M-4 is a serious chopper with a back sharpened blade designed to cut no matter which way it’s swung. Composed of Z-Wear PM steel, it has a durability and toughness that exceeds many standard stainless steel grades. The sheath is designed to endure whatever beatings it may be exposed to and is equipped with a leather back carrying system so you can rock the M-4 in the field with style. And at 26 inches in total length, you’ll never have to worry about getting through dense vegetation, processing firewood, or holding off the zombie horde ever again.
NOTES Inspired by the M-1951 field jacket issued by the U.S. Army, the LRB M1951 – Boreal Field Jacket upgrades the design with several unique additions. Designed and handmade by a company located in the north woods of Minnesota, this jacket is crafted to endure some of the most extreme cold conditions. Made of premium wool, secured with high-quality snaps, and featuring numerous 200 denier cordura pockets, the jacket has just as much functionality as it does durability. The outer pockets make for easy access to any necessities, and the inner pockets ensure that sensitive items are kept secure and warm. Primarily constructed of wool, it’s naturally flame retardant, has antimicrobial properties, and can keep the wearer warm even when wet. Built to last, right here in the USA by talented craftsmen and women.
NOTES Outdoor pants have a tendency to stand out as such, typically covered in pockets, and designed for all of those out of the way places. For many outdoor enthusiasts, this means having two completely different wardrobes: one for recreating and one for taking care of business around town. Pnuma’s Pathfinder Pants go in a slightly different direction by designing pants that can stand up to the most demanding mountain hikes, all while offering aesthetics suitable for a day at the office. Four-way stretch nylon is durable, fast wicking, and articulated for maximum range of motion. Deep front and back pockets will hold the everyday essentials and keep all of your handheld valuables safe. These are pants made and designed by folks who understand the rigors of the outdoors and are constantly seeking ways to improve how their customers experience it.
NOTES “Bruk” is Swedish for “factory,” and the Hults factory has been forging steel axes for over three centuries. With literally hundreds of years of experience to lean on, the Almike is an all-purpose tool with loads of potential. From processing wood for camping or survival, to landscaping around the house, the nearly 3-inch razor sharp cutting edge will make quick work of whatever task is at hand. The ax head is hand-forged from Swedish ax steel, and tempered to hold its edge even after repeated sharpenings. Head blackened to help further resist corrosion and a hand- polished cutting edge to glide effortlessly through timber, you’ll feel the quality of craftsmanship with every swing. Included with each ax is a leather sheath with a loop to hang on your belt, and the 16-inch American hickory handle is conditioned with linseed oil and professionally engraved with the Hults Bruk logo.
NOTES Most of us cannot sit around all day observing a specific area for critters or trespassers. But constantly checking a trail camera often comes with several complications. Visit an area too often, and you’re likely to scare off your target. Go too infrequently, and you may not get the right photos when you need it. Moultrie solves this dilemma by offering an inexpensive, remote solution. With a basic subscription that would make Secretary Hamilton smile, photos and video can be retrieved on your cell phone no matter where you are in the country. Built-in memory eliminates the need for SD cards, with unlimited cloud storage available with an upgraded subscription. View your photos in 33mp resolution, and watch your videos in 720p clarity, day or night. IR LEDs help capture night images out to 80 feet, and the camera can operate up to 12 months before the batteries need to be swapped out.
NOTES Having a reliable, robust container is something most people overlook as essential until they become needed. Items become a disheveled, unorganized heap in the absence of storage. Step 22 seeks to solve this problem by making some seriously rugged storage options, and the Tamarin Trunk does just that. Constructed of 500 denier C.R.A.W.L. (Coated Rugged All-Weather Layer) makes a rigid, yet flexible bag, capable of housing heavy tools or protecting sensitive electronics. Grab handles on all sides allow for quick retrieval no matter where it’s stored and are reinforced to move heavy loads without breaking. As a bonus, a portion of every dollar spent at Step 22 goes to wildlife conservation. In this case, proceeds go to help the highly endangered Cotton-Top Tamarins of Columbia, which is pretty admirable.
NOTES Knives could very well be the most useful tool ever created. Chopping, piercing, and slicing are all functions with innumerable applications. Fixed blades have their place, but in many circumstances it’s impractical, and potentially illegal, to carry an immovable piece of sharpened steel in a belt sheath for all the world to see. This is where folding knives like the 3.5-inch Engage from Cold Steel really shines through. Less than 5 inches long when the blade is in its folded configuration, it fits snuggly in most pockets, out of sight and out of mind from the casual observer. Fully extended, just over 8 inches, the Engage becomes a serious powerhouse for handling all sorts of tasks. Cold Steel’s trademarked Atlas locking system keeps the blade safely fixed until it’s ready to be put away again. Made from S35VN stainless steel for corrosion resistance, toughness, and edge retention.
NOTES Although it’s a seriously cool endeavor, locating metallic objects isn’t just a goal for treasure hunters. Beneath the ground are countless municipal cables, electric wires, and gas lines that can cause severe havoc if unwittingly disrupted. Storms and floods can rearrange those hazards in an instant. Even more disturbing is the fact that there could be millions of unaccounted munitions buried in countries all around the globe. Which makes the affordable Vanquish line of metal detectors from Minelab a product to pay attention to. The Vanquish 540 Pro Pack, in particular, comes with two, waterproof coil sizes to accommodate various search tasks, a Bluetooth headset and rechargeable batteries. Minelab’s Muli-IQ technology allows the user to scan for multiple metals in a variety of soils simultaneously, and the display makes it easy for the average user to quickly figure out what’s being detected. Robust, waterproof, and lightweight, it’s a potent metal detecting tool.
NOTES Fire is arguably the most essential of survival tools, especially when temperatures plummet. One fire-starting misconception is that carrying a lighter will easily solve that problem. The problem with sparks and butane is that cold temperature severely inhibits its ability to light properly. Zippo lighters circumvent this problem with the use of a wick; however, holding on to the metal case of a Zippo in frigid temps can be a recipe for contact freezing. Thyrm solves this problem with the new and improved version of their Pyro Vault. By taking the Zippo insert and placing it inside Thyrm’s Pyro Vault, you end up with instant fire in a durable and finger-friendly exoskeleton. Its full gasket seal keeps the elements out, the lanyard hole offers better retention in the field, and it comes with a wad of Tinder-Quick that can be used to get a fire roaring in the backcountry.
NOTES Not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill smart watch. In addition to keeping the time, it’s a personal trainer, a navigational tool, a weather station, and much more. This impressive piece of tech is loaded with features that cover a wide range of sports activities and fitness workouts and uses biometric sensors to assist in optimizing your overall health. When paired with a phone, it subtly notifies you when a message is received and can sync with your calendar to remind you of important events or when a package arrives. Track stocks, get weather alerts, and alert first responders of an emergency, the list of features is quite extensive. What really makes this smart watch unique compared to others is that Garmin has found a clever way to extend its already long battery life by incorporating solar cells into the face of the watch. So while you’re being active or just out and about for the day, the watch is catching some rays and filling its battery backup.
NOTES There’s a huge selection of dehydrated, or freeze-dried food these days. Some of them hold up better than others. Spy Briefing’s survival food has a lot of product testing and forethought going into each meal kit to maximize freshness and shelf life. Jason Hanson, a prior service CIA officer, wanted to create a product he could trust would keep his family fed and healthy should the need ever arise. Each pouch makes enough for eight servings, and a single meal kit provides 64 servings, including Beef Skillet Dinner, Cajun Rice and Beans, Italian Pasta Marinara, Southwest Chicken and Rice, BBQ Beef Meal, Taco Rice Skillet, Goulash, Caribbean Rice and Beans, and a couple of extras. The kits can be ordered in higher quantities to receive a discounted price, and Hanson even throws in some useful reading to bolster your preparedness knowledge.
NOTES How do you store your ammo? Are boxes of random calibers stacked in a corner of the bedroom? Or maybe they’re in cases that you have to double check each time you go to the range. An alternative solution to ammo can confusion is to keep them organized with an attractive label. Redacted’s Ammo Can Indicator Slaps will not only keep your brass ducks in an organized row, but they’ll look great to boot. The labels are attractive, can be written on with markers or pen, and are cleanable to accommodate any re-labeling for multiple uses. Order them to suit your needs, in a variety of calibers and quantities.
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Bad situations are often the foundation for good ideas. In 2008, Zach, the founder of CANA Provisions, was working alongside Engineers Without Borders in Cameroon. This African country was torn apart by decades of economic crisis, war, and disease. Clean water — a resource most of us take for granted every day — was difficult to obtain in rural areas, and this led to outbreaks of preventable illnesses such as typhoid. Zach's team worked to build and install water collection and treatment systems in the village of Nkuv, but he eventually returned home to America, where such systems didn't seem essential. But 12 years later, while participating in a Tactical Urban Sustainment Course (TUSC) at the revered training center known as the Direct Action Resource Center (DARC), Zach realized that some of his prior experience was still relevant for emergency preparedness. This led him to develop the CANA Provisions AR-1, a portable water pump that's designed to help families and small groups obtain clean water more efficiently.
Development of the CANA Provisions AR-1
To understand the AR-1, it's important to understand the event that sparked its creation. DARC TUSC is a week-long course that “addresses some of the tactics and techniques that could be utilized by a small cohesive group to secure their assets and survive during a period of political, social and economic instability with localized recurrent levels of violence where the rule of law is absent or virtually nonexistent.” Many who have made it through the TUSC program consider it a harrowing but enlightening experience, and this was certainly the case for Zach. He refers to his experience as “an exercise in human suffering” — a major wake-up call about the reality of disaster preparedness.
Above: In emergencies, bottled water prices typically skyrocket, if it's available at all. It's a good idea to have a backup plan for obtaining large quantities of water from a nearby source.
One of Zach's duties during TUSC was to obtain and purify enough water for his whole team. He quickly realized that scooping water from the swamp, filtering out the sediment and debris, and purifying it in the field to produce 10 to 15 gallons of safe drinking water per day was impossible with the equipment he brought. This was a huge problem, and one that remained on his mind after the class ended.
Water collection and purification requires flow from the source to the clean water container. Hand pumps and filter bottles can be effective for smaller amounts of water, but producing large amounts is tedious and labor-intensive. Gravity filters are another option, but they're painfully slow and sensitive to clogged filters.
Above: The chassis was designed to support the pump and fittings for standalone use in harsh environments.
In order to accelerate the process, Zach began experimenting with various commercially-available water pumps. Many existing pumps could produce sufficient water flow, but were designed for in-place use or permanent installation. Mobile use would require a more durable, rugged housing. These off-the-shelf pumps were also designed to run on clean, stable electrical power — such as what you'll get from a wall outlet — and lacked the electronic “brain” necessary to accept power from a variety of mobile sources (car batteries, Goal Zero power stations, etc.). So, Zach used his engineering knowledge to develop a variable-pressure, diaphragm-based water pump system that could be used almost anywhere on Earth.
AR-1 Features
The CANA Provisions AR-1 is described as “everything you need in one kit to get started moving water.” The product description continues, “From source to container, container to container, pressurizing a pre-plumbed system, or feeding a filter — moving water is what the AR-1 does. No more hand pumping, no more siphoning, no more dunking containers in the pond.” The kit will serve as the foundation for a modular ecosystem of water collection and purification components to be offered by CANA Provisions.
The AR-1 pump is contained in an impact-resistant chassis with IP65 dust-proof and weather-resistant seals. It features Anderson 15-45A electrical connectors, a user-serviceable 10A fuse, and all the electronics necessary to safely regulate power from a variety of off-grid sources. The pump pulls only 3.5A at 12V during normal operation, so it can easily run on a portable power station such as a Goal Zero Yeti or any other 12V style battery (LiPo, LiFePO4, Li-Ion, SLA, AGM). Built-in vibration dampeners allow it to operate almost silently, even if it's hard-mounted to a trailer or overland truck.
To feed the CANA Provisions AR-1, you'll need to connect the included quick-detach 10-foot inlet hose and drop the end into a nearby water source. Then, connect the outlet hose via another QD socket, route it into your preferred water container, and flip the power switch on the pump. The AR-1 produces approximately 3 gallons (or 11.3 liters) per minute of water flow, and its dual in-line strainers filter out particles and debris. Pressure is adjustable up to 55psi.
If you're planning to use the water for drinking or washing, you should also pass it through a secondary purifier (such as the LifeSaver Jerrycan) to eliminate bacteria and other waterborne pathogens. Chemical purification, boiling, or distillation are also viable options. In any of these cases, the AR-1 eliminates the exhausting task of scooping and pre-filtering buckets of water to feed the purifier.
Building an Ecosystem
CANA Provisions describes the AR-1 as the “first and most crucial component of the modular CANA Ecosystem.” Although we're not able to announce details yet, we've heard that the company is working to develop accessories that will streamline the water purification process, allowing users to eventually pump straight from a dirty source into a clean water tank. The AR-1 could also be used to quickly pressurize water vessels for rinsing gear, from surfboards to mountain bikes, or could even be used to generate water pressure for an overland trailer or tiny home. We're looking forward to seeing how this ecosystem evolves to cover more applications.
For more information on the new CANA Provisions AR-1, go to CANA-Provisions.com.
