Food is often the difference between surviving in the wild and not. And for years, the Internet has claimed that it's figured out survival food hacks that will not just help you survive, but thrive! But which of these will actually work? Which are safe, and which should never be attempted? That's why I'm bringing in wilderness and survival expert Coyote Peterson to put these to the test. Coyote, where do we begin? I always like to start with fire. There are many different ways to start fire, from friction, your magnifying glass to. harness the power of the sun to start a flame. And supposedly, if you've got a bag of Doritos, you can start a fire.

I always feel like they start a fire in my tummy when I eat them! Let's test it. You got this. I see flame on the Dorito. Oh, there we go! There we go! Okay, that Dorito is definitely on fire. Wow! That's working shockingly well. Flamin' Hot Doritos. That's my favorite kind. Oh, yeah, we're good now! We made fire! From Doritos! Does it work? Yes, it does. Is it safe? I mean, relatively. Would I trust this?

This one's got me a little stumped. That's insane! Cook a cheeseburger on this. I wouldn't ever probably dump out all my Doritos into a fire like that. But see the inside of the Dorito bag? It's silver. You can use this as something to flash and signal at an airplane or somebody to let them know that you're in danger. You can also use this to put water in, or if you injure your hand, you could wrap this up to keep it dry and make sure that you didn't get any infection into those cuts. I'm going to go double thumbs up on this one. That's pretty cool. That's a thumbs up! So we have bread on a stick.

Now, how the heck is this going to work? If you're in a survival situation where you somehow find yourself with flour, water, salt, baking powder, you can make bread. Oh, yeah. You also need a Ziploc bag. Massage it, knead it throughout the bag. Make sure that water is evenly distributed. Let's see how we're looking. It is beginning to look like dough. This dough could really use some more hydration. But you take your dough and you wrap it around a stick or a log. I like this rig.

This is a good rig here. You're going to set this over an open flame, being careful not to burn it, rotating it occasionally until it's baked throughout. Took about 20 to 30 minutes, and we have Bigfoot's toe. Yeah, I'll try it. Looks pretty good. Oh, it's actually quite soft. Breaking bread here. Wow! Actually really good. Now, do you have butter in your pocket as well as salt, Josh? Josh! No! This one works. I mean, the bread tastes good. If you had, like, something to eat with this, it'd probably be even better.

I think it's got some bitter elements from the smoke that's hit it for so long, but overall, I mean, it's safe, it works. I would trust it if I had all these things. Camping hack. Not necessarily a survival hack, but we're gonna say thumbs up. Okay. So there are obviously smaller versions of cooking an animal, right? You can cut it up, maybe you have segments of an animal, whatever. But what if you have a whole bird?

Say, a whole chicken, supposedly. If you take the chicken. Who needs a glove? And you set it on a stick. This is the first time I've ever seen this. Place a bucket, ideally a metal bucket, over the chicken. What's the next step? I think we're supposed to lean burning logs against the bucket so that the heat cooks the chicken. There's a lot of residual heat, but that wouldn't be enough to heat it. Now that you've put the coal base on top of the bucket, on the other hand, I think you have tons of downward heat. So,

what I think will happen is we'll end up with a half-cooked chicken that's mostly burnt and then raw the rest of the way. I think that if either of us try to eat any of this chicken, we're going to get extremely sick. Coyote, I think you're wrong. I'm going to say we got a 50% cooked chicken, possibly 75%. And is it okay to eat 75% cooked chicken? No. I guess we'll find out.

This takes a while to cook, so we're going to check on this at the very end of the video. So in the meantime, let's move on to the next hack. So you've stumbled upon a can of unmarked soup. Great! You can eat the soup, but you can also use the can to turn it into a stove to heat the soup. This feels kind of dumb. I feel like you could just put something in a fire and call it a day. We're here to test it. I've got a lot of problems with what this one is.

The biggest risk that you would face in cutting apart a can like this is that you might accidentally slice your hand open, and then you're in a worst-case scenario. Let's get the soup out. Slop it on in there. So now, if you built a fire and you put that into the fire, it could be fantastic, but you can technically put some wood or some charcoal inside of it and light that, heat it up, and then we've got warm tomato soup. Or if you need to boil water to then drink it. This is true. Did you bring anything for grilled cheese? So after everything's said and done, this feels more like a weapon than it does a stove.

Assuming you have some coals in there and you got some wood. Okay. Pan goes on. Just like when I used to live under that bridge before my YouTube channel was cranking views! Does it work? Yeah, sort of. Is it safe? No. It doesn't look real safe to me. It's just a smoke bomb now. This pan is going to look bad after this. I can almost guarantee you, though. It smells terrible. Oh, my gosh! Thumbs down. Is this supposed to be flaming that much?

Somebody call the fire department! This one's out of control! So if you're somehow lucky enough to have a bunch of tools with you, but you don't have a grill, maybe there's a way to make a makeshift grill. This is really a question of: can you make something high-quality and enjoyable here? A lot of these hacks just kind of get you by, but this one might actually help us properly thrive. Supposedly, all you need is a disposable sheet pan, a wire rack, and some hot coals. Burger time. Chef! I'm a little skeptical that we're gonna be able to cook these patties all the way through, but I guess we'll see what's gonna happen.

With the kinds of foods you're normally preparing, I don't know if this is like grade-A Wagyu or something like that. No, it's just from H-E-B. Diamond Kosher, the best salt brand in the world. I may not have drinking water, I may not have any clothes, but I will have Diamond Kosher salt. Okay. You know, I can actually. I can hear some sizzling happening. I think these are actually going to cook. How long? Look at that! We got some flame going!

It's actually too much flame. Oh, my God! Okay, this is actually working shockingly well. It's the actual fat that's leaking out of the burger that's helping these coals build up a little bit of flame. My one goal here is when I flip this, I just want an amazing Maillard. I want to flip it, and I want you to be like, "Oh, my God!" What's a Maillard? That looks pretty good. That looks good. That's Maillard, baby! Okay. Hypothetically, anything that is metal and/or very, very heatproof, that could handle coals in it and any form of metal mesh that

won't let things fall through, it should work. What if you want a cheeseburger? Oh, this guy came prepared! Let's go. The finishing touch, the cheese. I mean, this is not bad looking, guys. I'm pretty impressed. Cheers to Josh! Cheers! Josh's Juicy Burgers. Oh, wow! That's actually really good. Yeah. That is insane how juicy that is! Does it work? Yes. Is it safe? Yes. Would I rely on it In a moment? If I was driving out somewhere and I didn't have a grill, but I was planning on grilling, I probably would have all of these things already on hand.

I'd give it a pass. But like, in the world of survival, how are we going to survive with this? Yeah, I think we give it a mid. Moving on. So in a survival situation, if you come across water, it's obviously going to sustain life. But you can't just drink water out of any source because there could be all sorts of bacteria and amoebas in it. So you would want to boil water. Now, supposedly there is a hack where you can put water in a paper cup, put it in the fire, and then get that water to boil. Think this is gonna work? I'm skeptical. I mean, it's a paper cup. Let's see if we can get that water to boil. That's 1,000% on fire!

The water's changing color. That is impressive. Everything is burning around the actual water itself. Oh, wow! Yeah, that's pretty. pretty warm. That's pretty warm. However, given the fact that we have all these chemicals that probably seeped into the water. Let's give you a thumbs down. Look at that! We found an egg. It might be an eagle egg. Now, for this hack, we're going to show you how to use an egg to cook an egg. This sounds clinically insane. You take a toothpick and the goal is to remove essentially just the skullcap, so to speak, of the egg. So we don't have a saw, we don't have anything sharp enough to cut it, but we have a thumbtack somehow.

Well, you've got one shot at this. It's got the chef's touch, so. Oh! Oh, you got this! No one taught me this in any of the restaurants. Well, there is a device to do this with, actually. Really? You don't carry that around in your camping stuff, but you have a thumbtack? Well, this is a survival situation. Nice. Okay. Well done. Not bad. Well, let's cook it. Okay. We have sticks. The sticks are supposed to support this, and this is essentially gonna sit on the ground and turn into a fire.

How? We're gonna put oil inside of the egg, and then we're gonna shove a paper towel in there. And then you can light the paper towel, and it will burn off of the oil. Vegetable oil care package! Please! You are dead before this happens, 100%. Now, you could have camping fuel. That feels like an appropriate amount. Feeling good about this. Look at that! Okay, got that paper towel. All right. Hopefully this works. If there's a will, there's a way. It is lit!

Nobody move! Ooh, it's boiling! I haven't. had a pheasant egg like this since 1983. I can't tell when you're telling a real story or if you're making. I believe in almost anything you say. Yeah, but a good story sometimes can help the time pass faster when you're in a survival situation. Once we got the fire going the right way, it is cooking the egg. So I'm gonna mix it around a little bit, make sure that we're just not getting stuck to the bottom of the.

Cup? Oh, it's definitely gonna be stuck. Oh, it's a little fried on the bottom. It's actually kind of nice! That's nice. Now we're soft scrambling. It's scrambled pretty nicely. I mean, it's egg, and scrambled, it's not really cooked. Go for it. It's not bad. Oh, no! That's horrible! Oh. No. Oh, my God, it's gross! What are you talking about? Does it work? Is it safe?

I guess, sort of. But like, would I trust this? How. I give it mid because I enjoyed building this, and the fire's still going. But hey, in a worst-case scenario, if you had some animal fat and an egg in your bag, you could build this fire. The more you explain this, the more I'm realizing this is incredibly dumb. Yeah. Moving on. You're in the wild. You got a heat source, you got fire. Great! But you might need to cook something, like a piece of meat or a steak. Like this wild boar that we killed off-camera and that we've cut this nice piece of meat out of. That was crazy how you killed it with your bare hands and no tools or weapons whatsoever!

Yeah. So, obviously, you would season it with a little bit of Diamond Kosher. Of course, because you carry that everywhere. Carry it everywhere! If you were to put a rock into your fire and let it sit for long enough, it would get very hot. And supposedly, that should cook your meat. That's a good sound. Are we going for a medium-rare here? I think so, yeah. Okay. I'm the chef now. We're gonna flip. Ooh, it's cooking, but it doesn't have any.

Maillard. No. Maillard. This is a gray-ass piece of meat, but I mean, at the end of the day, we're trying to survive here. And it's just wild boar. All right, well, we got it. We got a little piece here. looks nice. Actually tastes pretty good. No, it's not bad. It's juicy. Oh, yeah! Man, I don't hate that! I like the salt on it too. Good touch. A little chef's touch. So. I would give this. thumbs up.

I would as well. If you somehow have a can of Pringles, supposedly you can turn them into mashed potatoes. If you look at a Pringle, it's like pureed, compressed potatoes. So hypothetically, this should work. You crush it, you put it in a pot. Did you wash your hands before? I did not wash my hands, just so you know. Perfect. Little bit of water. I don't actually know how much to put in there. Oh yeah, it's boiling a little bit. My hope is that once it starts to boil, the dried potato will absorb the water, and then it will gain volume and be like a fluffy mashed potato.

See you in a sec. Honestly, this looks like scrambled egg. This is an unholy potato. Something about this isn't right. I feel like if I was out in the wild and I had a Snack Stack of Pringles, I'm not sure that I would break them down to this situation versus just eating them dry. But it seems like it's just going to be a salty watery- I didn't even think about that! Why the hell would you do that?! Just eat the Pringle! What are we doing here?! I like my Pringles dry, for sure. At first, I was like, "Well, hold on." And then my brain kicked in, it was like, "Stop, that's enough!"

Nothing about this is remotely like a mashed potato, except for maybe the gluey starchiness. It somehow made the Pringle taste about 50% less flavorful. What do we think? Does it work? Technically, it did work. The water did get absorbed into the Pringles crisps. Is it safe? Yes. Would you trust it. in a survival situation? I think you're just wasting a lot of time to make this in a survival situation.

Like I said, I'm just gonna stick with the water and ration out the crisps. That's a thumbs down. Sorry, Pringles. I'm not sorry! I'll never do this again. Moving on. In a survival situation, sometimes you don't want a rip-roaring fire. You want something a little smaller, a little intimate. Maybe a candle, per se. I heard that you can use animal fat and steel wool to make yourself a camp light. So we have a pan full of pork fat.

This is boar fat, my friend. It's definitely boar fat. That's gonna go into. a jar. And then you're gonna take some steel wool. Now you gotta wrap it around a rock. All right? So there is your weighted wick. You then drop it down. The real problem is that the fat is. pretty, like, wet still. I mean, let's just see if it lights. Yeah, let's just see what happens. I think you're better off saving it for. cooking.

Oh, yeah, for cooking, or just drinking the bacon fat. Thumbs down. So you've created boiling water, but now you need some nutrients. You know what makes great tea? Pine needles. This one maybe not a necessity survival hack. But also maybe you want to wind down, calm down a little bit. Now, you could hypothetically do this. It doesn't have to be in a teapot. It could be in a regular pot, it could be in a bowl.

Anything you could put on a fire. Right. Ever seen any of these? Delicious for making pine needle tea. So all of the sap that is inside those needles is going to seep out into that hot water. Lots of vitamin C in this too. It's all about confidence when you're stuck out there in a survival situation, and pine needle tea can be a huge move. We forget survival is also aiding the human spirit. So now we wait for it to steep. These are definitely going from vibrant green to a kind of off-brown color.

Yeah. So we've got our tea. I'll serve you first. Oh, look at that. Crystal clear. Kind of was hoping it would be green. A bunch of stuff floating in there. Doesn't smell all that great, does it? No, it doesn't. Let me know if it's super hot, because your glasses are also super hot. Maybe it is hot. Yeah, it's really hot. I just burnt the tip of my tongue. and it does not taste like pine needles at all.

It does not. I threw some extra pine needles in mine just now. A little topper. Oh! Oh, smell that. That is better. See, I'm treating it more like a tea. You got to be gentle with the tea, you know, a little better, a little more fragrant. Yeah. Just try not to get a pine needle in your mouth. But not bad. Adding the pine needles after the fact does enhance the flavor. And if you somehow had some sort of, like, a honey or something to add to this, and I needed to survive, this would calm me down.

I'm already feeling more relaxed. I kind of like this one. So does it work? I would say yes. Yeah. Is it safe? Yes. Would I trust it? So far, so good. That's a thumbs up. And now the time has finally come to unveil our chicken from earlier. Did it actually cook properly, or are we gonna get food poisoning? All right, this is the moment of truth. It's been cooking for about 45 minutes. Let's see. Is this gonna be a delicious golden rotisserie chicken, or are you gonna be eating raw bird? All right. Wow. It looks better up top than it does on the side.

Would you like to do the honors? I would love to do the honors. Let's just get a little bit of breast action here. It's pretty tender. Ooh! And juicy. Oh, yeah, that's cooked chicken right there. I cannot believe that actually worked. That's pretty good. In a survival situation, I wouldn't necessarily cook a chicken, but if you're-oh, I dropped my wing! I feel the wing is really good, but I really have my doubts for the lower part of the chicken. That's clear liquid, which is a really good sign.

It's. pink, but I think it's pink because of the cure, because you'll notice this is where all the red would gather. We've got a little bit of bloodiness here. a little raw there. Yeah, it could use a little bit more cook here. So basically, if you started cooking the chicken like this and then you. took it apart, used what you had remaining of the coals to finish off the chicken, you'd be in pretty good shape. So, okay, does it work? Yeah, technically, yes. Is it safe? Mostly. Would I trust it now that I've seen it? I kind of would. Now that I've seen it. Yeah.

I'm more of a believer. But just knowing that cooking a wild bird on an open fire, you can at least see what it is that you're doing. I think I'd give it a thumbs up. I think I'll give it a thumbs up, too. We cooked that for about 45 minutes. If we had let it go for maybe another 10 minutes, it would have cooked through. A big surprise, but not as surprising as this! Okay, Josh, so if you found yourself in a desert survival situation, there is a delicious fruit out there that you can eat called prickly pear, which I'm sure you know what that is.

But the problem with prickly pear fruit is that they have little spines all over them. So if you just took a bite, like an apple, your mouth would be full of those little irritating. spines. What you can actually use is your sock to filter out the juice. So, how do we go about that? Well, first thing you're gonna need is a sock. I got one right here already preloaded with prickly pear fruit. Nice. Well, wait a minute. Where did you get this? From the store.

Are you sure? The next thing you want to do is crush the fruit apart. You want to be the smasher? Sure. That's not a hamster in there, it's fruit. Trust me. All right, break it apart. Oh, yeah, buddy. Really get in there. Now we're getting all of that juice. wrung down to the bottom of the sock, and just like that. Go ahead, get your mouth in there. Get some berry juice. Oh, yeah, that's fresh right there, huh? Oh, it's great! Prickly pear fruit not only gives you a little bit of confidence, but also some vitamins and some nutrients. Sweet, isn't it?

It's actually really good. A little salty. What's that from? Probably just my toe jam. Well, out of all the hacks, I gotta be honest, this one works. It's safe. I would definitely trust this because you. likely will have a sock on. I mean, I don't think that's out of the question. This is a very realistic survival hack. I would use this. But. How. are we going to wash our hands? This is a really good idea.

Stream is. is good. Ah, they say I'm like a camel. Alright.