At 7 vs. Wild, all candidates struggled with hunger. However, in the new Behind the Scenes, the natives show that there were many plants at the filming location that could have been eaten.
Why did the participants have to starve? Above all, the participants did not know what they could eat on site. Although the candidates were shown in a briefing before the exposure which plants were edible and which were not, the participants probably did not dare to eat large quantities of the wild plants in the series due to fear of food poisoning.
The candidates also had little luck with animals: While one or two participants were probably hoping for trout in ponds, only Jens “Knossi” Knossalla and Sascha Huber actually had any luck catching fish in the series. Small animals such as rabbits or birds were hardly available for consumption.
One of the participants in season 3 is the Twitch streamer Jens “Knossi” Knossalla. You can see more about him in our video.
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Hunger leaves its mark
What impact did hunger have on the participants? The Nature Sons team is probably one of the big losers when it comes to food. The two outdoor professionals found hardly any food on site, apart from a few berries. As a result, Gerrit from the Sons of Nature became increasingly worse. Ultimately, the lack of food led to the team being eliminated.
Other teams also had problems with food supplies. Although the teams occasionally caught small fish and ate one or two berries, none of the teams got that much.
In particular, the local plants that were shown to the teams during the briefing were apparently hardly touched. A bite of some seaweed was enough for most candidates to last two weeks.
The participants put their money on fishing and are disappointed
How did the participants prepare for food gathering? Most teams focused on fishing during their preparation. This is because the candidates had different expectations when it came to the filming location. Fritz Meinecke has made several critical comments about the filming location; he personally would understand Canada as something different. He had already settled for production beforehand.
The Trymacs and Rumathra team explained in a behind-the-scenes episode that they had extra laxatives because they wanted to eat bark. But that never happened in the series.
You can watch the entire “Behind the Scenes” episode here.
Residents of the islands show what was edible
Which berries could you eat? The inhabitants of the islands from the T’lat’lasikwala tribe showed in the last “Behind the Scenes” episode that there is plenty of food on the islands.
Starting with the salal berry, which is eaten again and again during the show. According to myfitnesspal, it offers 4 kcal per berry. The participants would have to eat around 500 – 600 berries a day to cover their daily requirements. According to Jan Schlappen, the berry tastes like a blueberry and also looks similar.
According to the residents, there were around half a dozen other berries, but we couldn’t see them in the series. But they would also have been edible.
Which plants could you eat? The 7 vs. Wild participants were also able to eat some water plants. Seaweed and sea asparagus also appeared in the participants’ spots. The seaweed is said to taste somewhat like salty salad and can simply be picked up from the ground and eaten.
Sea asparagus, also known as “samphire”, is also edible raw and grows where the sea comes and goes with the tide. The plant is also used in German cuisine as sea asparagus or Friesian herb, especially in northern Germany. It should be tasty, although quite salty. The fake asparagus was featured in large numbers in the “Behind the Scenes” episode. It can therefore be assumed that some participants also had some on site.
Here you can see some of the plants we report on.
Another plant is the so-called kelp, an algae that grows underwater in kelp forests. The plant is reminiscent of a hose, especially because it is hollow in the middle. According to t-online, it is considered a specialty, especially in Japan, and is rich in iodine, iron, calcium and provitamin A. However, the leaves of the plant and not the tuberous stem should be consumed. This is a different type of seaweed.
The last edible plant that the participants could have found is bladderwrack, or “bladderwrack” in English. It is named after its bubble shape and is a brown algae. This algae is also edible raw. The chef shown in the “Behind the Scenes” episode makes a salad out of it.
What about animals? There are said to be no small animals such as rabbits on Hope Island because of the many wolves. According to Fritz Meinecke, killing wolves or even bears was forbidden. Trymacs said in a stream that, according to the organizing team, there were also frogs that could be eaten, but the teams did not do that because of the risk of poisoning.
Sascha and Knossi caught a lot of fish. According to the residents, there is supposed to be salmon, halibut and cod as well as various shellfish.
The teams also caught some small sea creatures such as crabs. But there was no trout lake, as some participants imagined. Candidates were banned from catching molluscs such as mussels because of the Red Tide algae plague after a team caused panic.