If you're lost in the woods with nothing, you don't start to look for food.
You can live without food for 3 weeks, and if you happen to eat something wrong, you can get violently ill or poisoned.
Here's what you do:
First you try to call for help, or wait for help, if you know someone is looking for you.
If not, you start to walk downhill (even if it's just a barely noticeable slope).
At some point you'll find water (a creek, river, whatever), or at least a dry river bed.
Then you follow that downstream until you're literally out of the woods.
That way you aren't in danger of walking in circles, and rivers generally lead you to settlements.
There's hardly any spot on earth left where you won't reach the nearest settlement within a week (i.e. before you die from hunger) that way.
Generally, if this method doesn't lead you to another human within a day, you're already in really deep shit.
So by that point it's walk or die. The hunger will subside after a day and your reptile brain will release loads of dopamine and adrenaline to keep you going.
You won't find anything in the woods that's quick to acquire without tools, nourishing, and easy to identify as safe to eat. Except maybe berries (if you know them).
I start to get weak and fussy if it's 12:30 pm and I haven't had lunch. Assuming I get lost in the woods after breakfast that means I have a good 3-4 hours to find a settlement before I drop dead of being a little bitch.
I've done intermittent fasting and found that this is just your body producing hormones telling you its time to eat. These hormones are pretty good at keeping schedules for you. Once you start fasting, you do get jittery and cranky during this time but it goes away rather quickly. After a few days the hormone levels start changing and within a week or two you stop feeling hungry at that time. It's really weird to teach your body that you don't need to eat at your usual times. And learning that feeling hungry isn't the worst thing in the world (if your living conditions are such that you're not worried about your next meal) is actually very freeing.
There's probably some survival mode that kicks in. But you're not going to be Rambo in the woods for three weeks, that's for sure. Three weeks a very long time to be in the wild with nothing but any water you might find.
Does anyone remember that guy that was pinned between a rock in Arizona (I think)? I think he lasted 72 hours or something. Far cry from three weeks.
Yeah that's what I was thinking of, thanks.
The part when he wets himself without realizing it hit me. I've almost been that rough before. It's not a good place to be.