There is a difference of being in a survival situation and normal hiking/camping/fishing.
If your life depends on it, use good judgement, but don't dismiss food.
If you have fire making means, of course, even in a survival situation, cook it!
To me, it's similar to risking drinking unfiltered water. Get thirsty enough, and we all will do so. I have done it, the urge to drink will eventually overcome you.
Here is the challenge to anyone interested. Go into the deep woods for a week, away from civilization, higher elevations, above industry and farming, and don't take any food or water or firemaking sources. let me know how long it takes you to drink unfiltered water, and then how long it takes to eat uncooked meat.
Your instincts will sooner or later take hold, if they don't, you are not genetically predisposed to survive. Not drinking anything and not eating anything is a 100% sure way to succumb. While there are risks involved with dirnking unfiltered water and uncooked meat you do have a better chance of surviving than not eating or drinking anything.
A survival situation is not a day hike, or going camping. it's unexpected, unplanned and you don't have all of your cool gear with you.
If you have filtration methods and don't use them to filter your water, you are a fool.
If you have a firemaking source and don't employ it, shame shame.
The idea of a survival situation is to prolong death as long as possible, in order to have the best attempt at being saved, or saving yourself.
In Bear's defense, he isn't eating fish out of a river in Bayonne, New Jersey nor is he telling people it is safe to do so. It's typically in a pristine environment like Alaska or way up in the Rockies.
Typically they tell you there are risks involved, but if you must survive sometimes you have to make these choices. It seems most people view these shows like strolls in the park, not like survival situations. I know they are not "true" survival sitautions because these guys have film crews, and base camps, etc. However, the context is that it is a survival situation. Unfortunately, for most real-life scenarios, their situations are a lot more dire, they are not as physically fit, nor as skilled, and dont' have proper clothing.
I've seen grown men become raving lunatics in 72 hours from not having anything to eat.
Put things into context, it's not OK to grab a fish out of a local stream and eat it raw just because it's there.
If you are fighting to survive, it may then be better than the alternative.
I would wager that everyone in this forum would refuse to eat fish meat, raw, on Day 1.
On Day 2, they would start seriously considering it. After 48 hours of nothing to eat, you start getting pretty dammed hungry.
By Day 3, someone would have eaten some, then one by one, everyone would eventually dig in.
perhaps these Survivor-Dudes are showing us something we would rather not think about, that, in a bad situation, we will eat raw meat and drink untreated water, or, we may stand a good chance of dying.
And before anyone says it, "I'd never be in the woods without firemaking tools, means to treat drinking water, etc." Good, that's why we are here.
But there is always the old example: your canoe tips over, your gear spills out, and now you are 30 miles, by foot, from the nearest help , and most if not all of your useful gear is gone.
