meat eaters

Awsome response, thanks, the reason i ask this, was walking thru the woods the other day saw a few deer squirrels, rabbits and birds, plenty of meat but not many veggies this time of year, winter, acorns, beechnuts have been cleaned out by the squirrels, deer turkey ect.. the only veggies i could find, pine needles, bark, green honeysuckle,patches of clover in open fields, catails around ponds. presume you could even add dry vegitation to meat stew for roughage, would definatly eat all the organs and bone marrow for the nutrients.
 
You weren't seeing (or looking for) the roots where a lot of wild food nutrition is stored. Pull up one of those old, dried up cattails sometime and look at the root. Scratch the young bark on small trees to find sassafrass which has a very distinctive smell. Trees should be putting out young buds by now. A lot are edible if not downright good tasting. There is nutrition all around in most environments if you know how to find it and recognize it.
 
Codger brings up a good point, in that there is almost always something in any area, at almost any time of year, that can be eaten. The problem is in knowing what that might be, and where to find it.

In my AO it's pretty easy to find edible vegetation any time of the year, because something is always in season. Just a few miles East of me is what many people would consider a totally desolate desert environment, yet the local indians thrived there for centuries ... because they knew what to harvest, and when.

Even for those of you in the snowy East, there are vegetables of one kind or another available year round ... if you know where to look.

The thing is, I think, to study the local vegetation all year long. There are animals out foraging — and surviving — in your area year round. With a little study, we can too.
 
Gentlemen, ladies, bipeds, humanoid species...

The question is: "How long can man survive on meat alone?"

Well that's a good question, and here's my answer:

Right up until he dies from Rabbit Starvation--which is also called Protein Poisoning.

This is usually a reaction to the over-consumption of protein from lean meats such as rabbit, deer, bird, etc...anything that doesn't have a lot of fat on its body.

Someone said that we are a product of Neanderthal man's meat-fu (well, something close to it). Do not forget that Neanderthal man was still a forager and ate what he could, when he could. Which meant he did not live by meat alone. NM was not an agricultural being. Do not confuse the fact that he hunted meat with a belief that he ate meat only or ate meat mostly. He still ate plenty of berries and plants.

Don't make it your only plan to play Great White Hunter if you are ever caught in shitty situation. It expends way more energy than gathering wild edibles, isn't always fruitful, and sometimes what you catch doesn't end up worth eating and can only make you puke. If you get in a hurry and under-cook the meat you can get tularemia--and it ain't just rabbits that carry the potential for this little goody. Anything that can become infected by the Francisella tularensis bacterium can give it to you...and it can kill you.

Let's get to the heart of the matter.

Eat the innards if you like. But some people can't stomach them, and I'm one of those people. It makes me deathly ill because I don't like the metallic, bloody taste. I'd rather take a chance on going a few more days without food than puking my guts out from force-feeding myself a liver or heart and becoming dehydrated.


The way I see it, if you become dedicated to a line of thinking, the one you neglect will have been the one you needed to save your life. A well rounded set of skills is always best.

IMHO, as always of course.
 
KEmSAT-Survival said:
The way I see it, if you become dedicated to a line of thinking, the one you neglect will have been the one you needed to save your life. A well rounded set of skills is always best.
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Well said, but let's re-think so called "protein poisoning." Rabbit starvation is not due too much protein, but too little fat. Remember, a healthy diet includes essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. Rabbit as a sole source of food may be nutritionally limited, so be sure to eat its brain, liver, and kidneys.
Ironically, many of the ideas surrounding "protein poisoning" come from studies force feeding rabbits meat. Rabbits don't normally eat much meat. Except the Monty Python ones. :p

As far as I can tell, one can live almost indefinitely on fatty meat. I have to assume that one would deplete stores of vitamin C eventually, but I'm not aware of that experiment having been conducted.
 
Rotte said:
Well said, but let's re-think so called "protein poisoning." Rabbit starvation is not due too much protein, but too little fat. Remember, a healthy diet includes essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. Rabbit as a sole source of food may be nutritionally limited, so be sure to eat its brain, liver, and kidneys.
Ironically, many of the ideas surrounding "protein poisoning" come from studies force feeding rabbits meat. Rabbits don't normally eat much meat. Except the Monty Python ones. :p

As far as I can tell, one can live almost indefinitely on fatty meat. I have to assume that one would deplete stores of vitamin C eventually, but I'm not aware of that experiment having been conducted.
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While a diet of both meat and vegetables would be best, a diet of meat and pine tea would see you through for a very long time. Add nettles* to that and you have just about all the vitamins and minerals you need to sustain you indefinitely. Yeah, it would be a boring diet, but you would be alive to complain about it.

*Stinging Nettle has a flavor similar to spinach when cooked and is rich in vitamins A, C, D, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium.
 
The Scandinavian doctors who conducted the meat eating experiment found that eating roughly 60% protein and 40% fat worked best. Change the % too much and you get headaches and nausea. They ate all types of animals, whales, seals etc...

I watched a Ray Mears program called "Heroes of the Telemark" (or something like that?) and he met up with the Norwegian commandos who were sent in by the British to blow up the heavy water plant. They talked about eating the stomach contents of reindeer, they said it was disgusting but a traditional survival food.

On another Ray Mears program he was with the Inuit. They shot a narwhal and pulled it onto the ice. The father cut a square of blubber and he and his son ate it right there and then raw. Ray said that the small piece, like an inch square, had more vitamin C in it than several oranges.
 
Is there really a situation that the ONLY thing you would eat for 2 months would be rabbit? No deer, no ptarmigan, no ducks, no groundhog, no Turkey?

I mean, I guess it's possible, but not likely.

Carl-
 
there are chunks of nothern Canada that if you were limited in your skill, all you would be easily able to catch would be rabbit. I've heard most rabbit starvation stories related to the first fur traders, untill they started eating the beavers they trapped.
 
Fresh, rare meat has adequate vitamin C... most animals produce it themselves, so if we do not destroy it by processing we ingest it from them. It's easier to do what we are built for... eat everything!
 
Though my line of work is not nutrition or nutrology, most of that info is hogwash. No, I'm not going to prove you why it's hogwash; it took me 6 years in med school plus 3 years in a residency program plus I don't know how many hundreds of hours reading medical journals to be able to say with conviction that most of that info is hogwash. It would take a LOT of time to hunt down over the web all the info and data I would need to make a case on what I'm saying. But by no means you should take my word for it, so if you want proof, talk to a doctor or nutritionist you trust and I'm positive they can give you a lot of info - it's way easier to explain all this talking instead of writing. Typing all that is needed here would be a huge chore and a big drag for everyone - specially me .

Simply because you can't prove it.:)

Here are just some research papers I'll provide:

A Literature Review of the Value-Added Nutrients found in Grass-fed Beef Products
(64 scientific research papers) many from the following professional publications:
Journal of Animal Science
Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry
Journal of Nutrition
Journal of Food Compisition Analysis
Journal of Lipid Research
American Heart Journal
Journal of Meat Science
Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Canadian Journal of Animal Science
Livestock Production Science
International Journal of Vitamin and Nutrition Research
Nutritional Health
Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board
Institute of Medicine
Cancer Research
Canadian Journal of Cardiology
Journal of American Dietary Association
Journal of American College of Nutrition
Ophthalmology
Department of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University
Journal of Food Chemistry
National Institute of Health Clinical Nutrition Center
Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Diabetes Care
Journal of Human Nutr Dietet
Food Reviews International
Journal of Food Science
http://www.csuchico.edu/agr/grassfedbeef/research/health/index.html

And maybe just a little common sense.
1,000's of grazing animals forced together in a feed lot and fed corn vs grazing animals allowed to actually graze on pasture.
Which is a healthier system?
Remember...these are "grazing" animals, and have been for 1,000's of years.

Healthy animals produce healthy meat.
I stand by common sense :)
 
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if this was mentioned i did'nt see it. in the event large groups of people find it necessary to try & live off what is in all our rural areas these will be totally depleted in short time. mass starvation will follow. the only real use of trapping, fish nets, smoking meat & eating plants is the time when a few people are stranded or lost. simple enviromental economics show depletion of natural resources will occur very rapidly if large amounts of humans try to forage off the wild.probably the only chance of long term survival is living off the ocean. oceanic bodies are more vast & much more food rich than our woodlands. i'm not talking about 1 or 2 months but 6 months or longer. this next information is going to start a big reaction, the bands of people to survive the longest on land surfaces will be people whom turn to cannibalism. this scenario would eventally occur only if we're hit by a large comet or a viral potentcy killing 99.9 percent or more of population. nuclear devastation will not wipe out all of humanity.i refer you to Surviving Dooms Day. i do'nt negate any of the information foregoing, but a realistic look at natural resources seems to give only one conclusion; without efficient agriculture & A COOPERATION OF SURVIVING HUMANITY extinction is a very real possibility.
 
Ok,

Leaving the meat only question, can we agree that if we do just a couple things like adding bugs for fat (and the fact they are everywhere and have a lot of protein), adding pine needles and nettles for vitamins, we will do fairly well.

Nettles and pine needles can be found in most places (but not all). What are some other easily identified plants that are in most location that we can use?

I will start new thread so I do not hijack this thread.

Geoff
 
g123 said:
Ok,

Leaving the meat only question, can we agree that if we do just a couple things like adding bugs for fat (and the fact they are everywhere and have a lot of protein), adding pine needles and nettles for vitamins, we will do fairly well.

Nettles and pine needles can be found in most places (but not all). What are some other easily identified plants that are in most location that we can use?

I will start new thread so I do not hijack this thread.

Geoff
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You pose an interesting question, Geoff: what other plants are found just about everywhere? When I first mentioned Nettles, it was precisely because they're found almost everywhere, but what others fall into that category?

Let us know the title of your new thread.

Edited to add: I asked too soon. Found it here http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=710037 It's titled Wild food education.
 
Raisedby wolves said:
Is there really a situation that the ONLY thing you would eat for 2 months would be rabbit? No deer, no ptarmigan, no ducks, no groundhog, no Turkey?

I mean, I guess it's possible, but not likely.

Carl-
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That's because you're missing the forest for the trees. It's called "Rabbit Starvation" and that's a misnomer, it can happen with ANY lean meat.

Rabbit is only a practical example because of the leanness of the meat.

It's not about the animal, it's about the imbalance and the body's reaction to it. You have to have fats and other sources of nutrients.
 
dawsonbob said:
what other plants are found just about everywhere?
Click to expand...

I often come across blackberry bushes - a real prickly nuisance in some ways, but if the berries are ripe they are a good source of vitamin A & C as well as a bunch of other nutrients and also fibre. As a kid I used to eat wild blackberries all the time - they are still one of my favourite fruits.

Of course any fruit trees you might come across would be a bounty of vitamins & minerals - but what is available would depend on where you are.
 
This is a great thread, a few random comments:

I won't be worried about eating Polar Bear livers, over-rich in vitamin A. A Polar Bear is a T-Rex in a furcoat, he can keep his liver. Way outside my survival area.

However, back in the '40s and '50s, my Mom served up a dinner of beef liver and onions once a week. Cover it with ketchup, which is a vegetable :D.

Eating all of the animal: This may be an apocraphyl story, but I read it once and a VietNam vet confirmed it for me: The Montagnards would kill a wild pig and then throw the whole thing on the coals...fur, hide, guts and all, no gutting or cleaning...roast it in its own natural juices. My Viet vet friend said it was great eating, although I bet he passed on the guts.

I think every culture in the world has a tradition of eating organ meat: liver, kidneys, heart, brain, blood pudding, chitlings (intestine). My grandmother was feeding me liver and chitlings before I knew enough to think about being disgusted. Given Mad Cow disease, I think we all would pass on brain today. Otherwise, I have no problem with organ meat.

What wild vegetables and fruit are safe?: Depends on where you live, of course. Here in the Northeast, I eat the flowers and leaves of dandelions in the spring and the leaves all summer long in salads, sandwiches, etc. Same thing with wild violets, wild raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, elderberries, wild apples. Also Day Lily buds and blossoms and cattail roots. As far as mushrooms go, there are puffballs and morels, they cannot be confused with anything else that I know about. Milkweed pods are edible but take a lot of boiling.

We have all the regular North American wild meat game.

I have eaten Beaver, the four-legged kind (I know, there's still a joke there). My friend is a trapper and for a couple of years was supplying me with a few beaver carcasses to experiment with. I made stew, chili, jerky, broiled it, etc., and I have to say it is strong flavored. But definitely okay as part of my survival diet.

Haven't tried muskrat yet, which is another thing he traps. People have been know to eat rats (shave tail squirrel), mice, lizards and snakes. Turtles and their eggs, of course. Minnows (sardines). Birds are a no-brainer.

I think the one thing that grosses me out is blubber, just to think about it. I know the Japanese and some Inuit and Scandinavians love it. I'll eat anything once, just haven't had the opportunity to try that.

Survival food at sea: Well if you're lucky you might get a few flying fish landing in your boat. Fish can be eaten raw (sushi) and the meat will provide you with some water.
 
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