Hello everybody

I was reading the current issue of Modern Survival Guide online and read an article that raises some serious concerns
regarding living off the land,both short and long term.
The article was written by Chris Janowski,whom I'm sure most
forumites have heard of as a quite knowledgeable survival instructor who resides in Alaska.He raises some issues that I was not aware of,and I wonder if anybody here has heard of
so everbody who has knowledge on the following,please share your thoughts,as it was something I've never heard or read about until today.
I know that in a survival situation aquiring food to eat is not our number one priority-shelter,water,fire are.The human
body can survive weeks without food,but once we have taken care of the essentials almost all of us carry snare wire and
fishing kits to aquire small animals and fish to eat.
According to the article Chris Janowski states that if we only eat small,lean animals ie:rabbits,squrrels,fish,etc.,
for a period as little as 7-10 days,that there is a risk of contracting "protein poisoning"aka "rabbit starvation.The reason for this is that we are only eating lean meat with very little fat which deprives the body of vitamin A which is essential to good health.If we don't find some source of dietary fat to eat(animal fat is loaded with vitamin A)
the body will quickly use up it's own vitamin A.If this hap-
pens,it can lead to nephritis (inflamed kidneys)and severe
diarrhea,which can cause death.
Since the typical game one might catch/trap in the wild in a
survival situation consists mainly of lean meat,it raises some concerns to me.Janowski recommends eating bugs,grubs,
insects,etc., even though they don't contain much fat,it is better than none.He also advocates breaking up the bones of eaten small game and boiling them to get at the bone marrow,
(bone marrow is supposed to be one of the richest sources of fat)and eating the marrow and drinking the water they were boiled in.Bone marrow is almost pure fat (240 calories)per ounce and is loaded with vitamin A and B-12.
Janowski also states that most species of fish are very low in fat content with some exceptions.These include freshwater
trout,catfish,salmon, striped bass,ocean salmon,mackerel and
herring.Other good sources of fat can be obtained from large
game animals such as deer,caribou,moose,(from their meat and
bones).Native Americans would often carry a leg bone or two when away from home for their fat source.They also made pem-
ican cakes which contained 1/3 animal fat mixed with other materials as a major source of dietary fat.
The need for dietary fat in winter is even greater.The body can require 3000-6000 plus calories per day depending on the
temperature and physical output.Another noted survival inst-
ructor Mors Kochanski,advocated that if you could trap a medium sized mammal ie:beaver,marmot-to throw it in your fire,singe all the hair off it and to cook it whole as is.
The reason for this method is that you are cooking all the organs and releaseing all the fat stored in them.He stated that it might seem unpalatable to some but that it's better than no fat at all and its consequences.
Sorry for the long winded story,but much of the info in that
article was news to me,and I'm sure will be news to others as well.I learn something new every day.I'm looking forward to everybodys input on this topic.Reading this has left me
wondering what one should do in a short or longer term survival situation?Should I forego eating in a survival situation?Yes if I'm lost or hurt and there's an expectation
of rescue. I can easily survive for 3 weeks plus on my fat
reserves. <img src="images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />at least that's what I tell my wife why I
never lose the extra 10 pds above my ideal weight! <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
If it's a long term situation I better think about adding a
firearm to my BOB to supplement my trapping/fishing kits.In my geographic location I'd be limited to mostly lean meat and fish to eat,unless I got lucky and landed a catfish.

Dennis

even the leanest mamals have some fat. Boiling the meat and bones of the squirrel / rabbit / chipmunk / mouse will release most of that fat to the water. Boiling will also kill most of what may be bad for you in the animal. The organs and brain are some fattier but also taste bad and the digestive organs may contains high amounts of toxins which are unaffected by cooking. If you are trying to subsist on trapping and fishing then you may attempt to snare a larger mamal such as a deer or elk. This can be done with expedient snaring material if you don't have long or strong enough snare wire. I'm not sure but 100' of 60# spiderwire could probably become 30' of 200# rope with a little braiding - that might be a decent snare for a deer if you are nearby to finish off the kill once the animal is snared. The kill could be accomplished with the "Xacto blade on a stick" spear. or the simple "rock to the head" method - messy and brutal but hey, you're starving here. Spider wire is thin enough to cut even if it isn't strong enough to hold as such it might effectively hobble the deer even if the deer can break free.

In anycase if you are trying to get a higher fat content from your squirrels, just boil them up and throw out the carcass and drink the broth. The fat will be in the broth and the extra protien will be thrown out - of course you need to catch twice as many squirrels to live this way but it solves the fat problem.

Wonderful theory. Has anyone ever actually experienced this problem? I imagine it would be more of a concern in Alaska than in much of the lower 48.

Since I am not a nutritionist, I checked a book on nutrition, which is co-authored by an M.D. and a Certified Clinical Nutritionist, and here are some excerpts of what it says about vitamin A:

Protein cannot be utilized by the body without vitamin A.

A deficiency of vitamin A may be apparent if dry hair or skin, dryness of the conjunctiva and cornea, poor growth, and/or night blindness is present. Other possible results of vitamin A deficiency include abscesses in the ears, insomnia, fatigue, reproductive difficulties, sinusitis, pneumonia, and frequent colds and other respiratory infections, skin disorders (including acne), and weight loss.

When food or supplements containing beta-carotene are consumed, the beta-carotene is converted into vitamin A in the liver.

I also looked up nephritis. Nephritis is defined in the dictionary as acute or chronic inflammation of the kidney caused by infection, degenerative process, or vascular diseases. The nutrition book I mentioned above also mentions Nephrotic syndrome, which I think is another term for nephritis. It is marked by edema (fluid retention), and excess protein in the urine. It can be caused by lesions of glomeruli (small structures inthe kidney made of capillaries) that become inflamed, or by chronic diseases such as diabetes or lupus.

I can find no mention of the overeating of lean meats causing nephritis or causing the depletion of vitamin A.

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that can be found in animal livers, fish liver oils, and green and yellow fruits and vegetables. Foods that contain SIGNIFICANT amounts of vitamin A include apricots, asparagus, beet greens, broccoli, cantaloupe, carrots, collards, dandelion greens, dulse, fish liver and fish liver oil, garlic, kale, mustard greens, papayas, peaches, pumpkin, red peppers, spirulina, spinach, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard, turnip greens, watercress, and yellow squash. It is also present in a number of herbs.

I think that you would have to work pretty hard to avoid vitamin A in your diet, even in the wild. Unless you plan on removing all fats and oils from your food, or plan on eating their digestive systems, I think you could live quite well for quite some time. If you try the latter, you're on your own. <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Then again, if someone's goal is to lose weight while he is in the wild, he should eat an animal's digestive system for breakfast every day, preferably raw, and he should have no problem losing as much weight as he wants. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"Rabbit starvation" was a commonly encountered caution in my years in the north country. There is a story told about a man and his wife traveling (Eskimo couple the first several times I heard the story). Short version follows:

The man fell ill and unable to travel, so his wife set up camp and tended him. Not being a hunter, she did what anyone could do - she killed ptarmigan with a stick. As most folks know, ptarmigan are all breast - one big chunk of meat. Thinking to help her mate, she fed him the lion's share at every meal - the breast - keeping only the back for herself. A week goes by, and he is no better. Another week, and he is failing, while she is sleek and hale. "Hmmm - could there be something in the ptarmigan's back that is sustaining me?" She feeds him the backs from some ptarmigan. He immediately begins to recover...

The fat on a ptarmigan is on its back. Until proven to me one way or another, I believe that one probably will suffer dietary deficiencies from eating exclusively rabbit meat. I know how intensely I crave fat when diet deprives me of it (like extended periods on freeze-dried). The craving I experience is deeper than simply habit or hunger - hard to explain, but it's primordal and gets increasingly intense after about a week to ten days. YMMV...

There is more to fat than simply the fat-soluable vitamins, but that's a good start. I have killed and eaten rabbits (and squirrels) that have fat on them and no one has ever convincingly answered my question about rabbit fat - "Is it a useful/usable form of dietary fat or not?"

Ptarmigan are tasty and available year around many places up north. Porcupines are supposedly available as a "survival food", although I think they smell pretty nasty when butchered. When I've supplemented my rations with small game, no one had to tell me to stew (boil) the critters rather than roast them - I've wanted every drop of "gravy". I imagine the spectre of "rabbit starvation" is real for a very long haul but not so important in the short haul for an otherwise healthly person.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Regards,

Tom

Never cease to be amazed by the information gleaned on this site!!!
I am a great believer in supplements, and keep a pack of multivitamins in my FAK. Each month or so when I buy another, the new bottle goes in the kit and I use the first.

Well, somebody's thinking here. A small package of multi-vitamins can help keep you going for a long time out in the open. Eating rodents is okay, provided you can gag them down. I posted once before about trying to eat an Armadillo. After 4 days without food, I was only able to put down about three bites, while holding my nose, and then I couldn't eat anything the rest of the night without gagging hard. I would rather eat ants than Armadillo, I don't care how you cook it.

Besides the clothes on our back, all we had was sticks and rocks, but we did manage to catch, kill and cook the Armadillo, and given a little more time we might've moved up the ladder a ways. Armadillos are tough, but a 20 lb rock dropped on their heads is tougher. I imagine porcupines are just as nasty, as might be skunks, badgers, etc. I doubt I would ever get hungry enough to eat them without finding a better way to cook them then spit whole over an open fire, and believe me, leaving the guts in while they cook does not improve their pallet.

I did eat a lot of grass shoots, a few ants, a lot of water, and one grub. The grub was the absolute hardest thing to get down. Perhaps if I'd found some way to kill it without rupturing it, it might've gone down easier.

All I can say is, for 13 days, any average person should be able to survive without a significant food source.

Pemmican rocks!!!

Just out of curisoity, what DOES an armadillo taste like?
Was it because of the smell or was the meat really nasty?

I guess not everything tastes like chicken.....

Roasted grubs are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside....Crispy ants are not bad too...

Don't ask me why I know this, but the secret to cooking armadillo is to marinade it for at least a day...which of course is out of the question in a survival situation. But marinaded and cooked relatively briefly so it does not become rock hard, armadillo tastes like free-range chicken, a little "gamier" but ... interesting.

Roasted Armadillo tastes like a cross between pork and antelope; really gamey old antelope. It is the gamiest thing I've ever eaten. Holding my nose helped a little, but not enough. Cooking it with it's guts still inside makes it worse, the closer to the core we got, the gamier it tasted. When roasted, the plates of the hide split and lift away easily, especially if they scorch a little. If you do spit roast an Armadillo whole, an important thing to remember is to run the spit stick in from the mouth end.

It is not hard to kill an Armadillo, but it is impossible to dress one properly without a decent knife. We were unable to get any rock chips to work.