I wasn't sure if this topic belonged in long-term or just survival so I stuck it in survival. I was hoping to stir thoughts about this subject not only in regards to wilderness survival but also normal emergency food storage. People often don't have enough calories in their piles of canned foods.

Yes, most of us have emergency fat reserves convinently tucked away in not-so-secret compartments in our bodies but as some others have already mentioned, it takes a bit for that metabolic pathway to kick in and even when it's running we are not going to be feeling or working anywhere near the top of our game. A few days without food isn't going to kill us but it'll certainly make us miserable.

Desperado, your classroom awaits your arrival!

-Blast

I read once that a person can starve to death eating rabbits (and squirrels??). Apparently there isn't enough fat in their meat. Anyone know the answer?

Well, there goes my excuse for my spare tire.

Great topic!

According to this article linked from the wikipedia article, there is an absolute upper limit of how much protein your body can process into "burnable" glucose each day. This is around 1600 calories a day, which is a starvation ration.

So don't bother eating more than 1600 calories worth of lean meat per day and try to make up the rest with plants, fat or snickers bars.

But here's the question: Is it better to glean a few calories from plants each day or just fast completely?

Over the short term of a day or two, I'd think that any calories at all will be helpful in keeping your glucose level up. Over the medium term (days to weeks), does eating a little bit disrupt the "fasting mode" your body uses to draw from your fat reserves? Over the long term (month+), of course, you will eventually run out of reserves, so every little bit helps.

Just an educated guess, but I would think that any supplemental carbs would be beneficial because it helps slow down your body from cannibalizing its own protein and lean tissues to convert into glucose.

I forgot where I read that even emaciated people who die of starvation still have some fat stores in their bodies. If you haven't succumbed to disease or infection by then, I think your body simply has basically digested so much of its own "machinery" that it finally shuts down rather than completely running out calories. But that's the uber extreme case there.

The transition from having a metabolism that uses primarily ketones to glucose probably requires a good amount of carbs at one time to shift significantly. But I would think that if your body is already adapted to ketosis, it's going to be easier to transition back even after a significant hit of sugary berries anyway. I suppose that a devoted adherent to something like the Atkins diet would have better firsthand comments on how this transition back and forth actually feels to a person and how quickly it can happen once you're adapted.

When all we had to eat were the soft shoots from stalks of grass we collected, we ate them. When hungry in survival mode, eat whatever you can, no matter the quantity. There are damned few people in this world that are proficient enough at foraging that they can collect enough protein or any other foodstuff that would hit the limits of what they should consume. Putting anything edible in that big cavern that was my empty stomach was better than abstaining. Besides, watching someone else eat something when you are ravenous makes it impossible to control. I wouldn't worry one whit about transitioning from carbs to proteins to nothing, not in a survival mode. You eat what you can find, and be damned glad you have something to give the beast in your belly.

I believe Benjammin got that right. I'm not sure how all the facets of metabolism work, but if you look at stories of people who were in gulags or PoW camps where starving to death was a deliberate strategy employed by the captors... It becomes pretty clear that getting any amount of food in any form is extremely important if you want to last. Every little bit helps, even if it means collecting bread crumbs or gathering insects, at least as long as it doesn't make you sick.

Excellent to put a realistic perspective on foraging and energy consumption. I think lots of people believe that in a severe crises they can just head out to the wilderness in an SUV and live off the land once their MRE's run out. To me that seems awfully unrealistic.

I was thinking... if we could find Jamba Juice in the woods then my one Peanut Butter Moo'd would be able to deliver me 1272 per 32-oz drink! I sometimes wonder how I can drink one of those and then an hour or so later have a huge meal if they contains 1300 calories!

And for the record I have a very low amount of body fat :P <7%

Okay, we're all likely to die of starvation in a long term survival situation, but I would like to be one of the last to go.

Assuming other humans are not lethal obstacles, or that those obstacles have been survived, in addition to exploiting all human-produced food I could get my hands on:

My first thought is to create passive calorie gathering: gill net fish, mist- or cloud- net birds, snare and trap mammals. Anybody have additional ideas along these lines?

I would try to exploit animal caches of food: squirrel and woodpecker nut caches, and bee hives. Anybody know of others?

Hunt the largest and fattest animals, the biggest return on your energy expenditure. In a survival situation there might be both domestic, or formerly domestic, and wild animals from which to choose. Large caliber firearms and very stout archery equipment probably called for.

Longer term, with the chance of human depredation reduced, try to: [1] domesticate, or capture or "liberate" domestic animals, and [2] cultivate and propagate edible and useful plants, wild or otherwise.

Sounds like a lot of work.

thoughts?

Thanks.