Chris why would anyone eat something that resembles a few steps below doorstop in the food chain?

My dad told me that his ship rescued a torpedoed sailor in WWII. The fellow said that he'd eaten his boots and belt, and a seagull he'd managed to grab. He finished up with: ``Thank God you found me ... another few weeks and I would have had to try to eat the survival rations.''

The sailors believed that the rations were made to taste awful, so bored sailors wouldn't munch them before the ship was torpedoed. Dad's story was probably not totally true, but it makes an important point about survival rations. You want them to be nasty enough that you won't eat them just because you are a little bit hungry. That way, you know they will be there in a real emergency.