IMO, there?s no way to fully assess your personal limits until you?re in a true life-and-death survival situation. There are countless stories of survival in which individuals performed acts that previously would have been unthinkable to them ? many having to do with food.

We?ve all read stories of people lost a sea, floating for days/weeks/months in a life raft, who end up eating raw fish, turtles, birds, seaweed etc. All stuff we might not normally order off the menu in a fine restaurant if given a choice. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Then there?s the most extreme examples: The legendary Donner Party. For our non-American friends who might not know the story, the Donner Party was a group of emigrants heading west to California (~25 people when it hit the fan), who became trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846-47. Nearly half of the party died, and some resorted to eating their dead in an effort to survive.

Or the Uruguayan soccer team: Chile, 1972, when 16 members survived for ~70 days after their airliner crashed in the Andes Mountains. Survivors resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.

My point is that the survival instinct can be pretty strong, especially when it comes to food, and frequently allows people to do things they wouldn't do in a million years under everyday circumstances. And just as often, people don't cross that invisible line.

You might read, if you haven?t already, the book Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales. It?s been mentioned several times on the forum (and Doug?s mini-review is on the ETS site). It discusses the psychological aspects of survival.

Edit: Benjammin, what does that say about us, that we mention the Donner party within 3 minutes of one another? <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />