Survivorman and a question for vegans

[pokerfan]

On the Discorery Channel...

Utah desert, canyons. Was this a new one? I thought I'd seen them all.

Severe lack of a water source and dramatic temp changes from day to night.

He did find some water on the fourth day but that just revealed his hungry so he built some traps and killed a squirrel.

For the first time in the series I saw Les show some concern for animal born diseases. He used the spokes from his "broken" mountain bike to skewer the animal and then he cooked it whole, guts and all, rather than cleaning it first and risk exposing himself to black/bubonic plague (perhaps, it's pretty common in the region). Cooked the everloving crap out of it.

At one point he's talking to the camera and then says, "excuse me, my squirrel's burning." Words probably never heard before over the air.

While dining on the squirrel, he avoids the GI tract but does pick out the giblets. "Oh, this is the heart... (pauses and makes a face after eating.) No, that was the liver." But it's all good. He even saved the bones and cooked them extra hard over night for a nice breakfast. "Nice source of calcium."

My question is for the vegetarians/vegans out there. Would you eat animal if it meant your imminent survival?

[Chan790]

1. As a vegetarian...

but not a vegan. The answer is nope.

I grew up in the woods, was a boy scout, did the extreme camping thing (deserts, mountains, marshes, deep New England winters, forests, and virtually all combos of the above). If there are animals, there is something herbaceous to eat. They've got to be eating something, right? I know how to find those things. If I can't find it, it doesn't exist.

[WillParkinson]

2. No

Unlike meat eaters our food is generally easy to find and quite easy to catch.

[unpossibles]

3. short answer: no. There are many things to eat in the wild if you know where to look

long answer: if I were stranded on the ocean or a small island, I would eat fish if there were nothing else, or some similar environment (the arctic) which I don't see myself being in anyway. If it literally came down to survival, I suppose I would, but there are many edible tubers, plants, etc. you just have to know what to eat and what to avoid.

[yewberry]

4. Can I get back to you on that?

I mean, when I find myself in that position I'm sure I'll be able to answer your question.

The desert island scenario is actually a pretty frequent question.

(I seriously don't mean to be snarky here--it is a question that veg*ns have to deal with on a pretty regular basis, for whatever reason. The link is snarkier than this post deserves, and I hope you'll not interpret that in a really negative way. It's just a question that people sometimes use as a way to accuse veg*ns of hypocrisy, which I really don't think you're trying to do.)

[pokerfan]

5. I wasn't trying to highlight any hypocrisy

So I'll pass on the snark. I wouldn't label a vegetarian a hypocrite for eating flesh any more than I would cast the cannibal label on those soccer players who crashed in the Andes back in the seventies.

As far as the person who suggested simply eating what the animals were eating, there wasn't a whole lot for Les to eat in that canyon. He made some tea with some grass he knew to be edible but that was about it. And eating plants can be pretty dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

That said, food is pretty far down the list when it comes to survival. Stroud is only out for seven days, so it really shouldn't be too much of an issue. He's no doubt doing it for educational purposes. Water, on the other hand, is an absolute must and he didn't have much of that either. He wound up bailing after six days.

[flvegan]

6. Realistically, no. Here's why

I'm sure that there's enough vegetation, etc to eat to survive. However, that's not the point of the question. Fact is, by the time I was SO hungry that I'd consider eating an animal, I'd be too weak and deranged to catch one, let alone cook it.