Terrifying article

[TylerDurden]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18813075

I'm very worried indeed. Because of the rising birthrate in parts of the world which should have had mass enforced use of birth-control pills and a one-child policy 40 years ago, we now face a possibly huge rise in the price of meat. I hope this will mainly affect grainfed meat but I fear not, as my current supply of raw wild game has gone up in cost by c. 20% in the last year. Well, I can survive on a caloric restriction diet, if it's not too restricted but still, I don't fancy eating raw grasshopper instead(and the article above seems to imply that only cooked/processed insects will be available in most countries, as a substitute for meat - well, at least wodgina should be able to get hold of the raw, live witchetty grubs where he lives?

[CitrusHigh]

OMG, entomophagy seems to be the theme of the day! Lol, it's come at me from like 4 different angles. Just give in Ty, bugs are delicious! Ants sour, ant eggs and moths sweet, grubs/meal worms etc earthy or woody and creamy/crispy depending on their habitat and species. The rule with bugs is, they taste almost exactly like whatever they eat, unless they're like ants with special biochemicals that influence their flavor. I at a cricket a couple days ago, yum city, I only did it because it was biting my bare foot and I wasn't please about it. I'd been wanting to try them for a while, but I admit the psyche factor was slowing me down, but when that little bast bit me I was like, oh no you didn't, and popped 'em in my mouth. It was sweet as well. I eat bugs opportunistically while I'm on the farm or in the garden. I urge anyone remotely interested, to suck it up and just pop them in your mouth, the only thing I've had that I didn't like was a green caterpillar, but that was just dumb, avoid brightly colored (reds, yellows, greens, oranges) bugs, not worth it lol!

Re the price of meat, yeah, shit is getting intense. The real resource grab is on, they just charged a guy with a fine and jail time in oregon for collecting rain water, super fucked up, enjoy things like they are for now, you might have to get super creative to maintain soon!

[Ferocious]

Raise your own rabbits/chickens? Of course, I'd have to find a source of fat though.

[TylerDurden]

Raise your own rabbits/chickens? Of course, I'd have to find a source of fat though.

Not an option for me as I live in the city. If you can get hold of wild hares and raise them, I think they have enough fat as I used to eat them alone for weeks with only a little bit of raw plant food as well, and I was fine.

[Ferocious]

Yeah, that's an idea. I definitely would do it with rabbits/hares even if I lived in the city, as I don't think anyone would know I'm raising rabbits because they make no noise.

[cherimoya_kid]

I think that meat grown in labs is going to become economically viable in the next 10-12 years, which will make this much less of a problem. It's already being done on a small scale.

[PaleoPhil]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18813075
my current supply of raw wild game has gone up in cost by c. 20% in the last year. Well, I can survive on a caloric restriction diet, if it's not too restricted but still, I don't fancy eating raw grasshopper instead(and the article above seems to imply that only cooked/processed insects will be available in most countries, as a substitute for meat - well, at least wodgina should be able to get hold of the raw, live witchetty grubs where he lives?

Sounds like you're experiencing what I've been reporting about for some time here. Like I predicted before, I do think that high quality meat and wild seafood prices will continue to rise and insect consumption will increase. Like you, I have no land.

[Löwenherz]

If you can get hold of wild hares and raise them, I think they have enough fat as I used to eat them alone for weeks with only a little bit of raw plant food as well, and I was fine.

Tyler, such reports from you are still a COMPLETE MYSTERY for me, even after 10 years of raw paleo eating.

Eating only wild hare meats? From my own experience: Impossible, not to say NONSENSE. Nevertheless, quite contrary: The idea still fascinates me.

You can really eat nearly exclusively raw wild hare muscle meats and organs for weeks WITHOUT getting any discomfort AND without loosing weight??

Please give me specific examples: How much wild hare per day in kg round about? Which organs? How much fruit in those days? What is a "little bit of plant food"? One banana? Two bananas? 15 bananas?

I'm open to learn and I'm willing to repeat such experiments, also taking into account that all such trials simply ended in protein poisoning in my case plus feeling really miserable. The amounts of carbs seem to be crucial as long as only super lean meat as wild hare is available. And I have never seen any wild hare with considerable amounts of fat. It's mostly pure protein.

Löwenherz

[TylerDurden]

I know nothing about kilos, but I would eat a whole raw wild hare plus organs(no head or intestines or fur) once every 1 to 3 days. I would also eat 1-3 bananas or the equivalent at the end of the week. I could go on like this for weeks with no issues.

[Löwenherz]

I know nothing about kilos, but I would eat a whole raw wild hare plus organs(no head or intestines or fur) once every 1 to 3 days. I would also eat 1-3 bananas or the equivalent at the end of the week. I could go on like this for weeks with no issues.

Incredible.

Is ANYONE else here REMOTELY ABLE to do such stunts?

My own experiences and believe system let me view these wild hare days just as a fasting period. Nevertheless: Fascinating!

Löwenherz

[PaleoPhil]

Eating only wild hare meats? From my own experience: Impossible, not to say NONSENSE. Nevertheless, quite contrary: The idea still fascinates me.

From your experience? So did you subsist on only or mostly wild hare meats for more than a week?

Incredible.

Is ANYONE else here REMOTELY ABLE to do such stunts?

Martin, aka Bearslayer, conducted an 8-day rabbit-diet experiment here (reportedly eating "rabbits with their organs and drink water and plain black coffee") and did not report any "rabbit starvation" or other negative effects: http://forum.dirtycarnivore.com/index.php/topic,823.0.html

Stefansson claimed that negative symptoms develop "in about a week" on a diet of rabbit only: "Rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source—beaver, moose, fish—will develop diarrhea in about a week, with headache, lassitude and vague discomfort." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

Tyler and Martin's experience seems to contradict that, though Tyler adds some bananas and Martin added black coffee. Maybe the people Stefansson wrote about didn't eat the rabbit organs and perhaps that is the key difference?

[TylerDurden]

I can't stand the taste of raw wild rabbit and, after trying them despite that, I didn't seem to thrive on them. I suspect that wild hares have a much higher percentage of fat on them than rabbits.

[Chris]

Looks like my future includes Insects and Dog Food. I'll have to retrain my taste buds!

[aLptHW4k4y]

Tyler and Martin's experience seems to contradict that, though Tyler adds some bananas and Martin added black coffee. Maybe the people Stefansson wrote about didn't eat the rabbit organs and perhaps that is the key difference?

Perhaps Stefanson didn't have much if any fat on his body? I can't imagine you'll develop a disease because of not eating fat for a week, people can easily water fast for 30-40 days.. your body usually has enough fat stores to sustain you longer than a week. So the cause could be too much protein in the diet, not too little fat.

[PaleoPhil]

I can't stand the taste of raw wild rabbit and, after trying them despite that, I didn't seem to thrive on them. I suspect that wild hares have a much higher percentage of fat on them than rabbits.

Yeah, that's what makes Martin's experiment even more fascinating, though he could have been surviving on his own body fat. Perhaps once he became fully leaned out, rabbit starvation would have started becoming a problem.

Perhaps Stefanson didn't have much if any fat on his body? I can't imagine you'll develop a disease because of not eating fat for a week, people can easily water fast for 30-40 days.. your body usually has enough fat stores to sustain you longer than a week. So the cause could be too much protein in the diet, not too little fat.

Correct, that's what Stefansson said, and he said that eating wild rabbit led to rabbit starvation more quickly than eating nothing at all.

[Löwenherz]

From your experience? So did you subsist on only or mostly wild hare meats for more than a week?

Yes, wild hare meats plus other lean wild game meats like pheasant.

Results: Headaches, diarrhea, very depressive moods and lethargy.

Even one week on such lean animal foods without added carbs or fats is too much for me. Same results with lean raw beef and all other meats if the fat content is too low. But I have to say that I didn't eat organs with the exception of liver. Anyway, regarding fat content this makes no big difference. Liver, heart and kidneys are always very lean and the tongue of hares is not worth mentioning. Furthermore, nutrient deficiencies due to a lack of organs can't be an issue is such short periods.

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

I suspect that wild hares have a much higher percentage of fat on them than rabbits.

I have never seen a wild hare carcass with substantial amounts of fat. Maybe the wild hares in UK become fatter due to extraordinary pragmatic nuclear waste disposals or other wonderful benefits of our modern day living?

Let's assume a big wild hare has 30 percent fat by calories (which is not realistic, imo).
Let's further assume Tyler has a strong body physique and eats at least 2,400 calories per day.

2,400 calories from wild hares with 30 percent fat means 1,680 calories from protein.

That equals 420 grams of protein per day. Any comments?

Löwenherz

[Löwenherz]

http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/360217.AFL_05_08_skrivanko.pdf

"This research was conducted over two seasons (winter and spring) and comprised a total of 71 samples of hares shot in the eastern region of Croatia, and was aimed at examining the quality and hygiene of the meat. The carcass dressing percentage in relation to the total average weight of the shot hares was 66.54%.

Chemical tests showed the following average contents in the meat of the hares: water 75.34%, protein 23.19%, fat 1.12%, ash 1.16%.

Of the 71 samples examined, as many as 44 (61.97%) did not meet the requirements of the rules on microbiological food standards. In 19 samples (26.76%) this was due to the high level of aerobic mesophilic bacteria, 2 samples (2.82%) contained Staphylococcus aureus and 37 samples (52.11%) were not satisfactory because they contained enterobacteria. In terms of heavy metals in kidney and meat samples, 17 (23.94%) did not meet the provisions of the rules on toxins, metals, metaloids and other harmful substances which may be found in food. Of these 15 kidney samples, 88.24% contained cadmium and 2 samples (11.76%) mercury in amounts greater than the permitted concentration. Tests on liver samples from the hares (n = 71) did not show organophosphorus pesticides nor organochlorinated pesticides or polychlorinated biphenyls."

Löwenherz

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, wild hare meats plus other lean wild game meats like pheasant.

Results: Headaches, diarrhea, very depressive moods and lethargy.

Even one week on such lean animal foods without added carbs or fats is too much for me. Same results with lean raw beef and all other meats if the fat content is too low. But I have to say that I didn't eat organs with the exception of liver.

Fascinating, thanks for sharing your experience. While you're not convinced about organs it is interesting that that's the one consistent difference in the reports of failures vs. successes. It would be interesting to know how you would fare if you ate all the organs except perhaps the intestines and brain, but I don't want to ask you to become a guinea pig.

Liver, heart and kidneys are always very lean and the tongue of hares is not worth mentioning.

Are you talking only about wild hares here? I don't know about wild hares, but from what I've seen of bovines, they have plenty of fat with the kidneys unless the perinephric fat is removed by the butcher, and there is fat surrounding cow hearts too, though not a lot, from what I've seen, and it depends in part on what they were eating (and if they were pastured and slaughtered in a lean season, then that would likely be a factor too).