Vegans: what would you do if you had to survive in the wild?

Question

would you hunt to survive or try to stick to your diet? I am a meat eater and I would definetly not pay attention to my diet if i were a vegan in that situation.

i know there are edible plants, but there are poisonous plants. it would be too risky, you could just set up traps and cook the animal over the fire to get rid of the parasites. do any of you watch survivor man? i cant remember many times he lived on plants. he uses them, yes, but you have to kill animals too if your gonna live. watch it next time.

how about the desert? what plants would you eat besides cactus? you would be weak if you didn't get something in your belly that had vitamins. oh and i would rather you all not say things like "don't say if i were a meat eater, because you don't know what its like" cause you don't know what its like being a meat eater if you were raised vegan.

Answer 1

I'll make a deal with you.

We'll both go to any remote spot in the desert of your choice ala that goofy 'survivor dweeb' show. I'm sure you're younger than me so that (along with your meaty habits) should give you an edge over an old veg like me (at least YOU would think so).

We'll see who lasts longer and makes it back to 'civilization' first!

Edit:

Since you asked this same question right after Ezira_27 I'll make a deal with BOTH of you. I'll let you two decide whether to do the challenge sequentially or consecutively. Since neither of you appear to have much knowledge I'll explain that that means that I'll either finish off Ezira_27 first then take you on (E gets first dibs since they asked first) or I'll let you two team up together and we'll do the survival game.

BTW; since I'm sure both of you think that humans are natural meat-eaters let's do things au naturel. NO clothing (including shoes), no tools (except what you make in the field), no carried food or water (or anything else). You guys can eat all the animals and bugs you can catch, I'll subsist entirely on plant based material. Keep in mind that times wasting!! It's August so the northern hemisphere deserts are at their driest. Or would you prefer the Altiplano during winter?

And to Tracy Terry, I think I could arrange for you to be placed in close proximity to a tiger. Would you care to take on the tiger au naturel whilst I take on poison ivy au naturel?

Edit:

Desert survival is easy for me. The main problem is water and NOT food. You need to conserve what you've got (in your body) and find other sources. In the Taiga the problem is preserving warmth, also easy if you know how.

Don't be so quick to dismiss cactus as a desert food source, it's not just a water source, it's highly nutritious! Even in a dune field (the stereotypical desert) there ARE water and plant food sources if you know how to find them.

There are darn good general purpose rules that address how to distinguish what's edible from what's toxic. If I was stranded in the Taiga, the Gobi or the Outback (none of which I've got much first hand knowledge of) I'm confident I'd do better than you two who asked the question because I've (for fun) spent plenty of time enjoying most of the Western Hemisphere biomes.

If you're planning on surviving by catching, killing and cooking animals you'll be dead long before me! Besides the calories (and water) you'll waste in the effort you'll soon discover that animals have toxic parts that cooking won't fix and parasites and disease organisms that will survive until you turn your 'lunch' into carbon. Don't forget that you'll be exposing yourself to uncooked nasties when you handle your fresh kill. Just getting it ready for cooking is going to expose you to mites and fleas (for example).

Answer 2

A vegan could survive on many wild plant species as well as certain tree barks. Pine needles can be made into a nutritious tea, Dandelions, Blackberries, Wild Rose, etc.
However, an untrained person can die from eating Hemlock and most mushroom species.
The key to any persons survival if lost in the woods/desert is to KNOW what native wild plants are in your area that ARE edible and how to prepare/eat them.
It's simply good sense for anyone.... Practicing would also make sense... Especially if you're a person who frequents the outdoors/nature and in more remote places.

Answer 3

I was lost in the woods for a whole month in Bowman Township in Ontario. Luckily I new about plants and herbs and I lived off of them! When I went there I only took food for a day cause I thought I'd comeback the same day. Or in the morning of next day. I was wrong to take only enough food for a day.. won't ever do that again. but not too much a problem.. I just watched the rabbits and ate what they ate. If I were a meat eater I probably would have eaten the rabbit and be as blind as the rest of you meat eaters thinking meat is the only thing to eat.
What do you think rabbits eat? They don't eat meat! Even wild horses don't eat meat! The healthiest animals don't eat any meat! It's not natural to eat meat. Meat is just for when there's nothing else edible. Even birch trees have an edible mushroom on the bark of some trees. It's called oyster much rooms. Shaped like oysters. Edible Plants are what to eat in the wild. Only meat if there's nothing edible. If there was nothing edible you'd most likely be in the dessert cause plants can't grow without something to nourish them. As for the dessert even the cactus is edible remove the thorns first though!

Answer 4

I definitely wouldn't hunt. I would stick to the edible plants around and probably set up nets for fishing if I had really been stranded for too long. This is pretty silly though since it's doubtful this would ever happen. It's like me asking you if you were stuck on a little boat with a few other people, would you convert to cannibalism to survive?

Answer 5

everyone on here is wrong and butt hurt the truth is humans used to only be able to eat fish, then we could eat meat, then plants. you can survive without plants you cant survive with out at least fish or meat. you can now days thanks to technology but im going to go ahead and assume that without society people couldnt be vegan and nto have nutrition deficiencies

Answer 6

I think I'd be much much better suited to surviving in the wild than a typical meat-eater. If I truly couldn't find anything edible (impossible, really), then I would not be opposed to trying to catch a fish, if my survival depended on it.

Answer 7

If there would be animals, there would be food for those animals, so I'd look for whatever they'd be eating. If my life really depended on it, I don't know if I could bring myself to kill another creature. The only way of knowing it would be if I went through it. Fortunately, that's just an hypothetical scenario and whatever I would or would not do under those circumstances doesn't justify anyone eating meat under real circumstances, where there are lots of cheaper and delicious alternatives to dead animals. You stuck-up narrow sighted meat eaters can make up as many "what if" scenarios you want, but don't think they'll ever be any useful as valid justification for your unethical conformist ways, because they won't, and your denial won't solve that either.

Answer 8

I wouldn't eat meat, but it wouldn't be long before I ate something or came into contact with something that would kill me, considering my allergy list is a mile long. And that's IF I could avoid sunlight long enough to keep my PCT under control.

Answer 9

if i'm a vegan, and i'm stuck in the wild, you know damm well i can't hunt, i'm a vegan, why would i bring a hunting rifle, a bow, camo gear, buckknife, skinning knife, scent cover, tent that goes in a tree, deer feeder
no, don't have the equipment, what do you want me to do, catch a rabbit with my bare hands, no thanks, besides rabbit is 100% lean meat with no fat, if you eat nothing but rabbit for a week, you would die, from not getting any fat in your diet, it's true look it up.

but i do know how to tell if a wild fruit is posionus or not, and i know what types of plants are edible, so yea, i just be eating fruits and flowers for lunch thank you.

Answer 10

Vegans would have no problem surviving in the wild if they knew what to look for. Black locust flowers are really delicious and if you found just one tree, you could get hundeds of pounds of flowers! How about nuts and berries? Pine and hickory nuts, choke cherries, gooseberries, wild grapes, sumac berries, mulberries and blackberries. Milkweed is edible, the shoots are like asparagus, the flower buds like broccoli and the immature pods like okra. You could look for sheep sorrel (nothing to do with the animals),mushrooms, wild onions and leeks and even dandelions! These are just a few things that can be found in the wild, there are lots more! If you wanted to give up your vegan ways, remember all birds are edible!!