Vegans vs. The Omnivores~ Survival

The adult vegans are gonna have problems getting protein, never mind any children they produce. There's not going to be any soy beans, and therefore no rennet made from soy beans, so no cheese for the vegans. There are other vegetable sources of rennet which have been used in the Med for thousands of years, but those plants won't be found on your average "desert island"--no capers, no nettles, no ivy and no figs. The microbial rennet used in modern production of "vegan" cheese won't be available in that primitive venue.

So, no cheese, no tofu, no peanut butter. I suspect that your vegans would, sooner or later, and likely sooner rather than later, turn carnivore.

If Vegans can consume human milk but are forbidden from consuming cow milk, does this mean they can be cannibals?

Because I am pretty sure that Vegan cannibals would win.

I don't know that vegans are "forbidden" to eat anything. I know of no "Church of the Celestial Vegan" which dispenses doctrine from on high. Hindus eat no meat at all, but they will eat dairy products. I think you've fallen for the line of propaganda of the vegan nazis in the U.S. Now, many vegetarians will not eat eggs, and will eat dairy, and they call themselves vegans. They refer to their more hysterical brethern and cisterns as "Ovo-lacto vegans." In the context of this thread, though, they'll be fucked if they were counting on cheese as a food source, because you need a curdling agent, a rennet, to make cheese, and only one i figure would be available would be goat guts.

Loving all the replies so far, even Farmerman's, who, as everybody knows, needs a good laugh now and again.

This question arose during a conversation I was having with a vegan friend. We were talking about the early colonies and I was trying to remember the story of a group of people who, rather than starve any longer, took a ship and some supplies from Jamestown to the Bahamas where they promptly wrecked.
(This was not the Sea Venture, that was later and it was coming from England.)
These folks disembarked, looked around at their circumstances and set up camp. They, unlike the folks in my question, were 1) able to salvage a lot from their ship and 2) were not divided into vegans and omnivores.

Here's what I thought was amazing, in the space of about 20 months, they were able to raise and gather fruits, grains and meats AND build two ships to take them back to Jamestown. They arrived back in Jamestown with three times the supplies that they had left with.

(One group of selected men had been given the group's only salvaged longboat to make an attempt at reaching Jamestown in search of rescue. They disappeared.)

I wondered out loud if 1) a group of us moderns could re-produce their feat, especially the building of the new ships and 2) could provide not only enough food for themselves, but salt, dry, season, pack enough to help re-supply the Jamestown Colony.

And I posed the question to my vegan friend: just how long could you exist on fruits, nuts, berries, seaweed and the like? It's not easy growing grains and rice. Harvesting is difficult, storage is a problem if there are critters around and, with grains, there is the de-husking, grinding and finding a way to cook what you have.

He said "No problem."
I said "A group of vegans wouldn't last a year."

~~Setanta: I am killing myself trying to remember who lead that expedition? I know they divided into two groups because of some freemen vs. bonded settlers and shareholders crap; there was some suspicion that the shareholders were going to sail back to America leaving the freemen behind or something. hmmm.. Some people did stay behind. I have no more clues.
~~
It is fun to think about how I'd do.
I've made fire a'la Castaway/Tom Hanks.
Air Force Survival taught me how to make rabbit snares with shoe laces. (Luckily I didn't lose my shoes in the swim.) Could I make a fish spear? A fish hook? What about fishing line? (Bait's easy. I can find clams.)

Could ten hunters and ten gatherers hunt and gather enough food for the twenty of them?


I had another thought this morning. I think it would be dangerous for the meat eaters to try and domesticate any of the pigs. Hunt and eat them, well cooked, yes. But don't pen them up near your living quarters.

~Swine flu~

Nearly wiped out human civilization when we first settled down on the river banks of what's now the Middle East 100,000 years ago.

Joe(eat that piggy, don't let him cough on you.)Nation

I suspect they had experienced seamen with them. Sailors were constantly fabricating and "re-fabricating" their ships. A ship's crew commonly had, in addition to the common and able seamen, a carpenter, a rigger, a sailmaker, an ironsmith, a cooper and "Jemmy Ducks," the latter being any landsman in the crew with experience keeping livestock. I am not familiar with the incident to which you refer, but i can't see a Master puttting to sea without at least those petty offficers, as well as a Boatswain ("Bo'sun") and his mates.

The first French settlement on the North American continent was at Hilton Head in 1562. The ships which had set up the colony sailed back to France, but the colonists despaired of their return, so they built a sloop and sailed back to France themselves. During his circumnavigation in 1740-43, George Anson was on the island of Tinian (on his way to China) when his ship, Centurion, was driven off the coast of the island by a storm. There was a Spanish sloop there which they had captured when they landed, so Anson set the crew to cutting wood and they dug a saw pit, built a forge, and cut the Spanish sloop in half, so they could lengthen it sufficiently to take the 100+ crew members away to China. They hadn't expected expected to see Centurion again, but she did arrive, so they set to work to complete her water and stores (the island was overrun with cattle and swine which the Spaniards had left there so they could come hunt them at need). But Centurion was driven off by another storm (bad holding ground, the anchors would come away with any strain). There were about 40 or 50 men left on the island now, with only two midshipmen (teenagers) for officers. So, they immediately set about cutting down the sloop to rebuild it on its original lines. They had completed the task when Centurion returned again, taking them off the island to sail to China.

There was almost nothing that a good ship's crew could not do as artificers. The annals of the age of sail are full of men hauling down their ships on a shore which had never been visited before, and making major repairs with nothing more than their skills, a few tools and whatever material was at hand. During the time of the penal colonies in Australia, there was a successful rebellion at the "hell camp" on Norfolk Island. There had been a sloop lying off the island (no real harbor) which sailed back to Port Jackson (Sydney). While they were gone, some of the inmates cut timber and built a brig (two masted, square-rigged vessel) to escape the island. Unfortunately, they were later captured at sea.

Not really uncommon at all.

Because you specified 10 years, I'm going to say both groups will survive. But the vegans will have begun to experience serious vitamin B12 deficiencies at that point, and won't survive much longer. They better go milk themselves some wild goats from time to time --- at which point they have become mere vegetarians.

PS: Protein deficiencies would not be a problem for the vegans. On a plot of land this large (50 miles squared for 40 individuals), the vegans could easily grow enough wheat for protein. Especially when you add the wild rice and the wild beans you forgot to mention.

PPS: Yes they will still speak the same language. Language changes over generations. But 10 years is a small fraction of an individual's life. Language will not change much over such a short period.

By the way, influenza comes from domestic fowl. If you had no chickens, you'd have no swine flu.

According to Wikipedia (and we know they are never wrong), influenza is rarely transmitted directly from pigs to people.

Easily, so long as there was suffficient resources to feed everyone. Keep in mind that humans have long been tool makers, and practiced other crafts. At least half of a band (infants, small children, "old people" [anyone over 30]) were in camp while the healthy adults went off the hunt and gather. Those who remained behind would be making tools, curing hides, gathering firewood, making clothing--everyone would be making a contribution.

The so-called Middle East and north China were both places where there was such abundant game and forage foods ten thousand years ago, that it allowed people to become somewhat stationary. That's when they had the opportunity to invent agriculture.

Easily? C'mon. Think about the amount of calories it would take to harvest enough wheat, and prepare it, and store it for the off-season, with no modern tools. It wouldn't be easy by any means, it would be very calorie-intensive.

Not only that, but the wheat would have to be split with the omnivores - the vegans would have half or less of the total supply on the island.

Cycloptichorn

People in the Neolithic didn't have modern tools either, and yet they were capable of farming. And calory-intensity cuts both ways. Hunting, too, is calorie-intensive. For background, ask Joe Nation about the book Born to run. He will be happy to tell you.


We are talking about 40 people on 50 miles square. Land scarcity is not going to be an issue for either group.

Yes, but the Neolithic people weren't vegans. They relied on hunting in order to provide the other crucial half of their diets. That supplemented their intake big-time in between harvests. And let's not forget an easy-to-get source of protein - insects. Not an option for the vegans. I fear they would have a very, very difficult time between harvests of wheat.

Fishing isn't very calorie-intensive at all. There are a variety of setups that you can construct that take very little effort on the part of the fisher. Same thing goes for gathering shellfish on the beach.

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Sure it is. Deserted islands are typically covered in forest or jungle - open, arable land is always going to be at a premium.

Cycloptichorn

trapping isn't terribly calorie-intensive, especially when you're working within the limited space given in the OP

and net-fishing is fabulous for omnivores (spear fishing is probably a lot more fun though)

Spear-fishing is ******* frustrating.

Give me a fish box any day.

Cycloptichorn

That wasn't the point. The point is that they were capable of farming.

I don't understand why we're debating this. Joe Nation specified a problem that, apart from the vegans' vitamin B12 problem, was much too easy for both groups.

Limited space? Joe Nation specified fourty humans on a space as large as Yellowstone National Park, larger than Long Island. That's abundant space, not limited space.

Uh, Yellowstone is somewhere around 70 times as large as this island.

http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/factsheet.htm

Long Island is 20 times as big as this island.

I think it's fair to say that the amount of space is, indeed, limited.

Cycloptichorn

In comparison to the tundra, it's a lovely limited space.

50 miles in any one direction isn't an unsual length for a trapline

my first google hit gives me traplines between 5 and 110 miles in length

http://bb.bbboy.net/alaskagoldforum-print?forum=3&thread=341








a few people with one or two 5 to 10 mile traplines each could cover off the space easily

50 square miles - you couldn't have a 50 mile long line in any direction on that island

Cycloptichorn

ahh misread that in the OP

in that case, it's a REALLY limited space
and this remains the same



with the amendment of easily to very easily

That's something to clarify with Joe I think -- he said "fifty miles square." That could mean that it's a square(ish) shape that's 50 miles long and 50 miles wide (for a total of 250 sq. miles) -- or that it's more like approximately 7 miles long and 7 miles wide (49 sq. miles). I took him to mean the latter but I'm not sure.