Vegans vs. The Omnivores~ Survival

Yup....one of my favorite stories is the travails of the captain and crew of the Essex. (Maybe I should go back to the Obsessed thread and list "survival tales' as one of mine.)

Cannibalism for sure, and, as it's told in In the Heart of the Sea, none of the sailors were the least bit appalled when the subject was brought up as they all lay dying in the boats, so I'm thinking that it wasn't as uncommon as we think.
It was heartbreaking; that they all knew they had to 1) draw lots to see who would be sacrificed and 2) draw lots again to see who would be the executioner.

Tall ship sailors~ tough men in sometimes brutal conditions.

ahem
Joe(I would ask that I be prepared in a lemon-pepper sauce with capers.)Nation

Mocha Dick? That's not a joke? (No wonder Melville changed the name.)

I had to look it up, you're right. And of course he was a sperm whale.

Cyclo, you probably know this, but the Hawaiians used this method for catching fish to actually establish fish-breeding aqua-farms. They'd set up finely-woven reed nets at the entrance to a cove. They weren't so "finely" woven that a small fish couldn't swim through. They'd have fish-food laid out for their visitors. What would happen is that the small fish would swim in, stay awahile, gorge themselves, and then find that they had grown too large to get back out through the net into the open ocean. Now they could be speared or caught by hand whenever a Hawaiian got hungry for a fish-fry. Except for the weaving of the nets, minimum effort required to have a constant steady food supply on hand.

I didn't know that. Pretty cool tho.

Cycloptichorn

Vegans don't eat butter, either.....

I really want to go fishing now.

damn thread

my adequate basket-weaving skills could come in handy on our side of the island

You're certainly a welcome addition to the omnivore team, Beth.

I think there's a place or two for that in Ontario. Have fun!

Heard about the old time sailormen
They ate the same thing again and again
Warm beer and bread
They said could raise the dead
Well it reminds me of the menu
At a Holiday Inn

But at night i have these wonderful dreams
Some kinda senuous treat
Not zucchini, fettuchini or bulgar wheat
But a big warm bun and a HUGE hunk of meat

Cheeseburger in paradise
Heaven on earth with an onion slice
Not too particular
Not too precise
Just a cheeseburger in paradise . . .

(Lyrics slightly modified with no apology to Jimmy)

I was thinking last night that I hoped somebody in the omnivore group had studied salting and smoking meats. Pretty easy to kill yourself by munching down on some chop that hasn't been cleaned or cooked properly.

Joe(let's hope the whole group isn't composed of chessmasters)Nation

I can pluck fowl.

I was reading the biography of some royal mistresses on my streetcar ride in this morning. I think that I'll just live-trap a few rabbits, start a warren - rabbit stew on demand! if no rabbits on this island, I'll pen some other small mammal.

Fresh fish is still my #1 choice of protein.

Ah, my local fish market sent me an email (unadvertised special for their best customers) - lobsters all sizes hard shell on sale this weekend $8.99/pound. To me still a little high - but reasonable for spring.

I know I've told this story before but hey,....

The first day of our two week survival trek our guide, Mobley, (no kidding) introduced us eight guys to a rabbit which he said would be our dinner when we returned to this first camp in about six days.

AWWWW we all said "What a nice rabbit! So soft and cuddly! And what nice clear blue eyes! Don't you worry, rabbit! Nice bunny."

Then, off we went to hike through the mountains with just some pemmican bars, an onion and some sugar cubes to eat.
(They said there would be some people who would not eat pemmican. And if they said that, to offer to take it off their hands. Unbelievably , I traded a piece of onion and a sugar cube for a whole bar.)

We were in the snow.
We camped in tents made out of pieces of parachute to simulate what it would be like to be out in the wilderness after you eject.
We treked through very dense, log-filled, swampy, forests. There were hardly any trails that matched up with our compass directions.
It was cold.
It was wet.
I made onion/pemmican soup three times a day.
I was almost out of food in five days and ate my last bit of pemmican for breakfast on Day Six.
We'd gone about thirty miles by my reckoning, in a big circle that took us over every ridge possible.
The snow was about six to eight inches deep until it snowed on Day Six.

We did not stop at noon because we knew we were within five miles of the first camp.
It snowed the whole day.
You could not see more than ten feet in any direction.
If you looked at your compass for more than a few seconds, it was covered in snow.
We got to the first camp.
We took off our packs.
We looked at eachother.
"Where's the fricking rabbit!!!??"


Mobley showed how to make a live rabbit into a roastable one.
He showed what parts to eat, what to watch out for (speckled meat-do not eat) and what we could eat if we were really hungry, like the eyes.
It was delicious.

Joe(yes. I ate one clear blue eye.)Nation

This is such a silly question. In my opinion, veganism is a form of idealism where in a modern society, people can choose to be more kind and compassionate and live their lives by doing the least amount of harm they can in a reasonable manner. A big part of this is going without eating or using animal products and not taking part in the exploitation of animals who do not have a voice or a choice when it comes to their survival.

I think if you were to ask most ACTUAL vegans, not some "boundary-pushing" or "thought-provoking" pot stirrers trying to legitimise the way they choose to live their lives and, furthermore, make up some hypothetical situation where a vegan would, of course, choose to hunt and eat meat, fish and whatever else was available for survival.

The reality is in a world where factory farming and animal agriculture are there because of our daily actions, and we have the choice not to partake. We won't die because of our decisions. If it was a case of survival, I'm almost certain that most vegans would join the omnivore gang and do whatever is necessary to survive.

Just my two cents of course.

It's equally silly to revive a dead 11 year old thread then add a blatant spam link to your profile page as if your post wasn't driven by money and commerce. Seems disingenuous to me Spammer.