You guys might like this.

[Kevin L]

The famous artist and photographer Laura Ginn Bailey has reinvented herself as an urban hunter-gatherer.

She has processes and skinned hundreds of dead city rats for food (her receipes are, actually, rather interesting) and processed their little skins into a ratskin evening dress.

Go to lauramaeginn.com

She actually seems to inhabit a space that sits at the cross section of high society and homless dirtbags.

Her ideas are worth considering.

Her rat jerky seems like it would be quite delicious.

You and I might roll our eyes at some wealthy city person making an artistic point about dead rats, but she seems to have come up with interesting processes and procedures that may be life-saving under truly horrible conditions.

If you can be open-minded enough (without being judgemental) please check her website.

I, for one, plan to follow her work.

If it ever comes down to it, I'll be happy that I know her receipies and procedures.

Any comments and/or ideas?

 

[jontte]

in a bad spot meat is meat and that means protein,and that source is abundant at the moment.

 

[Brent S]

I've never had rat, but have eaten squirrel which is close enough. Last year I grew turnips here. They grew easily and were beautiful. When I cooked them I just couldn't get past the fact that I just don't like the flavor, at all... DocHenley kindly pointed out that when your hungry, things start tasting better. The point, I bet rat tastes pretty good after three days of nothing else.

 

[Kevin L]

The very idea of eating rat makes me nauseous (I am, after all, a rather strict vegetarian), but I have hope that I'll be able to overcome my sensibilities enough to stay alive post TEOTWAWKI.

I've seen a recent documentary on rats, and the number of parasites, worms, and diseases that they carry is truly astonishing.

Anyone interested in this food source should consider dinner to be very contagious...

 

[DrHenley]

Yes, squirrels are basically tree rats, and that's what we call them...BUT...

Tree rats are very picky about their diet.

 

[Brent S]

The very idea of eating rat makes me nauseous (I am, after all, a rather strict vegetarian), but I have hope that I'll be able to overcome my sensibilities enough to stay alive post TEOTWAWKI.

I've seen a recent documentary on rats, and the number of parasites, worms, and diseases that they carry is truly astonishing.

Anyone interested in this food source should consider dinner to be very contagious...

Hunta virus is among the possibilities too. I definitely would advise cooking well done to minimize the risks.

 

[Brent S]

Yes, squirrels are basically tree rats, and that's what we call them...BUT...

Tree rats are very picky about their diet.

I have read that squirrels are much cleaner. Like I posted before, still wise to thouroughly cook them.

 

[Maverick]

In my opinion rats taste nothing like squirrels, they are eatable but wouldn't be my 1st choice if other meats are around.

 

[Kevin L]

In my opinion rats taste nothing like squirrels, they are eatable but wouldn't be my 1st choice if other meats are around.

How do you know what rats taste like?

I hope you haven't been in a survival situation that was bad enough to eat rats.

If you have...my condolences.

 

[Maverick]

How do you know what rats taste like?

I hope you haven't been in a survival situation that was bad enough to eat rats.

If you have...my condolences.

Yes I have but not as a means to survive. When I was stationed at Ft. Sherman Panama we ate rats (agouti) as part of our training though not required to do so, we were required to trap them though, conversations with the instructor lead us to eat the trapped agouti's. We all tried them with no seasoning at all, the only way I can described the taste 'if I had too'

 

[Kevin L]

I see.

Well, I don't know what to say. My social skills fail me at this point.

I hope you neve have to eat rat (or agouti) again. It must have been a realistic exercise.

 

[Maverick]

I see.

Well, I don't know what to say. My social skills fail me at this point.

I hope you neve have to eat rat (or agouti) again. It must have been a realistic exercise.

One of the problems in the western world people have become spoiled in the choices of food, in much of the third world people survive with what's available with very little choices. When one becomes hungry enough primal instinct takes over most thought process, I've never been that hungry nor do I want to be, in a TEOTWAWKI we may end up in that situation, the Donner Party and Uruguayan rugby team in 1972 come to mind.

 

[Gazrok]

On the first season of the Survivor TV show, ALL of the contestants said one of the most surprising things, is that rat actually tasted pretty good, when they were starving.

That show cracked me up. I'd see literally 5 different food sources in every shot, while they are complaining about being hungry, for the cameras, LOL.... I mean, they filmed on locations literally brimming with food, if you just get past a few hangups.

 

[Gazrok]

the Donner Party and Uruguayan rugby team in 1972 come to mind.

I think human would likely be my last choice. Just for moral reasons. Though we look like beef when cut up, I hear we taste a lot more similar to pork. (this is going from the testimony of captured cannibals, and cannibal tribe members, etc.). You may see an account of one explorer describe it like veal, but he has contradicted himself many, many times, so it is largely dismissed as credible.

 

[Maverick]

I hear we taste a lot more similar to pork.

That's scary, I know a lot of bacon lovers. Who the hell needs an zombie apocalypse if that being the case

 

[Gazrok]

I have a feeling that Terminus wouldn't be too far from the truth (for Walking Dead fans).

I've read more than a few zombie stories where a survivor appears as a well-stocked savior, for a lone wandering survivor, only to then have the twist being the goal of killing the dude in his sleep and adding him to the meat locker.....

 

[Kevin L]

I think human would likely be my last choice. Just for moral reasons. Though we look like beef when cut up, I hear we taste a lot more similar to pork. (this is going from the testimony of captured cannibals, and cannibal tribe members, etc.). You may see an account of one explorer describe it like veal, but he has contradicted himself many, many times, so it is largely dismissed as credible.

I'm not (and have never been) a cannibal, but I have reasons to believe that human would taste like pork.

There is an intimate relationship between smell and taste. I, for one, can often predict what a new food would taste like if I smell it beforehand.

I was a paramedic for over a decade, and I've run on any number of people who've been badly burned, and cooked people does, indeed, smell like cooked sweet pork.

This is all one of the reasons why I was a vegetarian.

To this day, certian kinds of Chinese food makes me gag.

 

[Brent S]

I'm not (and have never been) a cannibal, but I have reasons to believe that human would taste like pork.

There is an intimate relationship between smell and taste. I, for one, can often predict what a new food would taste like if I smell it beforehand.

I was a paramedic for over a decade, and I've run on any number of people who've been badly burned, and cooked people does, indeed, smell like cooked sweet pork.

This is all one of the reasons why I was a vegetarian.

To this day, certian kinds of Chinese food makes me gag.

I was a surgical assistant for 4 years. All I ever thought was that human flesh stunk. When you're using a bovie knife, an electric knife to burn through flesh, it really stunk! I can't say I would starve to death before eating it, as the rugby team that crashed in the andies mountains comes to mind, but it would be my last choice. One thing I'm sure of, if anyone wants to eat me, there going to have to work for their dinner Shoot.

 

[Gazrok]

Makes you want to add an inject-able of some disease that won't cook out, doesn't it? (so if they kill ya and eat ya, they die horribly too)....

 

[Kevin L]

Strictly speaking, isn't organ donation a kind of cannibalism?

I eat food so that I can build up and maintain my tissues and organs.

Isn't accepting a kidney the same thing, except that we are skipping the digestive tract?

Also, cannibals ate their dead to (in part) absorb their strength. If accepting a new organ gets you healthier (the whole point of organ donation), isn't that kind of the same thing?

Also, when talking about machines, we say we "cannibalize" parts off of a defunct machine to repair a second device...so isn't that what we do with organ donation?

I'm just saying...