So I'm a Historian. I recently studied the dietary habits of people in mongolia and the rest of the Eurasian Steppes and the information is pretty amazing. Bear Grylls demonstrated some of their practices on his show once.
Basically it comes down to using your livestock to their fullest potential. In a survival situation if you were riding a horse, it would be a bad idea to kill your horse and eat only a little bit of it only to leave its corpse to the coyotes. A better idea is what the Steppe people do. Reduce your travel pace as to reduce the amount of energy required by man and beast, and drink a small amount of your horses blood. Yes it sounds crazy and gross, but the science is there. The blood stream is how the body distributes nutrients. Horses and other livestock can east cellulose based plant material that humans can't digest. But if you let the horse eat it and then drink its blood you get the nutrients without the digestions.
Now remember, short term survival technique.
As I think Bunni pointed out in another thread, herding small livestock can almost guarantee survival if you know how to capitalize on their secondary products. That is their milk for your consumption, or sale if you have a surplus, but also wools and other such materials.
Bottom line is, don't always kill the animals to eat them. They're more useful to you alive. Once humanity figured that out, the population exploded.
Wow, that's certainly an idea I've never heard...and it doesn't sound like a terrible idea if you've got the stomach for it. My only concern would be blood born diseases, and ones own capacity to stomach drinking blood. I don't know if Fight Club's ''You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.'' is accurate or not, but certainly something to keep in mind. Obviously it would also be necessary to drain the blood properly and make sure the horse is well taken care of after the procedure lest it be inadvertenly killed by carelessness.
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Human blood. Drinking the blood of animals is a huge past time. We aren't talking about cups at a time we are talking half a glass a day for up to 2 weeks max. You can also cook blood if you are worried about pathogens, as soup which is very common, tastes like liquid meat. Most important this isn't a go to survival method its an option. Better than killing a horse for sure and alot tastier.
Good idea. True, I also heard that they are a good source of salts as well. But If Im in such a situation, Id make sure they get boiled first. But I wouldnt do it too often. Im not sure but I think its not that easy for them to produce blood.
it may come or it may not. But its not just zeds that may ruin your life
from http://www.communitybloodservices.org/db_faq.php#q_21
How long will it take to replace my blood?
The body will replace the fluid portion of your blood within 24 hours. It will take a few weeks to replace the red blood cells.
That's why you can only donate blood every 8 weeks. The more you donate the more diluted your blood becomes, carrying less oxygen to your cells (among other things). I'm not a doctor, but I've read about people donating large quantities of blood and taking months to fully recover their strength and stamina.
Any of our medical experts care to give more info?
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Nursing student opinion: This would work for a really SHORT term option and only if there was plenty of water to replace fluids lost from the bleeding. The big risk is Chronic anemia in the animal you are using as a food source. While RBC's are produced quickly, they take 100–120 days to mature and actually enter the circulatory system. If you had one horse as your main form of transportation? i wouldn't risk it more than one or two times, and no more than about 3 pints at a time per 150 lbs of animal and no more than three ... procedures(?) per 100-120 days. If you had a small pack train of horses, or a supply chain like the mongols had, or had preconditioned your animals bodies for frequent blood loss, it might be safer.
Personaly, i wouldn't be worried about BBPs in a healthy animal. While as little as a few cc's or drops can provide enough pathogens to kill you, it is heading into the very acidic stomach and most BBP's can;t survive in that hostile, acidic environment very long. Indeed, you would only resort to this method of survival if your life truly depended upon it. Choice: Drink blood and MIGHT get sick, or don't drink blood and defiantly starve to death. Bunni is right when he says that if your worried you can cook it, but in my opinion that would evaporate more of the fluids and make it more difficult to consume, like drinking pudding. Beyond that, if you live PURELY on blood without substituting any other form of intake or large quantities of blood your likely to end up with Iron poisoning. The medical term is called haemochromatosis and can cause a whole slew of problems such as liver damage, buildup of fluid in the lungs, dehydration, low blood pressure, and nervous disorders.
This is what you were wondering, yes?
Edit: Blood Borne Pathogens = BBP's
Also if you are also short on water don't do this as drinking blood will dehydrate you.
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Yes and no. A body deprived of liquids does not pour out liquids as readily. Your over all water loss from consuming a diuretic is still in the black. If you drink salt water you do hydrate, but you also go insane and have massive cramps due to sodium poisoning. (horrible horrible pain I recommend not suffering sodium poisoning) Drinking human blood will give you all sorts of problems with mineral poisoning. Drinking the blood of an animal is no different than eating its flesh. If you can stomach liver or kidney you can stomach straight congealed blood. Its not so bad. In many nomadic north african tribes they drink cow blood and goat milk every morning for breakfast. They dont kill the cows either, they have maybe 5-10 head for a village and they bleed one daily for all the men so they can have the energy to hunt and gather all day. Now granted men still die of old age at 40ish in these tribes, but their life is hard.
Yeah, and thnx for the detailed info. Better having an accurate data rather than guessing. At first I was like "what??? BBP???" then I saw the meaning at the bottom hahah.
it may come or it may not. But its not just zeds that may ruin your life
That is because it is bred into them, over many lifetimes or just their own. It is the same as getting a stomch bug when going to Bali. Or simply noy being able to drink hard water or bore water without water softners. It's all about the individually (environmentally) built, digestive tolerance.
Those of us who do not reguarly take part in drinking blood will have our mucosal lining of our digestive track eaten away causing many complications. Blood also gives you diarrhea.
Not to mention the Masai and similar blood breakfast club have many diseases transmitted by blood through human and animal.
Your best method, like said previously is cooking it, or cooking it with something. In which honestly, I do. I mix the remaining blood from the meat we cut up previously into the marinades... or simply pour the blood over the steak out from the packets when I bought it. Much the same reason you need to cook your meats.
If you are pregnant, under no circumstance drink any blood no matter for survival, 'option' or for fetish. It is very harmful to your unborn child. Same as steak(any meat), have it well done, or overdone, or burnt.
Overall blood, is not for hydration, it's for protein and some minerals as part of a diet, not a "blood filled diet". Drinking blood actually causes a hefty thirst for water, and no matter how much blood you drink, you will always be thirsty. And if you want to become use to drinking blood raw, you have to do it step by step effectively weening yourself on blood. But be prepared for the bad news next blood test.
For less pathogens, try a sea mammal instead, they are widely known in many cultures to have much purified blood than land animals, (no science behind it, just what natives have learnt)
As for the salt, you pain methods are true howver it DOES cause you to become dehydrated.
Basic version: if you drink salt water (in comparison to fresh) you will urinate more, effectively draining out more liquid than putting in. Then die a painful death.
Edit: Dammit, sorry WD40. I missed your comment...
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