Can you really starve to death while eating rabbit?

Travis

Misanthrope of the Mountains
Travis
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Mar 31, 2007
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I have recently encountered the claim that if you have a diet with rabbit as your only real protein source you will eventually die of starvation.

Wikipedia says it isn't really about rabbit but about lean meat in general and that there really hasn't been much study into rabbit in particular. And the zombie survival website says it is a myth.


Thoughts?
 
Would it fix things if you always had a scoop of lard with your rabbit? You still have the rabbit as your only protein.
 
It's the lack of fat, not the particular protien. Also, you would get very uncomfortably constipated on a diet of only rabbit.

ETA: I always heard it as a diet of only rabbit meat and water, maybe with a little bit of vegetable roughage, such as one might be forced into in a winter survival situation.
 
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Travis said:
I have recently encountered the claim that if you have a diet with rabbit as your only real protein source you will eventually die of starvation.
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I understand it to be true, but not as you've presented it.

If rabbit is your only source of protein you'll be OK. But if it's your only source of food then you'll starve. There's only so much protein a human can safely process per day and that's not enough to cater for general calorific needs.

Rabbit starvationWP

The exception might be where you catch so many rabbits you can eat their hearts, livers, brains etc etc aplenty. Very aplenty, at a guess.

It was a question on QIWP (Quite Interesting, a humorous TV panel game) some while back, and was quite interesting.
 
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Rabbit starvation, also referred to as protein poisoning or mal de caribou, is a form of acute malnutrition caused by excess consumption of any lean meat (e.g., rabbit) coupled with a lack of other sources of nutrients usually in combination with other stressors, such as severe cold or dry environment. Symptoms include diarrhea, headache, fatigue, low blood pressure and heart rate, and a vague discomfort and hunger (very similar to a food craving) that can only be satisfied by consumption of fat or carbohydrates.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation
 
GlennB said:
....But if it's your only source of food then you'll starve. There's only so much protein a human can safely process per day and that's not enough to cater for general calorific needs.
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Cite please?

Off the top of my head:
2500 calories per day. umm 4 calories per gram of protein. 625 grams of protein, meat at 50% water, means 1.3 kg meat. Or about 2 1/2 pounds per day? You say I cannot digest 2 1/2 pounds of meat in a day?

Football players, laborers and body builders eat 9,000 calories per day. You say they don't eat 27% as protein?

Yeah, I need a cite.
 
casebro said:
Cite please?

Off the top of my head:
2500 calories per day. umm 4 calories per gram of protein. 625 grams of protein, meat at 50% water, means 1.3 kg meat. Or about 2 1/2 pounds per day? You say I cannot digest 2 1/2 pounds of meat in a day?

Football players, laborers and body builders eat 9,000 calories per day. You say they don't eat 27% as protein?

Yeah, I need a cite.
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Presumably they also eat fats and carbohydrates.
 
Its not about how much you can digest, but about how much the liver can safely metabolise.

Possible mechanisms:

It has been observed that the human liver cannot safely metabolise much more than 285-365 g of protein per day (for an 80 kg person), and human kidneys are similarly limited in their capability to remove urea (a byproduct of protein catabolism) from the bloodstream. Exceeding that amount results in excess levels of amino acids, ammonia (hyperammonemia), and/or urea in the bloodstream, with potentially fatal consequences,[1] especially if the person switches to a high-protein diet without giving time for the levels of his or her hepatic enzymes to upregulate. Since protein only contains 4 kcal/gram, and a typical adult human requires in excess of 1900 kcal to maintain the energy balance, it is possible to exceed the safe intake of protein if one is subjected to a high-protein diet with little or no fat or carbohydrates. However, given the lack of scientific data on the effects of high-protein diets, and the observed ability of the liver to compensate over a few days for a shift in protein intake, the US Food and Nutrition Board does not set a Tolerable Upper Limit nor upper Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range for protein.[2] Furthermore, medical sources such as UpToDate[3] do not include listings on this topic.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation
 
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I'd imagine that an all-protein diet would also induces sever metabolic ketosisWP or ketoacidosisWP.
 
Is this specific to rabbits though? Wouldn't any diet of only meat also leave you with some malnutrition issues?
 
And presumably any nearly pure protein diet, like egg whites. Haven't seen anything in the cited links that would prevent you from living quite a while on a high fat meat source (the Extreme Atkins Diet).
 
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Travis said:
Is this specific to rabbits though? Wouldn't any diet of only meat also leave you with some malnutrition issues?
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Yeah, the only question is what would be the primary cause of your demise:

  • nitrogen imbalances (e.g., hyperammonemia, hyperureamia)
  • carbon imbalances (e.g., ketosis, ketoacidosis)
  • fat-soluable vitamin deficiencies
 
casebro said:
Cite please?

Off the top of my head:
2500 calories per day. umm 4 calories per gram of protein. 625 grams of protein, meat at 50% water, means 1.3 kg meat. Or about 2 1/2 pounds per day? You say I cannot digest 2 1/2 pounds of meat in a day?

Football players, laborers and body builders eat 9,000 calories per day. You say they don't eat 27% as protein?

Yeah, I need a cite.
Click to expand...

Humans cannot metabolize 625 grams of protein a day and survive for very long. That's crazy.
 
Travis said:
Is this specific to rabbits though? Wouldn't any diet of only meat also leave you with some malnutrition issues?
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Inuits would live happily on animal 'flesh' for much of the year, but they gaily chomped on loads of fat and also organ meat (important for vit C, iirc)

eta: 'zero carb' adherents, supposedly eating only muscle meat and fat, can never explain how they don't get scurvy.
 
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GlennB said:
Inuits would live happily on animal 'flesh' for much of the year, but they gaily chomped on loads of fat and also organ meat (important for vit C, iirc)
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Hmmm...I think it's vitamin A. The livers of seals and polar bears, for instance, contains toxic levels of vitamin A even when consumed in small amounts.
 
mijopaalmc said:
Hmmm...I think it's vitamin A. The livers of seals and polar bears, for instance, contains toxic levels of vitamin A even when consumed in small amounts.
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He was correct about vitamin C. It's preserved in the liver and other organ meats of some animals, especially if eaten raw.
 
Doghouse Reilly said:
Humans cannot metabolize 625 grams of protein a day and survive for very long. That's crazy.
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Polar explorers hauling their own heavy sleds for some hours a day in deep cold might need 9000 kcals a day, but that's the extreme. I recall they have tins of 'gunge' high in olive oil plus beef, grains and whatever that they would eat straight from the tin.

Bodybuilding protein requirements are hugely overstated. The classic 'one gm per lb of bodyweight' guideline is too high for even the most intensely demanding regime, but even then a 250 lb person would only be eating 250 gms.
 
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