help settle an arguement!!!

[AdventureDoc]

So I should gather the pine needles from the branches and remove the tips, which end or does it matter? I am going to try this, as soon as I find a pine tree!

[Elkchsr]

I find needles work well, I break them in half be twisting a dozen or so needles at once

Great flavor! When I first tried it I thought it would be like drinking out of the old turpintine jug

I'm to impatient to boil the tips, I eat those as I remove the needles for my cup

I've found about 1/3 - 1/2 cup full of needles does a good job

[canid]

i've just stripped the young twigs [where they're still lighter in color and more tender], though you can lay the twigs out and cut the tips off in a line agains some sort of block [e.g. side of a log].

[corndog-44]

Apple vinegar will prevent scurvy.

[canid]

how much ascorbic acid do you figure is retained in cider vinegar? the primary acid present is acetic acid and the only reference to the use of acetic acid i can find in a search of scurvy studies is in seperating the degraded colagen fibers from the sample tissue.

[Rick]

Adventure Doc - White pine is pretty easy to identify. The needles are in clusters of five and it's a fairly "thin" looking tree as compared to say Blue Spruce, for example. Red Spruce also makes a very nice tea. More flavorful in my opinion than White Pine. Blue Spruce can also be used but I don't care for the taste as much. And Blue Spruce is like handling a branch full of sewing needles. Sharp as heck.

Like Elkchsr, I often break off a sprig of White Pine or Red Spruce and chew on it as I walk along. All I'm really trying to do is take in some vitamin C.

[tracks]

True all....as a trapper myself I often worry more about the creepy crawlys
on the animals rather than the animals themselves... our warm climate here
means ticks,fleas and mites are all a possibility even late into the fall and
early winter. I have taken deer in late december with tic infestations so bad I would use the meat in hog traps rather than eat it myself and fox and
bobcat with fleas so bad you couldnt touch them until the carcas was cold.

[TBBucs]

I know the original question has already been answered (several times over), but here is another source if anyone is interested.

From John "Lofty" Wiseman's SAS Survival Handbook:

Rabbit Starvation
Rabbits can provide the easiest of meals, but their flesh lacks fat and vitamins essential to man. The Hudson Bay Company recorded cases of trappers during of starvation although eating well on an easily available diet of rabbit.

The body uses its own vitamins and minerals to digest the rabbit and these are then passed out in the feces. If they are not replaced, weakness and other symptoms of vitamin deficiency appear. If more rabbit is eaten, the condition becomes worse. Trappers literally ate themselves to death when eating vegetation would have ensured their survival. This situation often occurs when vegetation has been buried by snow and survivors rely on rabbits for food.

Myxamatosis, a viral disease that causes swelling of the mucous glands, especially on the head, makes the rabbits sluggish and often blind. There appearance is off-putting, but the disease does not harm man. Once skinned, the only indication of it will be while spots in the liver.

Rabbits and many rodents carry Tularemia.

[canid]

any aparent disease or disease symptoms in an animal, particularly a bird or mammal should be suspect.

[Nativedude]

Tularemia (aka; rabbit fever or rabbit starvation) occurs from eating the undercooked meat of rabbits (or other lean wild game) i.e; deer (venison), caribou, moose, etc.

If you eat only the high, rich protein meats of these types of animals, your body uses up its own fat supply in the digestion process. A big factor of getting Tularemia depends on just how lean the person is as well. If you have less than 10% body fat you will succumb to Tularemia much faster than a person whom has 30 or 40% body fat.

If in a survival situation where you might be eating such lean meats, you must also cook and consume the other parts of the animal as well. The heart, liver, kidneys, eyeballs, brains, bones, etc. These other parts will give you the needed fats, minerals, and somewhat, the vitamins needed to sustain for an extended period of time. Also the more dehydrated you are the faster that Tularemia can set-in.

[canid]

tularemia is a n infectious, bacterial pathology which can be contracted by being bitten by an infected animal, fleas and ticks from an infected animal, through wounds/sores on the skin contacting the fur of an infected animal and by inhalation of spores from the fur.

rabbit starvation is a completely seprerate issue; simply the dietary predominance of lean meats and lack of oil/fat intake.

[Rick]

All you ever wanted to know about tularemia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tularemia

[AdventureDoc]

Gotta go with Rick and Canid on this one, too. A parasitic disease transmitted from ticks that are feeding on the rabbits, rodents, beavers, etc. THe bacterium is called Francisella Tularensis (spelling?) and is a common problem with hunters, skinners and tanners.

This needs antibiotics, too! Streptomycin is the drug of choice although you can use good old Cipro (same Cipro that treats most traveler's diarrhea) if it is all that is available.

[Rick]

Those ticks really tick me off!

[canid]

everything correct there except it being common. it's a common, and valid concern, but a very rare disease.