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Thread: People on survival shows perpetually wasting nutrition

  1. #1

    Default People on survival shows perpetually wasting nutrition

    Is anyone else sick of watching people on survival shows not know how to cook food? They sometimes have a pot, so what do they do? They roast everything they get, put it on a stick and roast it over the fire. Letting all the fat and drippings spill out and hit the fire, because there are no calories in drippings, nope, none at all. Whereas you could put it in the pot, braise it with some liquid, and get every last bit of nutrition out of it, you can also of course make bone broth with any carcass remnants, you don't have to throw them in the fire or out, really.

    If any (more) of you make it on TV, please do a favor for my sanity and use the pot to get every last drop of nutrition out of any game you score. Pots, not just for boiling water.


  2. #2
    Senior Member MrFixIt's Avatar
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    I never understood that myself. Not only are you getting all of the nutritional value from the food, you are getting liquids (the broth) into your system as well.
    When all else fails, read the directions, and beware the Chihuahuacabra!

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Yeah, but on the other hand....downing a earth worm or grub is doable.......... worm soup, maybe not so much?
    I can close my eyes and swallow.....stirring, smelling and slurping...much harder.

    Some how black chard "meat" on a stick....may go down better.....because if it ain't down, and stays down...no nutrition at all.
    That's just me.
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    Of course, Chris, you could just "change the channel?"

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    It's all "show biz," boys and girls. These shows are about sensationalism and graphics. Nothing graphic about a piece of meat simmering in a pot. It's more graphic for the meat to be charring on a stick in leaping flames.

    The various reality show producers are in business to make money, not teach a neophyte how to "survive" out in the boonies. Being sensational and graphic is what put Bear Grylls on the teeeveee map big time ... and that successful show has not been lost on subsequent production companies who want a slice of the pie.

    As Midwest Preacher said, there is always an "Off" button on the teeeveee set.

    S.M.
    "They that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

    - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790),U.S. statesman, scientist, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    I may be a bad person,

    OK I am officially a bad person.

    But, I always watch those morons drink from untreated water sources and hope beyond hope that they get the squirts so bad their guts fall out!

    That is double true for the ones making the crude filter systems declaring that it is just as good as any city water purification system.

    The shows showing people going to Africa and drinking from untreated sources should be taken off the air.

    I help train missionaries that go to Africa and I know that the water over there will not just make you sick, it will kill you. And getting into that nasty water is just as bad. There is stuff in that water that will bore through your skin, crawl up your rectum or urethra, and go though your ears and eyeballs to your brain.

    Some of those guys from Naked and Afraid are going to pay the price in years to come, when the medical staff tells them the worm that has eaten their liver crawled up their butt on a reality show!
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    I agree Chris. That really bugged me on Discovery Channel N&A XL with the eel, sting rag and fish etc. These were out on their 2nd or third time not true newbies. Mostly they had metal water bottles but someone might have been able to improvise a cook pot like thousands of primitive people in that region have done for thousands of years. Chards of pottery found in campfires all over the world, also goards and bamboo you can drop hot rocks in. Or pack under ground in layers of (banana) leaves with hot rocks on top, many ways to cook and use it all.
    Last edited by TXyakr; 10-22-2015 at 08:17 PM.

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    Senior Member Wise Old Owl's Avatar
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    Txyakr I agree there are some awkward stupid stuff going on. The best was when someone dug down 15 feet from a stream and it was good. More about ratings.
    “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

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    Senior Member Wise Old Owl's Avatar
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    Recently a repeat on one show showed on Naked and Afraid where one guy could not get a fire going with a bow drill. As soon as she tapped out. He had the fire going... My wife was incensed and called him a jerk. I watched the re-run a few days ago and this too is suspect inserted drama.
    “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

    Theodore Roosevelt 1907

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    The other reason to boil or braze your meat in a pot is that bringing up to a boil for a few minutes is a more certain way of killing all the parasites and pathogens than roasting large pieces of meat over a fire (many people on this forum and myself have said this before). I always do this with wild squirrel and rabbit. Cutting it in small pieces allows it to cook faster and is easier to eat, i.e. does not seem as tough, especially shoulder of feral hog etc.

    The most recent episode of Discovery Channel N&A the pair did very well, I think they were on the Zambezi River basin in Eastern Namibia. They focused on purifying water first, then a shelter which was not as big a deal since it was dry, built a small one which works best to conserve heat. Problem was he got carried away stoking the fire and embers lit shelter on fire so they had to rebuild it. I have seen folks do that often, city people are often obsessed with large fires and fail to understand the value of punky wood over night.

    I would have planned an escape route up a tree during the night when the hippos roam on land, perhaps they did. Discovery Producer told me they take the contestant's safety seriously, just don't always show it on T.V. My friend who worked in remote areas of Mozambique said the hippos, then crocs and lastly land mines killed someone almost every week when he was there. But now that country which had many years of war claims to be free of land mines. So is on my bucket list of a fun places for a river trip. ;-)

    Oh well meanwhile I just run 6 miles per day plus work out on about 10-15 machines in the gym for an addition 1 hour as well, and paddle 6-15 miles every weekend, plus primitive camp on sides of as many rivers in the region as often as possible. Try not to get more than 10-15 lbs above my very skinny H.S. weight. Was once 40 lbs more than now with lots of mass but as a person gets older the bone structure can not support all that and it is best to lose it and trim back down again or be in pain. Just my opinion.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by kyratshooter View Post
    " ... But, I always watch those morons drink from untreated water sources and hope beyond hope that they get the squirts so bad their guts fall out! ..."
    Speaking of the "survival show" actors who drink from the supposed polluted water intentionally for the sake of "graphics" for the show, I watched a documentary made several years ago about the making of the 1986 movie, "Platoon," written and directed by Oliver Stone.

    Stone took the actors to the jungles of the Philippine Islands and had them go through an advanced, accelerated "boot camp" of what the Army grunts would have encountered, in order to get them "into their parts." For 14 days, 24 hours per day, the actors were subjected to intense jungle conditions and could never leave their character as written in the screen play.

    In interviewing the actors years later, the actor Wilhem Dafoe (Sgt. Elias in the movie), said that once he was so thirsty during the training he drank from one of the jungle streams. A few minutes afterward, when he walked up the stream a few yards, there was a long dead buffalo in the stream, rotting away, full of maggots, flies, other insects, etc. Dafoe said that very soon he was sicker than anytime in his life. Thought he was going to die.

    There was a case of someone drinking from a stream, not knowing he should not do so, and suffering the consequences. I'll bet he's never done it again.

    If you'd like to see Dafoe relate his drinking unclean water while training for his role in "Platoon," , here is the video link.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhLQ6vaNWnk

    S.M.
    "They that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

    - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790),U.S. statesman, scientist, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

  12. #12

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    Ya toss yer dice ya take yer chances,

    I boil and filter.

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