Pursuing unimportant or long-term needs, with an obsession with protein
From BearWiki
Claim: Bear often pursues unimportant or long-term survival needs and has an unjustified obsession with protein.
Not all human needs are created equal. The human body can go for a few minutes without air, a few hours to a few days without water (depending on the climate), and a month without food. Depending on climate, a shelter might not be required at all, or it might be needed within an hour.
On Man vs Wild, Bear often pursues things greatly disproportionate to their necessity, such as risking his life to eat eggshells for the calcium, when calcium deficiency takes years to develop.
One of the most common disproportionate needs Bear pursues is "protein". In nearly every episode, he seeks out protein and references how good food is by its protein content. The body is unable to store protein, and only 10% of your calories need to be from protein to not develop a deficiency (Paula Kurtzweil, “‘Daily Values’ Encourage Healthy Diet,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2003). Protein can be converted into carbohydrates (the real energy source), at a cost of extra load on the kidneys (from increased urea production) and calcium loss.[1] While protein deficiency (marmasus) certainly isn't good for you, what you really need to survive for as long as possible are two critical things:
- Calories. Here, fats are the clear winner, at 9 kilocalories per gram. Protein and carbohydrates each have 4 kilocalories per gram, but carbohydrates are much more readily used as energy.
- Immediate energy. Here, simple carbohydrates, such as sugars, are the winner, as your body uses a simple sugar in the bloodstream (glucose) as its energy source. Proteins have to go through a long and convoluted process to be converted to carbohydrates, then to sugars, and thus to energy (straining the kidneys in the process to get rid of the nitrogen as urea).
While running out of key nutrients will eventually happen, starvation, in its purest form, is due to eating less calories than you're burning. You want as much fat as possible. Fat also contains lots of critical vitamins and minerals; a condition called "rabbit starvation" can take people in the north in the wintertime who rely only on rabbit or other lean meats for their calories.
While immediate energy may seem to be a natural consequence of getting enough calories, there are times when it isn't. A good example of this is in the case of hypothermia. Your body burns glucose as fast as it can get a hold of it to warm you up through shivering. Your real risk of dying of hypotherma, once removed from the cause that lowered your body temperature so much, comes from a lack of blood sugar. The ideal treatment for a hypothermic patient is, if they can swallow, to give them sickly-sweet fluids.[2]
Lastly, everything Bear labels as being high in protein is meat. Yet plants, while generally not having as good of an amino acid distribution, often have as much or more protein than meat. A single slice of whole wheat bread has 2.7 grams. A cup of broccoli has 4.6 grams. A cup of boiled spinach, 5.4. A cup of bulgar, 5.6. 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 8. A cup of quinoa, 11. 1 cup chickpeas, 14.5. 1 cup black beans, 15.2. 1/2 cup tempeh, 15.7. 1 cup lentils, 19.9. 4 ounces seitan, 24.[3] In general, grains, legumes, nuts, and many green, leafy vegetables are excellent protein sources.
Sure, you won't find any of the listed foods growing randomly in the wild, but wild edibles tend to be just as packed with protein. Weeds like purslane, lamb's quarter, and pigweed have more protein per gram than spinach. Just to pick a sample wild staple plant: cattails were a common staple for many native tribes. Cattail rhizome flour is 6-8% protein[4]. Furthermore, as wind-pollinated plants, cattails produce copious amounts of pollen at certain times of the year, which, like most pollens, is incredibly protein rich (pollens are sometimes found in protein supplements)[5]. Livestock feed made from whole cattails and bulrushes has a protein value of 26%[6]
In short, if you're eating, and you're not eating one specific low-protein food, you're probably getting enough to not have a deficiency. Even if you did have a deficiency, it's not your main concern: calories is.
[edit] Analysis
Support: Bear also likes to point out what is a good source of vitamin C. I'm sure a stranded tourist is more concerned with hunger (calorie intake) than scurvy, which can take weeks of malnutrition to form.
Neutral: Survivorman, generally regarded as more "authentic," also hunts/traps and eats his fair share of protein (rabbit, turtle, snake, squirrel, lizard, frog, snails, etc.)
- Support: Quite true. But he doesn't obsess with it, discussing everything compared to how much protein it has. He also tends to prioritize correctly -- shelter compared to how the conditions are, water more importantly than food, etc. The show also often demonstrates how you can survive (very uncomfortably, but still survive) without food so long as your other needs are met. It's a more accurate portrayal.
:Neutral: This is not a Survivorman wiki; this wiki is only for discussion of the quality of advice and faking of scenes on Man vs Wild.
:Neutral: The point is that their seems to be one rule for Bear and one for Les. When Stroud talks about protein content its OK because hes deemed as not "obsessing" over it (even though he talked about it 3 times during the African Desert episode) but when Bear talks about protein it deserves a page on this site bitching about him. Terrible double standard going on here.
