Having a premade stock of survival foods that you can rely upon to see you through is important. During many survival situations living without enough food becomes a real problem. With grocery stores and restaurants readily available we may not normally think much about where our next meal is coming from. But when food supplies have been destroyed, are unavailable due to civil unrest, or are not geographically within our reach (as in you are lost, injured, in a remote area, or even imprisoned) we are quick to feel the lack of food and finding our next meal will become a priority.
Symptoms of Inadequate Food Consumption
Although not as critical as going without water, missing even just a few meals can cause a host of undesirable complications for the would-be survivor. Although we will not starve while going without food for several days or even a week, being underfed for even just one day can cause:
· Irritability
· Low moral
· Lethargy
· Physical Weakness
· Confusion and disorientation
· Poor judgment
· Weakened immune system
· Inability to maintain body temperature which can lead to hypothermia, heat exhaustion, or even heat stroke.
Only the survivor with a full stomach can take on the challenges adversity will throw in his way
These symptoms can adversely affect your ability to survive as weakness, sickness, accidents, and mistakes take their toll.
Only a well fed survivor with a full stomach can take on the challenges adversity will throw in his way.
Factors Affecting How Long You can Live without Food
Though there can be no exact numbers, experience has shown there are limits to how long humans can go without food before unmistakable signs of starvation set in.
How long you can live without food depends upon a host of factors including:
· Initial state of health. Those who are physically healthy and have been consuming plenty of good nutritious food have an advantage. During the start of a food shortage their systems are fully stocked to begin with. During food shortages your body can draw from this supply of nutrients and extend the length of time you can live without eating.
· Amount of muscle on the body. Muscle is broken down by a starving body and used for both fuel and nutrients. On the other hand, even at rest lean muscle burns calories.
· Amount of body fat. Each pound of body fat contains about 3600 calories, enough energy for the average person for about a day and half. During a survival situation when there is not enough food to eat, a few extra pounds can come in handy. Indeed, gaining weight when food is plentiful is an important survival mechanism.
· Your metabolism will be a factor in determining how long you can live without food. Individual metabolisms vary. As you go without food your metabolism will naturally slow, but those people who are already starting from a lower baseline will have an advantage in using less calories and therefore living longer.
· The amount of work we are performing while going without food. Being active requires increased amounts of calories and nutrients. If you are forced to live without food, the less active you can remain the longer you will last.
· The temperature of your environment has a direct bearing on how long you can live without food. Below a comfortable temperature your body will be expending additional calories as it attempts to stay warm. In hot environments your body will expend additional calories in trying to say cool, and your body will be losing precious electrolytes via your sweat. When stressed by lack of food you are more susceptible to heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
· If you can stay adequately hydrated you can live without food for a longer period of time than if there were shortages of food and water together.
Real Life Examples of Living without Food
I did some research on people who have gone without food for extended periods of time:
| Medical Doctors | Commonly cite 4 to 6 weeks without food |
| 10 Political Prisoners in Ireland | Lived 46 to 73 days before succumbing to lack of food |
| 12 individual starvation protestors | Two lost tongues, 1 lost feet, 7 on kidney dialysis |
| Many war prisoners | Lived 28 to 40 days with no food |
| World War II concentration camps | With only 300 to 600 calories per day, many thousands did not have enough food to survive more than a few months at best. |
| Terminally Ill patients | Live 10-days to 3-weeks without food depending upon initial heath |
| Obese | Can live from 3-weeks up to 25-weeks and more without food depending upon initial health and amount of fat |
| Mahatma Gandhi | Survived a 3-week fast while in his 70's |
The Will to Survive With Not Enough Food
I highly recommend you always have a stock of emergency survival food on hand
There is another important factor in determining how long someone might live when there is little or no nourishing food to be had. There should be will to survive. With or without food those whose will to survive is strongest will always live longer than those who do not have this all important attribute. Ones willpower can add several days, or even a week to the total length of time you can survive without food. People who are starved and no longer have the will to live will perish much more quickly.
Training Yourself to Live on less Food
Breatharians claim they can survive indefinitely without food. Of course this is a false claim as it is physically impossible to live without any food whatsoever for the rest of your life. Unless of course you follow the Breatharian diet and die from lack of food in a short time (a short rest-of-your-life) while in the midst of plenty!
Anorexics have shown that people can voluntarily survive without very much food (as compared to normal food consumption) for extended periods of time. Because they are consuming limited quantities of food their metabolisms attempt to adapt. As the body senses starvation it extracts every last vestige of nutrition from whatever food is eaten. Over time the body is trained to become more efficient in its processing of food and this confers some advantage when a real food shortage occurs.
This brings up the subject of training your body to live on less food than normal. The problem with training the body to live on less food is that when doing so it can be difficult to obtain enough nutrition for optimum health. When a situation develops where you have to live without food, or with only a small amount of food, you want to start out with a body that is fully stocked with nutrients to being with.
Healthy individuals should be able to survive without food for thirty to forty days
In the vast majority of survival situations, you are going to be rescued or rescue yourself within three days. During this time you will be much better off if you have started your ordeal in tip-top shape, with your nutrient reserves tanked up and a little extra body fat. Nature has been helping man survive for many thousands of years, and your body fat is an important reserve of nutrition should you have to go without food for any length of time.
Be Prepared for Long Lasting Food Shortages
Breatharians aside, if you are relatively young, healthy, and have been eating plenty of good food so that your body is fully stocked with nutrients your chances of surviving without food for about 5 to 6 weeks are pretty good. Of course this assumes that environmental conditions are ideal, your physical movements are kept to minimum, and you are not trying to live without water at the same time.
Even without a store of survival foods, there is little reason for the experienced survivor to go without food for an extended period of time. The expert survivor has the knowledge and skills to procure at least some food which will serve to extend the amount of time he or she can live without outside sources.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Our survival plans assume that during a crisis there are likely to be food shortages. While others are attempting to survive without food because they have not properly planned, we will have our MREs, emergency food bars, food caches, and other survival food and supplies previously prepared and ready. Our bodies will be healthy and fully stocked with nutrients to begin with. We have the tools and survival skills to hunt, fish, trap, forage, and harvest the plants that grow in abundance around us.
How long you can go without food depends upon your willpower as well as other factors. This is a very good post and I would like to see more about ways to stay alive without enough food. Thank you for the information!
Some people live day to day going to the grocery store and have very little in the way of extra food on hand. Everybody needs to have more food than they need week to week in case of an emergency. You cannot rely on your government agencies to save you!
I prefer a MREs (meals ready to eat) because this food keeps for years and is very nutritious. But even simple foods like pasta, rice, beans, and dried milk can stay fresh for long periods of time and allow you to survive when normal sources of food become unavailable.
I hope it allows more people to survive in the next disaster.
How long can you go without food or water or air? Forever when you are not alive! So this is good stuff to know so that you stay alive.
We are looking for additional examples of people going with no food for extended periods of time.
I agree, one of the best survival foods are Meals Ready to Eat. The army spent time and money developing the recipes to make the most nutritious food that lasts the longest in adverse environments. Not bad tasting either. I recommend you try adding some MREs to your survival cache.
Does age effect how long older people last without food? My grandmother is in her 90's and cannot eat solid food any longer.
There is not one day I have not eaten anything.
What i don't understand is that when i researched fasting it said a 40 day fast will not hurt you. You may lose weight and you should most likely be monitored by a doctor but fasting is perfectly safe. Currently I have gone one week without food and plan on going for at least one more.
I believe if you survived on beans/rice/salsa/salt you could live indefinitely. These foods include everything the body needs with a complete amino acid profile of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, iron etc. What do you others think?
I would like to see my friend survive 30 days without food!
All the more reason to know the value of caching survival food and supplies is the event that something unexpected happens.
I read in a Science book that a person can live 3 months without food, but only three days without water. I think it also depends on the person’s health.
I was required to fast for 72 hours (3 days) without food for a medical procedure. It was annoying, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Just keep yourself busy to help you ignore the hunger pains. After 24 hrs I got a little bit "high", I felt very good and even had a burst of energy the 2nd day. During this time my judgment was not impaired, nor did I feel impaired in any way. I never did feel weak, but the hunger kept gnawing at me.
We can't stock up on food. I lost my cash and I have no food. So hopefully your tips help me ride out the 2 weeks until payday.
Survival Topics - GORD, there are increasing numbers in your situation. Try wild foods, this time of year there are often plenty of cattail shoots and fish to be eaten. Take care and never give up.
Is there a documented case of an obese person living 25 weeks without any food? I've had a debate with my friend who insists that calorie deficiency might not be the only cause of death and an obese person might die with fat still attached from other causes due to not eating (scurvy, electrolyte imbalance, edema, blood poisoning).
My view is that with vitamin supplements (against scurvy) and some salt for electrolyte balance a fat person will lose all their fat and muscle tissue before dying (due to heart failure?).
Survival Topics - of course nutrition plays a key role. Someone who starts out in perfect health with nutritional stores in the body topped off will likely live longer without food than someone who is out of shape and physically sub-par due to dietary habits. At some point anybody will die from not eating food but the time it takes to reach that state can be prolonged through the intake of essential vitamins, electrolytes, etc. As you mention, it is unlikely a person will expire due to lack of available calories. It will more likely be due to other nutrional deficiencies.
You do start to feel really great after just one day of not eating. I had not eaten any food for 2 days once. But i felt i had to start eating though because I felt very weak.
I don't know why people buy into "Breatharian" lifestyle. I'm currently researching it for a College paper. I have found that 3 people have died from trying such an extreme diet. I don't see why people would believe in such a thing being that its so close to anorexia.
I find it very interesting how long you can survive without food. I think it is great that you post this website to inform people very useful surviving skills.
Remember the 'rule of three's'. A person can survive for:
· Three hours without shelter
· Three days without water
· Three weeks without food
It's important during times of abundance to try fasting. Fasting for a few days every so often gives you the experience of going without food that you may need at some point. Instead of looking at it as an exercise in futility (because we all need food) it should an exercise in self awareness.
Fasting for a few days causes positive changes to one’s body and mind, it not only gives your body a chance to cleanse its self, thinking becomes sharper and you experience a sense of calm.
In general, Americans do not know what real hunger is, even at the "poverty level" (this is a good thing ) but in emergencies, knowing what to expect and how to prepare yourself mentally for challenges such as lack of nutrition, will put you that much more ahead. Before you attempt to fast, prepare yourself mentally for the challenge, and don't deprive yourself of water.
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