Opinion  of the Month

This opinion piece started from some messages that me and  Andrew have been exchanging. He mentioned that he was a vegetarian  and I asked about whether he thought it would be possible to  survive as a vegetarian. These are his replies to those questions.

What would  YOU do if... You woke to find 99% of the population had been  killed by a virus?... And you were a vegetarian?

By Andrew

I thought your comments about being a vegetarian quite interesting  because it is something that comes to mind when I watch certain  episodes. In the UK at the moment we are all living under the  scare about Bovine Spongeform Enchephalitis (Mad Cows Disease) which has entered the human food chain and left all us veggies  rather smug. The wider point to all this is the fact that modern  farming techniques, which are driven by consumer demands for  cheap meat, have created hybrid animals which would not live  very long if starved of human attention such as immune vaccinations,  steroids, special feeds and the like.

As far as being a Survivor is concerned I think that there  would be very few animals left for us to eat. Wild animals yes,  but domestic veterinary science induced farm animals no. The  very fact that such animals would not be vacinated against all  the disesases they are so vunerable against would wipe most of  them out within a year or so. Milk producing cows, as we know,  would die if not milked.

The same could of course apply to crops and plants. We rely  so much on insecticides, fertilisers and preservatives that we  must ask how much of our modern edible vegetation would in fact  be edible after a few years ravaged by nature? Plants and vegetables  have become hybrids too, dependant on Man's scientific know how,  to germinate and prosper.

If 10,000 people survived in the UK for instance, how many  of them would have the skills to get around these problems? The  majority from city areas might not even be able to plant a seed!

I would much prefer to stick to my vegetarian habits as a  Survivor than try and pick my way through the genetic minefield  of animal husbandry. No fish either! How could you trust any  river for pollution for many many years?

So, as I see it, if you are the sort of person who pops down  to the local Tesco for your weekly shop, stock up on the tins  of food and ready cut packaged meat, then you haven't a hope  in hell of surviving beyond the dwindling stocks that had been  left behind after the holacoust. The Bernard Huxleys' of this  world as in The Future Hour would be the new feudal barons  selling the dwindling stock of "old world" food that  would be demanded by the majority of us failed farmers. Fights,  battles, wars...I could go on!

I should say that as a qualified nurse I have quite strong  views about peoples nutrition and their health. Health education  is all the thing you know! Also, living in a farming community  which is dedicated to "factory" animals I just can  not see how many of them would survive without human care, intensive  care at that!

Wild animals? What is a wild animal? Rabbits, deer, pigeons,  etc etc. Are they not kept under control by man? Would wild animals  survive without human attention to its habitats and the "fall  out" of its unchecked pollution and chemical living?

In short we would not have enough people left alive with the  skills to harness the food we would need from animals. Even if  we could, would we have the skills to preserve what we had killed?  No, a veggie life is the only life of a true survivor!

Andrew

Replies

You paint a VERY bleak picture of life after "the sickness"!  I think you're right about a lot of the things you talk about.  While I accept that modern farming techniques would mean that  many of the domesticated plants and animals would die, doesn't  this mean that you'd be best off being able to eat as many types  of food as possible? Hunting rabbits, birds etc. may not be much  good as a reliable source of food at first, but they could provide  important nutrients that aren't easily found in plants (and especially  if you can't eat dairy food). Especially if the variety of plants  that are available is going to be a problem, eating meat/blood  etc could make all the difference.
I'm sure you know better than I do about what you need to have  a healthy diet, and which plants provide the right nutrients,  but how would you get the seeds etc to start to grow them? As  you mention, the bad farming practices affect plants as well  as animals - how good a crop could you grow without the pesticides?  So basically, I agree with you in that most people would in pretty  bad shape to actually get enough food to survive, but I would  say that restricting your diet to a vegetarian one is making  things even tougher! I hope it doesn't offend you to say that  I think a vegetarian diet is a luxury that true survivors couldn't  afford!

Greig

As you point out, agriculture as practiced today, would not  be possible in "Survivor Land". What people would be  practicing would be horticulture; the growing and harvesting  of indigenous plants. Part of this way of life, would be keeping  out pests. The crops would be too precious to allow any pests,  for example rabbits, to feast upon them.
Therefore, people would resort to setting traps etc. It would  be inefficient to allow allow any animals snared in this way  to go to waste, so they would be eaten. I agree that hunting  trips would be not be a viable way of procuring food, and that  modern livestock require too much feed, but setting trap lines  would serve the dual purpose of keeping out unwanted pests, and  providing an additional source of much needed protein.

Clare

Andrew's Response

I took Clare's points about protecting your crops and snaring  rabbits etc as a valid and sound exercise but I would make the  point that trapped animals would attract wild dogs from miles  around.

For example,there are perhaps 4 to 6 million dogs in this  country.Suppose just half of these survived and bred at a fierce  rate (no more neutering). A country such as the UK could with  just 10,000 people be over run by hungry packs of dogs.

The wolf instinct in dogs is still very close to the surface.  Wolves are very successful survivors and man has seen fit to  erradicate them from the wild in most parts of the world as they  are and were seen as a threat to him. Dogs would soon very quickly  pick up the skills to hunt in packs and they don't kill quickly.  Often they will chase and hound its prey to exhaustion until  it is weak enough to eat alive.

This was of course brought up in the episode Mad Dog where Charles was hunted because they thought he was carrying  rabies. I wonder what the incidence of rabies would be among  millions of dogs in the UK? Now we have the Channel Tunnel it  would be bound to enter the country. Perhaps I am like the character  Charles met in Mad Dog called Fenton, a pessimistic survivor  just observing the downfall of civilisation.

I know we all have individual views on how WE would survive  but what would the over all "quality" of survivors  be. How many of the 10,000 survivors would be from the cities  and what would their knowledge of the rurual way of life they  would have to lead be?

I still maintain that, in the UK anyway,a secure small holding  devoid of animals would be the safest bet. Careful and skilled  management of a variety of crops would still be my best bet!