Food Theory: Can You Eat Your Clothes To SURVIVE?

it's been 16 days without food outside the weather doesn't seem to be letting up days and nights of ceaseless pouring rain flooding the ground a tide of water literally laughing at your cabin's front door it'll be at least another week before you're able to get back to civilization all you can think about is food the rations ran out on day two stupid by day six the place had been picked clean of any mice and bugs you are literally dying of hunger as your body eats a void into your gut as it yearns for its next meal but there's nothing and there'll be nothing for the next day and the next and the next unless meat is meat after all think is there anything else something to stall you from having to do that what about clothes a boot a belt a shirt will any of those get you through a few more days can you eat those things should you eat those things or should you just submit to the inevitable your mind flashes to a moment a video an episode of food theory that you watched before any of this and suddenly you know exactly what you need to do [Music] hello internet welcome to food theory the show that serves up a hefty slice of brain food every week just make sure you check out our latest offering diet brain food same great taste less filling ladies and gentlemen welcome to cannibalism crossover week part two yep we've done this before shockingly you see almost exactly one year ago we did a three-way crossover for the theorist channels where each video we uploaded explored the trendy brand friendly subject of you know consuming the fleshier fellow creatures we talked about human soda cans over on game theory wall-e's human smoothies on film theory and how the m m's can't seem to stop eating each other over here on food theory but believe it or not we're doing it again because apparently there's just a lot to say about the topic this time i was inspired by a video game called cooking companions a small indie title marinated in slavic folklore where a group of travelers wind up trapped in a remote log cabin with dwindling food supplies considering the nature of this crossover weekend i think you can figure out what happens it's a phenomenal game that takes some very interesting turns so if you're hungry for something a little scary i highly recommend that you watch our video on it immediately after this one link is right up in the corner or hopefully it's in the recommended video feed provided youtube isn't acting like an angsty teenager today anyway the premise of the game got me thinking we've all heard about this scenario playing out before a group of survivors are trapped in a remote location there's some natural disaster like a flood or a blizzard or a rampage of k-pop stands that keeps the group hunkered down until all the supplies have run out and suddenly they're forced to do the unthinkable in order to survive human it's what's for dinner obviously the classic historical example that always gets brought up is the donner party from the 1840s where a group of 87 american pioneers found themselves snowbound in the sierra nevada mountains for four months before they got rescued out of desperation they found alternative sources of protein in order to survive but there are certainly plenty of other historical examples out there like in 1820 when a whale sank the large ship essex leaving the 20-man crew stranded in lifeboats for three months let's just say that of the 20 only eight made it back fun fact this incident is actually what inspired the writing of moby dick there was also the french ship medusa from 1816 which ran aground and needed again people in lifeboats they were rescued a mere 13 days later but apparently got hungry for a snack along the way moral of the story don't go exploring in the early 1800s if you have a weak stomach practically a food trend with how many stories came from that era now obviously these are all awful situations that push people to the brink of survival and sanity so today i wanted to ask the question what can we do to avoid all of that consider this your anti-cannibalism episode could the clothes that you wear on your back serve as an alternative food source could we possibly consume a shoe instead of a shin a shirt instead of a shoulder a belt instead of a butt cause sometimes the rescue is only a day away so before you turn into actual cannibal shia labeouf let's explore what alternatives might be out there to fulfill your daily caloric needs should you be turning to your wardrobe for sustenance could you turn to your wardrobe for sustenance shake a severed leg my friends it's time to eat also just as we're getting started here we're gonna assume that water isn't gonna be a problem in our reference game cooking companions you spend your time hanging out in a cabin luckily rain waters have flooded the area around the cabin so while we're cut off from civilization we're not cut off from a source of fresh water to drink same with situations like the donner party where snow can be melted to give you something to wash down your fillet of soul uh not fish your fillet of shoe anyway we're gonna assume that water is a given today we are purely focused on calorie intake and you see that's an important point it's worth noting that the question of should you eat your clothes is different from the question of can you eat your clothes can you eat your clothes well if by putting it in your mouth and swallowing it down into your digestive system darn all the consequences then yeah you can do that to pretty much anything i've watched enough tlc content to know that people can eat anything from hair to couch fluff to light bulbs for example there's a piece of folk wisdom urban legend i don't know man saying that you can eat your crocs those ugly rubber shoes no joke there is a shockingly high number of blog posts on the internet all about crocs being edible because they're non-toxic and made of organic compounds in fact one intrepid student journalist named gunner lundberg decided to put the concept to the test by boiling their shoe for 20 minutes carving it up dipping it in sriracha and chewing and chewing and chewing but didn't really manage to break it down into pieces that were small enough to fit down their throat eventually just cutting it smaller and gulping it down like a hungry seagull where it then proceeded to linger in their throat for hours their conclusion to this little case study quote if you're ever stranded on a deserted island with a friend and crocs appear to be your only food source take my advice eat your friend before you eat your crocs and gunner is right about eating the friend in this case but for the wrong reasons you see crocs are made of cross light a foam resin that has zero nutritional value so even if you could chew them into pieces those pieces would give you zero nutrients they would do nothing to help your survival during that snowed in cabin experience you're expending more calories chewing and swallowing this thing than you're putting back into your body and you see that's the crux of this episode just because you can swallow something doesn't mean you should necessarily eat it in a starvation scenario we eat plants and animals instead of plastic foam and metal because our bodies are built to digest plants and animals we know how to use those things we can then break those food molecules down into simpler components that can then leave our digestion system and enter our bloodstream are there certain things that can eat metal break it down and have it provide energy to their bodies yeah actually in 2020 scientists discovered a bacteria that does exactly that meanwhile for us eating things like light bulbs clocks and crocs aren't going to be helpful because our bodies can't use anything inside of those objects but lots of clothing is made of plants and animals so what about all of those things how about starting with the thing we'd be most likely to have on us in a stranded and cabin situation a simple t-shirt logic tells us that lots of t-shirts are made of cotton which is in fact a plant we eat plants so what's to stop us from munching on that crew neck instead of the neck of our camping buddy and hey if you saw those headlines back in 2018 talking about how the usda approved edible cotton well now you might really be getting your hopes up here that you can have your shirt and eat it too unfortunately that story was largely click bait well it's certainly true that parts of the cotton plant are safe to eat those would be the seeds not the cotton fibers that make up your clothes seeds contain amino acids often a certain amount of plant-based protein but the actual cotton fibers which are painstakingly separated from the seeds before making clothing yep they have no digestible nutrition whatsoever for humans interestingly this is also why we can have products made from hemp in places where cannabis is illegal hemp not digestible or usable to obtain therapeutic effects associated with the plant same goes with cotton the weavable parts of cotton are all indigestible cellulose the tough plant cell walls sure insoluble fiber in small doses can help keep our digestive system running like clockwork and make us feel full but in large portions things start to get a bit unfortunate while small amounts of the dietary fiber that you find in your quaker oats might help you with digestion eating cotton will do the exact opposite it'll cause blockages in your gastrointestinal system you are lucky if ingesting cotton only results in a very painful day as your system clears itself out naturally worst case scenario you need emergency surgery to clear the blockage interestingly this is also a problem with futuristic clothing technology like seaweed shirts which is designed to be more sustainable and better for the environment far from plankton's ideal of being 50 c and 50 weed seaweed shirts are actually more like 80 cotton and 20 seaweed still too high of a cotton percentage to be digestible which is too bad because the seaweed would have actually been fine so tldr here do not eat those plant fiber garments not only will your body get zero nutrients from them but they'll cause major problems to the point where it can literally kill you and we're specifically trying to do the opposite of that so let's stay on task what else are you wearing while you're snowed in that polyester jacket is made of plastic so that's a definite no-go as well as the rubber soles of your boots metal buttons and zippers and you don't want to be wrapping your intestines in lycra so hands off those spanx but how about something like leather say a leather belt a jacket a shoe leather is made from animal hide after all and while there are certainly people who aren't big fans of eating animal skin any lover of pork rinds and fried chicken can tell you that the skin is often one of the best parts and cow skin is eaten all over the world cow skin soup is a jamaican classic in nigeria cow skin or ponmo is often served as a spicy protein-rich dish with peppers it even has carbohydrates and fats macronutrients that bodies need to survive with 100 grams of boiled cow skin being good for about 225 calories does that mean you should start cutting your leather jacket and boots and making a soup out of them is your belt edible well yes and also no the rock how high that leather is made from is absolutely edible the microbes in your stomach are more than capable of breaking it down and deriving nutrients from it but the same things that make the cow hide a great meal for your stomach also makes it a great meal for microbes that can break it down and cause it to rot in your closet have you ever stopped and wondered why beef can spoil after a few weeks in the refrigerator but doesn't spoil after a few weeks left hanging in your closet it is the same stuff after all well the reason is because we're not wearing raw cowhide instead our leather shoes jackets boots and handbags are all animal hides that have been treated through a process called tanning this process permanently alters the protein structure of the skin making it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition great news for your wardrobe terrible news for your diets so your jacket and boots being made of tanned leather must be ineligible for eating right well it's not that easy the tanning process historically used tannin which is the astringent molecule that gives coffee red wine and tea their bitter tastes we consume some tannins in our regular life but you know just a little bit whereas the tanning process relies on saturating leather and tannins until it's like your own little cow skin mummy tannins in the leather tanning process are derived straight from tree bark and are relatively concentrated thereby causing major stomach problems at best and serious toxicity at worst so is anything tanned off the dinner table then well while people historically use tannins for tanning these days very few tanneries actually use it in the 1800s the newer technique of chrome tanning was invented which used chromium salts to tan the leather instead and if you think about it it makes sense because all tanning has to be as a preservation process you can preserve leather by using a bacteria killing astringent like tannins or you can preserve it using salts like people have been doing for hundreds of years to cure meats and other foods that they want to keep for long periods of time nowadays the majority of leather goods are made using this chromium salt method but chromium salt is in table salt so is chromium edible well once again the answer is yes and no it depends on the variety we're talking about trivalent chromium is safe for humans in fact not only is it safe but it's included in some dietary supplements that's trivalent chromium the good kind not to be confused with hexavalent chromium which is totally toxic lucky frost chrome tanning primarily uses trivalent chromium but take that with a grain of salt hopefully trivalent chromium salt but because according to angelo moreto professor at the department of biomedical and clinical sciences at university of milan quote in certain instances small amounts of hexavalent chromium can be formed and released from leather garments he specifically notes that this occurs most frequently with bad quality leather goods so i guess you'll be okay if you're one of those people out there who own chanel handbags and are also starving the overlap in the venn diagram there seems pretty small but we're just gonna roll with it alright so you can eat tanned leather in fact the higher quality the leather good the more likely it is safe for you to eat but unfortunately tanning is sometimes just the first step in leather going from cow to clutch remember that sick looking black leather trench coat that you bought after watching the matrix the first time well here's a red pill for you to swallow black is not its natural color and the dyes that are used in clothing are let's say less than safe to ingest on top of that the leather wax that's applied as a top coat isn't totally safe either one leather grease manufacturer labels their products as slightly toxic which it turns out translates in legal terminology from the epa's toxicity class 3 quote harmful if swallowed so not the answer to our stranded in the snow munchies under exactly the right circumstances you may be able to safely eat your leather products and get some nutritional value out of it but the risk that you poison yourself in the process is fairly high untreated natural leather is gonna be your best bet go figure it's almost like there's a reason we make clothes out of what we do and eat the things that aren't those materials but hey if you did have to eat your leather boots to survive take comfort in the fact that you wouldn't be the first to do it captain john franklin became famous for eating his leather boots during an arctic expedition between 1819 and 1822 cementing him in the mind of the british public as the man who ate his boots though he might not be the most famous man to ever do the deed the short documentary film werner herzog eats his shoe is exactly what it says on the cover no clickbait we're in our herzog eating a shoe or at least part of a shoe after it was boiled with garlic and herbs for five hours so before you choose to nibble on your nike or try to digest a dior just make sure you're boiling out as much of the dye and polish as possible and that's largely it at the end of the day the options most of us have for eating our clothing are slim to none so what should we be doing to ensure our longest possible survival in a trapped in environment until help comes we have all these clothes and they're just not helping us or are they turns out that when all said and done the best clothes might be the ones that you don't eat one of the biggest risks to your body when it comes to waiting for help in any situation is exposure shivering in the cold can burn hundreds of calories per hour all calories that you need to survive days or weeks until rescue and every minute you spend cold is going to leave you drained and even more weakened also when you're cold brown fat or brown adipose tissue activates and burns calories to help warm your body even if your leather jacket is edible i'd recommend leaving it on until you've literally reached the point of starvation which will take longer than you might expect well scientists obviously can't conduct studies on the limits of human starvation for ethical reasons modern hunger strikes have provided a fascinating opportunity for observational studies showing that humans can live for one to two months without food and live assuming that they're starting as a well-nourished person whose body already has calories stored up as muscle and fat there have been plenty of real world examples like this poor swedish man who was trapped in his car for two months after a snowstorm he survived with only a few snacks and water really throws into stark relief the fact that in cooking companions you pull out your first slice of mystery meat on day eight or worse those guys aboard the medusa who resorted to cannibalism before being rescued on day 13. so next time you go on a big hike a trip to a remote cabin or trek out into the snow just carbo-load ahead of time and make sure that you stick near a fresh water source your body might not come out looking healthy at the end of those 1-2 months but at least you'll be alive and not saddled with a lifetime of existential regret as you think about the companion you consumed but hey that's just a theory a food theory bon appetit and hey now that you finished this episode of food theory go check out the game that inspired it cooking companions that episode is live right now on game theory so if you're up for something a little bit spooky and a little bit spicy as far as the algorithm is concerned take a bite out of that one link is on screen click it and i'll see you over there [Music]

Channel: The Food Theorists

Views: 2,455,686

Keywords: edible clothing, can you survive, survive, nutrition, edible clothes, edible clothing taste test, eat your clothes, can you eat your clothes, food science, edible clothing hack, food hack, food challenge, challenge, food theory, food theorists, matpat, game theory, film theory, eat the menu, babish, budget eats, without a recipe, edible fashion, edible, edible fabric, diet, starvation, starve to death

Id: 5nMEJEndAV4

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2022