What is the hungriest you've ever been?

[guntownuncle]

I just finished reading a history of the Donner Party. By chance, in the last few months I've also read histories of Cabeza de Vaca and the whaling ship Essex. It got me to thinking. I can't remember ever so much as missing a meal, much less facing real, true hunger or starvation. Have any of you guys? Why? Where you lost? A P.O.W.? Tell us the story.

 

[Wyatt Burp]

Maybe when I was laid off in about 1981 and ate a can of gravy. I'm in Sacramento and when I've driven over Donner pass I look down from my cozy heated car into the dense trees and think," Man, we've come pretty f--kin' far in, what is it? About 165 years. That's how I bitch slap myself to keep from whining about stuff.

 

[Careby]

Originally posted by guntownuncle:
I can't remember ever so much as missing a meal, much less facing real, true hunger or starvation. Have any of you guys? Why?

What we think of as "hunger", the gnawing feeling you get when your stomach gets empty, disappears after a day or two without food. I have fasted for as long as 21 days (nothing but water) and felt pretty good most of the time. Supposedly when the real hunger kicks in, which could take over a month depending on your body, you'll know it's time to eat. I really need to do it again, to get my blood pressure down, but these days I find it nearly impossible to get through the first 48 hours without eating.

 

[jed]

In the older days there was always feast or famine to deal with.

Modern bodies do not have the same experiences.
Especially referring to Americans where constant feasting and no famines are doing us under.

jed

 

[straightshooter1]

I don't recall quite all the details, but it was during the Viet Nam War, early February, 1968, in Hue, during the Tet Offensive, in the MACV compound.

The mess hall had been damaged by a rocket or mortar round, as I recall.

We hadn't eaten in quite a while, maybe a day and a half, I just don't remember. Somebody got a bag of white rice, and again, I don't remember where.

But we'd all seen that Van Johnson WW2 flick, where he's cooking eggs in his steel pot, so we made a small fire and tried to boil water and rice in a helmet.

That was the absolute worst stuff I have ever tasted.

Then some guy came along and said, "Hey, you idiots, the PX is open!" Actually, he used a harsher word than "idiots."

There was a little PX in a building there and, sure enough, the door was open. We went in and I don't recall there being anything to eat there, though there may have been.

What I do recall, as clearly as if it was only yesterday, is a box containing Redman Chewing Tobacco. It looked so good, the package was so beautiful (though I'd never tried it) and the rest, as they say,

is history.

Bob

 

[dlstewart01]

I remember in Viet Nam as well while out in the boonies with nothing but c-rations I would have to go at least a day or two before I would eat scrambled eggs and ham from a can. I think thats where green eggs and ham came from. They were terrible tasting.

 

[redlevel]

I got so hungry once my stomach thought my throat had been cut.

I got so hungry once that my backbone rubbed a blister on the inside of my belly button.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

The time I remember most is during 10 days of Survival and Evasion training at the Navy's Survival school in Warner Springs, CA. that all air crews had to pass before deployment to Vietnam. All we had to eat was what we could catch or steal. Some of the things that come to mind are a Seagull we caught while we were doing training on the beach, Jack Rabbit, all kinds of bugs, Cactus Apples, after removing the needles, and various other plant life. As far as I know, no one got sick or starved to death. That was 45 years ago, but many of the tricks and techniques have stayed with me all these years.

 

[ChuckS1]

Ranger school...

 

[BlackAgnes]

---Well, once, while in Air Force and deployed to Curacao, I was billeted at the Princess Beach Hotel and my breakfast steak was served without a garnish of any kind!

No parsley, no orange peel, nothing!

The twenty minutes I had to wait while the chef re-plated the filet appropriately nearly caused me to gnaw my arm off. Good thing for him the eggs were still warm.

Wouldn't want to go through that again.

Tim

 

[7003006]

I was once so hungry I ate a sandwich from a gas station.

 

[ACP230]

I was hunting about 40 miles from home during the muzzloading season.

It only got up to eight degrees that day and was so windy my hunting partner drove into town and bought a pair of new fleece pants. I should have done the same, because the wind was blowing right through the knees of my old red wool hunting pants.
We had lunch but hadn't packed supper. When it got too dark to hang around the woods anymore we drove to a restaurant in the next town.
I ordered a shrimp platter and everything on it disappeared down my gullet in under five minutes. I didn't even feel full.

The thirstiest I've ever been was while hiking in the highlands of an island in the So. Pacific. We had no water and finally bought a handfull of cucumbers from a native woman we met.
Best cucumbers I ever had.

 

[Smith357]

I've been hungry enough that C-Rats tasted like the food of the gods.

My USMC unit was in Norway doing NATO exercises in Feb of 79 and we ran out of food and were not resupplied for 1.5-2 days. Pig intestine never tasted so good. We were so hungry we actually were eating old half potato scraps found on the ground in a farmer's field that left over from the previous harvest.

 

[M29since14]

What is the hungriest you've ever been?

Since I have never faced any hunger due to real hardship afield, your question made me chuckle a bit to myself. As a very young man, I made a motorcycle trip through several countries in Europe. This was back before credit cards were common - at least to me.

I was operating on very limited cash, and while lodging could usually be found that was inexpensive, food prices, even in the little villages, was a bit more than anticipated. We won't even talk about prices in the big cities.

I don't know what I weighed when I returned to NY, but having arrived with a few remaining bucks, I was glad to eat my way back home through PA and OH at prices I could afford. I still remember what is was like to be a long way from home and for two weeks or so without much to eat. It was a good lesson. Being hungry is no big deal. It is how long you have been hungry that gets your mind going.

 

[geoff40]

In 1981 I was diagnosed with a serious gastrointestinal disease. They had to shut me down completely to begin to treat it. I had this special IV installed, in a minor surgical event, an IV called hyperalimentation. Its heavy duty medicine, 40-50% glucose that has to be diluted instantly and has to be installed in the biggest vein in your body, just above the heart. Using bloodwork to analyze what is going on inside and what your nutritional deficiencies are, they custom mix each bottle of solution to sustain you. Several thousand calories a day this way.
They shut you off when they install this, no food, nothing-not even ice chips-to drink. And for the first several days, even if you are seriously ill, trust me, you go insane with hunger. Insane. Then suddenly, it ends, and you find yourself no longer feeling any hunger or thirst. I lived with that thing for about 7 weeks, then a year later for another 3.

 

[Munsterf18]

Originally posted by Lee in Quartzsite:
The time I remember most is during 10 days of Survival and Evasion training at the Navy's Survival school in Warner Springs, CA. that all air crews had to pass before deployment to Vietnam. All we had to eat was what we could catch or steal. Some of the things that come to mind are a Seagull we caught while we were doing training on the beach, Jack Rabbit, all kinds of bugs, Cactus Apples, after removing the needles, and various other plant life. As far as I know, no one got sick or starved to death. That was 45 years ago, but many of the tricks and techniques have stayed with me all these years.

+1

But I did it in Brunswick, ME in the winter.
Lost 13 pounds in a week.

They said it was good training......

Munster

 

[rcnixon]

Well, Geoff40 has me beat. I too was NPO (nothing by mouth) after gastric surgery for eight days. I was on IV fluids, but nothing fancy, just standard glucose. After a few days, the pangs and headache stop. Unfortunately, this was during Thanksgiving week '83 and the aromas were killing me on Thursday. My first "foods" were clear fruit juices and jello. The grape juive was like ambrosia.

 

[Beaver]

My last term in college was Spring 1976, and three of us ate a five pound can of tuna and 1/2 gallon of ketchup. Then we were officially out of food.

 

[truckemup97]

I've certainly never truly starved, but I went three weeks without a decent meal in the Soviet Union in 1987. And to think, they were feeding us the best they had so as to make a good impression.

That was the trip where TWA left my bag in NJ, so I didn't have the beef jerky or the peanut butter crackers I had packed, either.

 

[GatorFarmer]

I've been so hungry that I've eaten things my wife cooked. Regarding Easter dinner the discussion was that if the kitchen were straightened up she could cook "regular filth" instead of "microwave filth".