Raw Seal Meat and the Entrepreneur’s Quandary

I recently caught an episode of Survivorman on The Science Channel. In this show Les "Survivorman" Stroud was abandoned in a remote location 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle and challenged to find his way back to civilization within seven days.

His only supplies are a broken-down snowmobile, a hunk of uncooked seal liver, a chunk of blubber for heat, a seal hook, three matches, a knife, a multi-tool, a rifle (to be used only to protect himself from polar bear attacks), 50 pounds of camera equipment and a harmonica.

Everything about the show is engrossing and, even with the fireplace on and a nice glass of Merlot poured, it’s hard not to feel his misery. A bit.

By day five, he has eaten his supply of seal meat and is chewing on the blubber that was intended to be burned as a heat source. At one point they calculate that Les has burned 35,000 calories and consumed only 1,000.

In my mind I’m assuming his biggest threat is outright starvation. Not so. A more imminent threat apparently comes from eating only lean meat without consuming any fat — it can quickly cause protein poisoning which manifests itself in the form of nausea, diarrhea, ketosis, severe debilitation and possibly death.

He had a lot of obvious things to be worried about, but I never would have thought he needed to be worried about that!

It’s the entrepreneur’s perpetual quandary — you battle fiercely against all of the elements you know, but it’s the one’s you didn’t even know where there that get you in the end.

The lessons? You don’t know what you don’t know. Eat a well balance diet, even if that means washing down your seal meat with a pinch of blubber. And figure out who your Les Stroud’s are, keep them on speed dial and check in with them even when you think you’ve got your bases covered.