Inspired by old cartoons of starving people making “boot soup”. Can you actually eat natural fabrics? Is there any nutrition in them at all? What would it do to you?
Since cotton is mostly cellulose which the human gut can’t digest, I’d say no nutrition. I don’t know if it would just pass though or stop you up, I suppose it depends on how much cotton you eat, how much other stuff you eat, and how much water you take in.
Leather, I have heard old stories of a ship’s food supply running out and the leather being eaten. Although it’s obviously made of hide, I don’t know how much nutrition is left or available after it’s been tanned.
When she was very little, my Aunt swallowed a bell that had come off her mitten, the Doctor made her drink Karo syrup, and cotton balls. The syrup was to get her to swallow the cotton which tangled itself around the bell to protect her innards from scratches caused by the sharp edges.
I think the reason cotton is so useful is that it is all fiber, which you don’t/can’t digest.
Leather on the other hand, I can’t do any more than wag. I would think raw untanned hide would be rather chewy, but may give some benefit, but after tanning and being made into something I would be worried about being poisoned. Even if there is any nutrition left after all the processing.
Cotton is pretty much indigestible to humans. Leather, however, is basically still skin and contains some nutrition. You can boil it to soften it and eat it. This was done by the Donner party, among others.