Could you survive, or at least delay, starvation by eating yourself? Just a little bit here and there, I mean. I know that inflicting injury on yourself takes a toll in terms of needed calories, etc., so long term sustenance is not the goal. Plus, you’d run out of edible bits after a while.
But let’s look at the question with a few parameters: Let’s say you’re stranded somewhere, with plenty of fresh water but no food of any kind. (Just accept those conditions for the sake of argument. Maybe you’re trapped in a shipping container full of Pellegrino.) There is no real threat to you other than eventually starving to death.
Let’s also assume that you’re likely to be rescued at some point, and you just have to hold out long enough. If you get to the point that you are about to succumb to starvation – it’s either eat something today or fall unconscious and die – could you eat a bit of yourself just to make it through? A little fleshy part that you won’t really miss later? How long could you continue this in hopes of rescue?
I’ve heard arguments that eating yourself offers no benefits because your body then has to expend more calories to recover from the injury, but isn’t that more of a long term proposition? If I just need calories and nutrition to make it a few more days, won’t I get that from eating my flesh even if I still have to contend with the injury in the long run?
have you been reading Survior Type?
I love that story
no I have no help at all.
Nope. The trauma has immediate metabolic consequences. Coagulating factors must be deployed and expended to stop the bleeding, many variety of inflammatory cells move into position to repair damage, fight infection, and begin to lay down tissue for scar formation, more energy stores are mobilized to sustain the reactions, muscle mass gets broken down to provide protein for repairs too, and so forth.
Trauma causes immediate catabolism, or tissue breakdown. The nutritional needs of a patient in a catabolic state rise rapidly and significantly.
We did a thread on this some time back, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment.
“Ladyfingers. They taste just like ladyfingers…”
In a state of starvation, your body starts to catabolise itself to stay alive anyway- without you chewing bits of it off and swallowing and digesting it.
I can’t imagine this will be any less efficient, energy-wise, than eating your own flesh, so you’re better off avoiding the injury.
As Mangetout says - your body already has mechanisms in place to break down tissues for nutrition in times of starvation. Tissues are consumed in order of importance - fat first, then muscle, internal organs last, and brain tissue never. The process is far more efficient than chopping off and swallowing pieces of yourself, and has the advantage of being reversable.
“If you are what you eat then I HAVEN’T CHANGED A BIT!”
Creepiest line Stephen King ever wrote 
–gag-- I adore Stephen King, but that story- and that phrase just pinned my gag-o-meter. The guy was an accomplished surgeon, right?