On a Deserted Island: Vegan Survival 101

Apr 01, 2021

"Forces beyond my control have taken everything away from me except my freedom to choose how to respond."
-Flora Solomon,
Along the Broken Bay

Stranded

This April Fools' Day, I figured I'd indulge one of the more absurd proclamations on the illegitimacy of veganism: the "What if you were stranded on a deserted island?" question that seems to plague the minds of so many. Alas, I shall finally answer this most important of questions with great detail and utmost sincerity!

Assumptions

To start, we must have some ground rules to ensure that survival on this remote island upon which we are stranded would actually be possible. First, let's assume that this island is habitable: it isn't in a region that would be too cold to live without simple sea-faring clothes; it is large enough to be home to abundant flora and fauna; and it has at least one reliable source of fresh water.

Also, it would behoove us to assume that we have no possessions with us upon landing on this island all alone and that we are a person with no real knowledge of survivalism. After all, this experiment would be far less entertaining, meaningful, and realistic if we were some expert survivalist. So, now that we've figured that out, let's get stranded!

Surviving: First Steps

Upon first landing on this island, the very first step should be to search for help or begin setting signals (like a large fire) with the hopes that there are rescuers in the area, but since this is a fictional scenario, we're going to assume those attempts have been futile. We are completely alone here for the foreseeable future.

Surviving: Food & Water

Next, we should begin to look for fresh water. In theory, a human can survive on the water in plants without the need for drinking it, but let's maybe not risk that. As we're looking for a water source, we should also be searching for edible plants. The best bet would be to start with plants we recognize or those with visible signs that they have been eaten by other animals. Once we've figured out how to successfully survive by consuming the edible vegetation, our most important survival needs are met.

At this point, it'd probably be a good idea to start making tools or weapons. We could use these for possible protection from predators, for building a shelter, and for harvesting food (like cracking open stubborn coconuts). Once we've figured that out, we can move on to the part with which every non-vegan seems to be so concerned: hunting.

Surviving: Hunting

Perhaps if we were sitting on the beach, so starved that we could barely get the energy to move, and a fish leapt out of the water into our lap and exclaimed, "Please eat me so you can live!" even a vegan would probably take them up on that invitation. (Though at that point, we'd obviously be delirious and would likely hurt ourselves in the process of trying to kill the fish.)

However, the average person has no idea how to hunt or trap animals, not even most modern hunters and fishers when they don't have access to their big guns, arrows, or rods. And expending so much energy to search for animals, successfully kill them with our hands or primitive weapons, and cook them would be an awful lot of work, especially if we only catch small animals.

Surviving: Hunting & Gathering

But let's assume that all this is possible, that we successfully learn to hunt animals for food. Then, so what? It's survival, which means it's either the human or the nonhuman. That doesn't make killing easy or right to do, but morality flies out the window when fighting to stay alive.

When actually surviving, energy expenditure is of utmost importance, so we have to weigh the pros and cons between, for instance, standing out in the sun all day with our handmade spear hoping to stab a fish or staying in the shade of the forest with abundant plants waiting to be eaten. In reality, the vast majority of a survivalist diet would have to come from plants -- and perhaps insects and arachnids -- with only a small portion, if any, coming from larger animals. Perhaps we'd even eat the leftover scraps of animals killed by predators if we felt desperate enough.

Reality

Of course, it's fun to speculate on these amusing situations in a hypothetical sense, but let's touch base with reality for a moment. The likelihood of being stranded on a deserted island is incredibly low; this should never be a real concern to anyone who doesn't frequently travel in some dangerous fashion across the oceans. For the average individual, this far-fetched scenario has no relevance to veganism. After all, if a non-vegan were stranded on an island, they would very likely follow the steps I've laid out, but that's irrelevant to their everyday life.

Most of us -- or, at least, the people making this excuse -- live in sturdy buildings, use phones and computers, drive cars to work, and "hunt" at the grocery store or online. We don't need to worry about the worst-case scenario because that's an unrealistic fear and has no relevance to the choices we make in our daily lives. To sum it all up, we aren't stranded on a deserted island, so that's not a legitimate reason to not be vegan.

be conscious, be kind, be vegan