Details of McCandless' diet

General discussions relating to the story.
acagle
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Joined: Fri Jan 14, 2011 3:26 am

Details of McCandless' diet

Postby acagle » Fri Feb 18, 2011 3:41 am

Hey there everyone. I'm researching hunter-gatherer diet (specifically northwest coastal indians) and as a little side project, I am thinking of examining Chris's diet when he was operating out of the Magic Bus. I know he seems to have obsessively written down all(?) of the animals he obtained, and maybe some of the plants. Is there A) a source that lists all his notes from that time, or B) someone who has tabulated the critters and/or plants he got and on what days? I'd like to try calculate the caloric and nutritional values of what he was eating to see how much of a starvation diet he was actually on.

I don't recall how detailed Krakauer got into all that. My impression is (I just read the book a couple of months ago) that he (Krakauer) was aware that McCandless probably wasn't eating enough calories and perhaps not enough nutrients from fat to survive longer than he did, but he seemed rather intent on bring the poisoning/fungus thing into it for whatever reason. I'm fairly convinced that he just plain starved to death, but whether this was due to simple lack of calories or too much lean meat seems unresolved. Thanks.

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