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Encyclopedia Ocellotica - Rabbits can kill you.... Honest

Rabbits can actually kill you…

Don’t be fooled by their floppy ears and their big eyes…

They’re not going to leap up at you and rip out your jugular - Holy Grail style.

But they can kill you.

You might assume that rabbits are the perfect go-to meal for the hungry outdoors person - kind of like a Rustlers Burger inside a useful furry glove. Not only are they delicious and fairly easy to catch, but they are also great at… well how shall I put this… ‘getting it on’ - they reproduce as fast as you can flash fry ‘em.

Brilliant - no one need ever go hungry again or ever have to do without gloves or slippers…

Unfortunately, nature is a sod. Give her half the chance and she will trip you up, steal your dinner money and write something rude on your face with a permanent marker.

As many an unfortunate trapper has found out, if you try to survive on a diet consisting mainly from rabbit meat it’s perfectly possible to starve to death.

The human body needs fat, which is all too readily available in developed societies but in a hunter gatherer situation this is a vital commodity - which is why our brains have evolved to light up with pleasure when we chow down on fat rich foods.

The term rabbit starvation was coined by Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who witnessed it first hand among the native people of Alaska and Northern Canada - who struggled to find any source of fat during the winter months.

There were loads of easy-to-catch lean-as-anything rabbits though.

Without any fat in the diet to break down into energy, the human body burns stored fat to release more energy allowing you to seek out further food.

But if that means another helping of delicious fat-free rabbit, you are going to enter a spiral of despair as Stefansson witnessed among the indigenous people he was living with.

When all the fat runs out, the body tries to create energy by burning protein - while this is possible, it is not a healthy long-term solution.

Protein, when broken down, forms ammonia and other by-products which the body has to get rid of, placing strain on the liver and kidneys.

The amino acids from protein are converted into glucose by the liver. The process requires a large amount of energy and produces a harmful byproduct, ammonia, which is flushed away by the kidneys.

The problem is that the body can only supply roughly 1,000 calories per day through a protein only diet because the liver is working overtime.

Any ammonia that cannot be converted into urea ends up going back into your bloodstream and frazzles your nervous system.

Symptoms of this extreme Atkins diet include diarrhoea, discomfort, headache and intense hunger.

Oh… and death.

And bad breath.

Not necessarily in that order.