How many do you want to feed? What "stretching" materials are available and in what quantity? Do you want a 'normal' serving or a 'just above starvation' serving?
You asked for an exact answer, but there really isn't one without a whole lot more input than you've given so far.
Two elderly people, a pregnant woman, three adult men, two adult women, a ten-year-old, and two 3-4 year olds. "Just above starvation" would probably be best, and lets assume for now that there are no other materials available.
if she is pregnant with her first child, then the answer is no. although a tiny amount of milk is produced/able to be expressed just before she gives birth, it would be nowhere near the quantity required to sustain a 3 year old child.
Had she been pregnant with her second or subsequent child, and had she been continuously feeding and/or expressing milk in the time between the pregnancies, then she would have been able to produce a sufficient quantity to maintain life, even though the child would probably have been weak from hunger.
While mothers quite often do breastfeed children up to their 3rd birthdays, they do it as a supplement to a good intake of regular food and the breast milk is more for comfort than feeding.
In addition, if food is in short supply, the mother's milk will also cease production. A starved mother cannot feed a child from her own body for long. Milk production requires extra caloric intake on the part of the mother - that's why (many) breastfeeding women lose weight post-pregnancy.
#2 -- To be honest, I'm not even sure what the minimum amount they could survive on would be, but that'll be about as much as they're getting, if I can even give them that. I actually need them to run out well before they have access to any other foods, without bringing it on themselves by consuming completely irresponsibly, so I really don't know how long they're going to need to be fed. It's really more of a question of how long they can be fed at this point. But that's not quite what I asked in the OP, because I'm still in the early stages of working out how this is going to go down and... Well, anyway, for the sake of keeping the parameters of the initial question, lets say that it's just one meal. How many adults could they just-above-starving feed for one meal with just this one victim? Assume these adults are used to a 2000 calorie diet
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It takes approximately 500 calories a day to produce milk, plus adequate fluids as well. The depletion of milk supply would depend on whether the food shortage develops slowly or quickly, but I would assume that once you're under 1,000 cals a day then you're going to struggle to produce milk.
Okay. And how many calories would the children need to eat to keep from starving? I'm trying to figure out if its a more effective use of food to feed the mother more and have her nurse the children or to just feed the children solids.
1. Cancer is very, very rarely contagious. Eating a brain with cancer isn't going to be different from eating a brain without cancer. EDIT: Part of the reason human meat is supposed to be bad is because of modern toxins consumed; dunno about the credibility of this. The other problem with it is picking up diseases that might not be transmissible from, say, a pig to a human, but of course will thrive human-to-human
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1. Cancer is probably not a problem; stomach acid and enzymes do for most risks. If he had a disease caused by prions, though, such as Kuru or Creutzfedlt-Jacob, they'd best avoid brain or nerve tissue.
2. The nutritional value probably won't be lost if you serve it raw. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit, for example. Wikipedia has a few useful references. You could also look at organ meat recipe books, they might include nutritional and caloric information.
1 -- Eating the brain is a bad idea regardless though, isn't it? I chose brain cancer specifically because I figured they wouldn't be eating the brain anyway.
2 -- Thanks!
3 -- It's not actually extending the group as a whole's lifespan that I'm worried about. I was just wondering if I could use this to get around feeding the kids from the very limited supply of solid foods.
1. Yep, eating brain/nervous system is more likely to transfer diseases caused by prions, such as (like volkhvoi said) kuru (spongiform encephalopathies).
2. You're welcome!
3. On normal (healthy mother, after giving birth) breast milk, then, according to an old UN study: First, breast milk is highly variable, and will depend on the mother's nutrition, amount of prolactin in her system, etc. but per 100 ml, you get about 67 kcal, (this has a bunch other nutrients; it's geared towards first six months of life, but you may find it useful). If she can generate 750 ml daily, that's 500 kcal, which is about a third to a quarter of the recommended calories for a four-year old by the USDA, and probably higher than many starving children get. Also, breasts tend to produce more milk if more is demanded, although there must be a limit depending on the woman.
Barring a few differences like the thickness of the skull, humans and pigs are very similar to each other. So I would look at how much does a similar size pig serve and use those amounts. According to one of the links I found, a 200 lb pig could feed 100 people for one meal
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You asked for an exact answer, but there really isn't one without a whole lot more input than you've given so far.
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Had she been pregnant with her second or subsequent child, and had she been continuously feeding and/or expressing milk in the time between the pregnancies, then she would have been able to produce a sufficient quantity to maintain life, even though the child would probably have been weak from hunger.
While mothers quite often do breastfeed children up to their 3rd birthdays, they do it as a supplement to a good intake of regular food and the breast milk is more for comfort than feeding.
In addition, if food is in short supply, the mother's milk will also cease production. A starved mother cannot feed a child from her own body for long. Milk production requires extra caloric intake on the part of the mother - that's why (many) breastfeeding women lose weight post-pregnancy.
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2. The nutritional value probably won't be lost if you serve it raw. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit, for example. Wikipedia has a few useful references.
You could also look at organ meat recipe books, they might include nutritional and caloric information.
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2 -- Thanks!
3 -- It's not actually extending the group as a whole's lifespan that I'm worried about. I was just wondering if I could use this to get around feeding the kids from the very limited supply of solid foods.
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2. You're welcome!
3. On normal (healthy mother, after giving birth) breast milk, then, according to an old UN study:
First, breast milk is highly variable, and will depend on the mother's nutrition, amount of prolactin in her system, etc.
but per 100 ml, you get about 67 kcal, (this has a bunch other nutrients; it's geared towards first six months of life, but you may find it useful). If she can generate 750 ml daily, that's 500 kcal, which is about a third to a quarter of the recommended calories for a four-year old by the USDA, and probably higher than many starving children get. Also, breasts tend to produce more milk if more is demanded, although there must be a limit depending on the woman.
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