What would you use as toilet paper?

I wouldn't have thought that was possible, because people have eaten poison ivy (I'm one), but some people have incredible overreactions to it too.

 

Eating poison ivy is a stupid stunt.
I NEVER got poison ivy...................until the time I did.
I've been in the woods and around it my whole life and never got the rash.
'Till I did.
It wasn't much of a rash and went away in a week or so.
The chemical that causes the rash is urushiol the amount of that agent
varies from plant to plant.
A lot depends upon the age of the plant and the amount of urushiol that
gets on the skin.
NO ONE is immune.
Some are less sensitive and some get exposed to a weak amount of urushiol.
Some are lucky some aren't.
This is a survival forum so I don't think many people here will be eating
a poison ivy salad anytime soon.
I knew of a man working on the road crew with one of those large mower
machines and got the rash in his lungs.
Nearly killed him.
An old friend of mine got the rash when his father in law burned some.
Want to end up like this guy?

http://www.poison-ivy.org/blog-entry/poison-ivy-and-workers-compensation

 

Oh! If you are eating poison ivy and are o.k then you are NOT eating poison
ivy.
You might think so but you ain't.

research has shown that a sensitive individual can get a horrendous reaction from 50 micrograms of urushiol—a grain of salt weighs 60 micrograms.

Munch away all you like.
Goats eat it with ill effects.

 

Go head and play with it.
While your at it play Russian roulette with a revolver loaded with 6 bullets.

Urushiol in plants is effective up to 5 years later and can contaminate clothing, tools, pet fur or other objects. It is such a strong toxin that ¼ ounce of the stuff would be enough to give every human on earth a rash. The oil is mostly colorless to watery yellow and has no odor.

Read more at Gardening Know How: What Is Urushiol Oil: Learn About Urushiol Plant Allergies https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/info/urushiol-plant-allergies.htm

I don't want any member here influenced by personal stories not backed up
with scientific evidence.
Why not suck on an oleander plant while playing in poison ivy?

Gee why not plant castor beans as a shade plant.
If a kid eats one of the pretty beans it dies.
The kid, not the plant.

Castor beans, sometimes used in traditional therapies, contain ricin one of the most toxic substances known.

This is a survival forum.
Advice, tip, tricks, on how to survive whatever shtf might happen.

I'd suggest all of us of like survival minds learn to recognize and avoid poison ivy,
poison oak, castor beans, and anything else harmful we might encounter.

Or..........perhaps join one of those fundo Christian groups that pass around a basket
of live rattlesnakes.
If one gets bitten then "god" is testing that person NOT to get medical help.
If one dies then "god" needed that idiot person in Heaven.
So when he wins he looses.
That church is always short of membership.
I dunno.

 

I think leaves are a good idea if no water is available. If fresh water is available I'd favor that over leaves as there is a risk of catching a poisonous one. Still, i think it's hard to come across poisonous leaves at least down here in Brazil

 

I'm thinking survivalists would be prepared for such an obvious need.
It's the little things that count.

 

These are good points...maybe they should be a separate thread!

My parents were the polar opposites of poison ivy sensitivity.

Dad (who had "Red" skin all right but was more Irish and other things than Cherokee, and yes, "full blood Indians" get the rash too) could handle poison ivy leaves without getting a rash; he reacted only to the more concentrated sap from a thick juicy stem.

Mother (whose skin is almost literally "White") got painful spreading rashes that lasted for weeks. One year a leaf brushed against an open cut in her skin. The skin damage expanded what had been a trivial surface wound into a festering rash for which a doctor prescribed antibiotics. Mother happened to be sensitive to the antibiotics too, and for a while it looked as if she might lose the leg, but she didn't.

We heard that story about eating poison ivy to boost immunity, and since my brother and I had in-between pale olive skin, we tried it, with parental permission. The theory was that only some body tissues (in a normal body) react to poison ivy, so by exposing tissues that don't react to the low levels of urushiol found in very young leaves, you'd condition your immune system not to overreact.

First off--don't bother. If you *can* safely eat poison ivy, you're not very sensitive to it and don't need to "boost your immunity." A better use of time when you find the Demon Weed would be digging it up before someone more sensitive finds it.

Second, the secret of eating poison ivy without getting a rash in a very sensitive spot is to swallow only the first tiny wrinkled red leaves in the first few days they appear. Once the leaves start to look smooth and green, they're indigestible and will ooze urushiol as they pass out of the body...enough said.

Neither of us noticed any "boost" effect. Basically we inherited Dad's insensitivity; both of us were the people who can remove poison ivy from the property of those less fortunate. I can spend a few hours on that type of job without having to rush to wash the oil off my skin, but if it gets under the outer layer of skin I'll have a rash too...on me the rash doesn't spread and become infected, though. This did not change.

It should go without saying, though in cyberspace it probably doesn't, that *nobody ever* eats poison ivy as food. I ate it as an experiment that happened to be safe for me, not a stunt...but I don't recommend it.

 

This is possible. Box elder, a small native North American tree in the maple family, looks remarkably similar to poison ivy when both are small, young plants. People who think they're not reacting to poison ivy may be handling box elder sprouts. While the sprouts are less than two feet high, box elder leaves are small, red, and wrinkly, with three leaflets on each leaf, just like immature poison ivy leaves. Box elder contains no urushiol.

As the plants mature, box elder becomes a little tree with five leaflets, not three, on each leaf. Poison ivy becomes a thick, hairy, woody vine that grows up around trees and shrubs. (Contact with the cut vine is guaranteed to give anybody a rash.)

I knew I was eating poison ivy leaves--but only very young, undeveloped ones. Once they show any green color and/or grow half an inch long, the leaves are indigestible and will raise a rash where they pass out of the body.

 

I think of it as a frugal thing. Toilet paper and paper towels were among the things my husband automatically bought when they went on sale below a certain price. He left both, and also canned vegetables, dry beans, rice, and other food products that had to be used within a year, in the hall closet--more than a cubic yard of each type of paper product. There being no incentive to use up the t.p. and p.t., and it being cheaper to use cloth towels in the kitchen and waste paper in a dry toilet, I still have some t.p. that he bought.

This is probably not the place for a detailed discussion of hygienic habits, but here's one more vote for the idea that it takes soap and water, not just a wipe (unless it's one of those expensive disinfectant-soaked wipes), to remove solid waste and bacteria from the skin.

Hmm...is there a thread for discussions of soap?