User blog comment:Toadgamer80/A question/@comment-32154022-20130101123412/@comment-1874924-20130101175924

My understanding is that Survivor provides a certain level of basic nutrition (e.g. rice or beans) to the cast, but they're on their own if they want anything else. In any case, there's no reason why a TD story couldn't make the players fend for themselves and still be TD. In TDI and TDROTI, having (usually unappetizing) food provided was part of the summer camp setting. In TDA and TDWT, food had to be provided because the settings (a movie lot and an airplane) provided no opportunities for the contestants to forage. In every case, food was provided for setting-specific reasons.

If a future TD season plops the cast down in the middle of the wilderness somewhere, it might well require the contestants to eat what they kill, so to speak (although Chris and Chef would probably still be eating steak and lobster every night.) It wouldn't be any less TD for that.

And "safer" depends on what aspect you're talking about. True, the TD contestants can count on having full bellies--if their stomachs are strong enough--but their challenges are also much more likely to be life-threatening, especially in the later seasons.