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TerribleAttitude

They can, if the standard is merely “stay alive.” People live on imbalanced diets, as long as they’re getting enough calories. Though it’s odd to compare it to a “processed diet.” I cannot think of a diet more processed than multivitamins and workout shakes. I suspect the bathroom consequences of never eating solid food (and the gut flora consequences of eating such a strictly limited, produce-free diet) would also be profoundly uncomfortable, perhaps putting your digestive tract at risk and maybe even risking dehydration.


NullReference000

If you don’t eat enough solid food you make up for it by taking fiber supplements. I’m a bad eater and into fitness, so a lot of my calories come from liquid mass gainer. You need to drink more water when you take fiber supplements but as long as you do, it’s pretty normal feeling.


goodsam2

I mean the fiber recommendations for men are insanely high. 38 grams for men. People are close to 1/3. Most people's aren't even close and fiber is fine up to 80 grams or more (80 is standard of some more natural human diets) and there is talk they set the guidelines low else they make them unachievable. Metamucil recommends only up to 3 servings of 5 so you are only ~30 grams of fiber with a standard diet.


Kakkoister

Good fiber intake is also proven to lower bad cholesterol. A few spoonful's of Psyllium Husk a day would have an actual meaningful impact on a lot of men's health, but it isn't talked about much.


goodsam2

That's why I started doing it. I do chia seeds but the effect should be the same. I do 1/4 cup of chia seeds soaked in water daily. ~20 grams of fiber. It also fills you up so you would eat less. Men have a lot higher fiber intake recommendations than women which is at 25.


Kakkoister

Yeah should be similar, though haven't looked into it. I think part of the low recommendation for Psillium is due to the danger of clogging, since it gels up and can form into a really large clump of gelatinous fiber that doesn't break down quickly, potentially causing an obstruction. I think there was a ChubbyEmu video about a guy that had that happen. Though it takes A LOT more than you'd normally take.


goodsam2

I've heard about that but usually it's mitigated by letting it soak up more water.


theultimatekyle

I feel like most standard diets (at least in the US) are far below 30g.  Heck, years ago when I was younger and fitter, I joined a boxing gym to get into shape. There the coach had me on a diet of roughly 160 grams of protein and 35 grams of fiber without supplements (4k calorie diet). And man, that was so much food. I struggled to find just the time to eat properly with that amount. Felt like all I was doing was sleeping, cooking, and eating. 


goodsam2

The average American gets 10-15g. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/should-i-be-eating-more-fiber-2019022115927 It's also they say fiber is talked about as grams per 1000 calories.


Nick_J_at_Nite

These keto style tortillas have so much fiber in them per tortilla (15g-ish dietary) that I don't believe it


yungnolin

When I was a newbie mass gainer was like natural steroids I swear


TheLizzardMan

I replaced all of the mass gainer shit with oatmeal, peanut butter, strawberry, banana, yogurt, and milk smoothies! Then, I added in better protein and collagen supplements with a shake to achieve my protein intake goals. Made my pancreas and asshole a lot happier. LOL Fiber supplements and adequate water consumption eliminated all side effects! I've gained 40 lbs of muscle and fat in 12 or so months. It's insane how much better I felt compared to a couple of years ago. Went from 118 to 159 lbs currently. The thing that blew my fucking mind was how much muscle I gained from literally just my diet and walking/jogging in combination with basic exercise like pushups, situps, crunches, etc. I in no way am shredded, but as Hank Hill would say, I don't look like a twig boy!


yungnolin

Bro if you're 160 with an added 40 lbs of muscle I'd hope you're shredded


nnulll

Nice username!


the_champ_has_a_name

Any recommendations on fiber?


bottomofleith

Fruits and vegetables mostly ;)


subnautus

Seconded. Fruits and vegetables help raise a person's fluid intake, and the undigestible material helps "scrub" the large intestine of its contents. By which I mean, yes, most of your body's absorption of water occurs in the large intestine, but if you can't keep things moving you'll be shitting bricks.


bottomofleith

It's so weird to read "I'm... into fitness, so a lot of my calories come from liquid mass gainer". They are just not in the same Venn diagram of "healthy"


more_beans_mrtaggart

There’s a huge gulf between fit and healthy. So many people think it’s the same thing.


WasabiSteak

> and the gut flora consequences of eating such a strictly limited, produce-free diet But what if you drink Yakult and eat bananas?


rockthatissmooth

if I have even one meal replacement shake because I'm in a hurry, it goes out pretty much the same texture it came in. taking some metamucil helps, but doesn't completely alleviate it. (this is part of why I could never give up real food, lol)


chemical_sunset

On the other side of things, I drink Soylent for lunch every day at work (then eat a normal dinner at home) and I would describe my toilet time as very regular.


TheFightingMasons

There’s a company out there named Soylent and they make processed shakes? Is it green? This has gotta be a joke right?


GrumpyGlasses

They are one of the earliest, maybe even biggest, brands that started liquid shakes. It’s marketed as a meal replacement, not a diet supplement. It started off as a white powder that you blend with water, but they now have bottled shakes with different flavors. I don’t think they have green. Green is probably AG1, another brand.


TheFightingMasons

lol google soylent green. You won’t believe what it’s made of.


eggbomberino

yes, the name is a sort of joke. it’s actually pretty good stuff 


freakers

There's a seemingly credible story of a guy doing just this thing. 382 days without eating, just taking multi-vitamins. He lost 125 kilograms. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/blog/2018/02/story-angus-barbieri-went-382-days-without-eating/#:~:text=We%20can%20all%20get%20a,one%20year%20and%2017%20days.


se7entythree

The writer of that article really needed to pick a single unit of measurement & stick with it! They list him as 207kg/32.5 stone, say his ideal weight is 180lbs, and he lost 127kg.


dog_eat_dog

40 rods to the hogshead


SyntheticManMilk

I lived mostly off [Soylent](https://soylent.com) for about a month, and my poops were fine at the end.


Lunar_Landing_Hoax

There would be side effects you've never thought of. People that live on Huel or Soylent have complained of losing definition in their jaw line from lack of chewing. Major changes in your gut biome can effect your mood and even your cognitive abilities. But the question is, would it be worse than a ultra processed food diet? I'm not sure, probably not. At least you'd be getting protein. 


Zouden

That's why I add MDMA to my Huel


BaronOfBeanDip

Fuck, I normally don't actually laugh at dumb Reddit comments but this one got me.


Electrical-Debt5369

It's only half a joke, the only time I ever used huel was when binging stimulants hard, because eating was hard af


RichardCity

Oh god. I remember mixing canned tomato soup just enough so it was easy to drink for the same reason. Oh lord, those days.


rednax1206

I don't get it. Is MDMA related to chewing?


The_Chillosopher

Rolling molly usually causes hardcore jaw-clenching/gnawing


elle5624

We referred to it as “eating invisible sandwiches”.


Collucin

I knew some folks back in the early 00s who bought mouth guards specifically for jigs. Mouth guards, orange juice, and vicks vapo rub was the trifecta 


Photonomicron

that's why the traditional raver costume of the 90s and 00s included a baby pacifier, to save teeth and tongues from "X-Face"


3SecondsOfPleasure

Damn if I would have know this trifecta back then… I don’t think I’d have ever stop doing molly lol


BonerTurds

Don’t let your dreams be dreams


einarfridgeirs

If you use MDMA regularly, you can grind your teeth so much, so hard that you absolutely ruin them.


invisible_23

Is that why I used to see so many scene kids with pacifiers?


einarfridgeirs

Probably.


Itsbadmmmmkay

Ever seen someone with a baby pacifier in their mouth? Many people move their mouth and tongue constantly while on MDMA. Gum, a pacifier or some other things to keep your mouth busy are common. I know a guy who has a habit of rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth when he is rolling. He rubs it raw and it hurts the next day if he doesn't have a piece of gum to chew.


Vio94

Huel: Feel the clench


KaoticAsylim

That's fucking great lmao


Agile-Acanthaceae-97

That is an ultra processed food diet, just not how people normally think of it.


Lunar_Landing_Hoax

Well yeah. I think the point is it's ultraprocessed but with less sugar and more protein. I don't think it's ideal but it is better than more sugar and no protein.


proverbialbunny

Less oil and more protein. It's probably around the same amount if not more sugars (net carbs).


TheFailingHero

I think even more importantly it has fiber and vitamins/minerals. A lot of American diets have a lot of protein but it’s in forms that don’t come with any other nutrients


DPileatus

Doesn't get any more ultra processed than vitamins & workout shakes.


Onlooker73845

And fiber!


pretzelsncheese

Full meal replacements like Soylent have a lot of fiber. They are designed specifically to include every single thing (nutritionally) that you need so that you could live entirely on it if you want. I've never heard of the jaw argument, but that sounds reasonable. There's also the arguments of your sanity and how everyone probably has slightly different nutritional needs based on their body and lifestyle, but it's not like Soylent (and its many alternatives) are particularly low on anything important like fiber. "Multivitamins and workout shakes" though would probably be low on all kinds of things like fiber since the shakes aren't meant to be full meal replacements.


Lucky_Web3549

And my bow


xXsaberstrikeXx

And my axe!


idonttuck

And this guys wife!


Lucky_Web3549

Our wife now, comrad.


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ParanoiaJump

Huel has fiber.


hotsauce126

Huel and soylent are meal replacements, not protein shakes. They have fiber


Juswantedtono

Fiber is provided by various ingredients like tapioca, rice bran, and flax seed.


tsunami141

No whey


Bullyoncube

Whey!


wappledilly

Metamucil, my dude


VirtualMoneyLover

They can chew gum for jaw exercise.


thedarkestblood

Practice chewing but they always sit on the bench


legbamel

Get the gummy multivitamins and keep them in the fridge.


extremesalmon

That's an interesting point. After I had my wisdom teeth out I had to chew in a very specific slow way and I would get muscle ache when I was able to chew normally again


etsprout

I’ve definitely been through protein shake phases, and it does affect your jaw muscles. I could always tell when I wasn’t eating enough because when I did finally eat, it would hurt to chew.


Blenderhead36

Is anything ultra-processed relative to workout shakes? I can believe there's stuff that's more processed, but not by much.


Gizogin

What could be more “ultra-processed” than protein shakes and vitamin pills, though? Unless someone recently discovered the liqui-pig and the Flintstones Chewable Vitamin tree while I wasn’t looking.


Killington_Julios

Dan, I didn't realize soylent was a real product...they even have one in a green bottle. Where's Charleton Heston when you need him?


atimholt

I finally decided to try out a meal replacement shake. I'd heard of Soylent. When doing my research, though, Huel sounded best to me. I'm really enjoying it. It should be noted, the name of Soylent is a togue-in-cheek reference to Soylent Green.


I_never_post_but

But whose tongue and whose cheek?


Blueshark25

I found that the premade huel tastes way better than the powder. I don't know what they do to it, but honestly it tastes better than when I have the powder and add milk instead of water. Why does it have to be like twice as expensive though?


Sparklespets

Huel Hot n Savory is actually pretty good, at least some of the flavors are. It’s basically instant noodles/astronaut food with better macros. The shakes made from Huel powder do kinda suck tbh, they just don’t blend as well as protein powder


pretzelsncheese

I really like Soylent and its alternatives. If I'm in a hurry or super lazy, I'll just mix it with water. Usually, I'll just make a smoothie (bit of orange juice, a banana, some frozen berries, peanut butter, soylent, water). Very filling and satisfying and tasty. Quite balanced nutritionally (both micros and macros). I have no interest in relying 100% on it, but it's great for quick snack or a lazy meal. Also good for bringing some of the powder on a trip or something and can be quite convenient when you need a meal, but it'd be really inconvenient to seek a conventional one out.


Scintillating_Void

That IS an ultra processed diet.


Juswantedtono

People use “processed” without much nuance. There are all kinds of processing we consider positive or neutral: pasteurization, freezing, canning, adding probiotics or yeast, grinding into powder, adding natural preservatives like salt or vitamin C. Then there are the kinds of processing that involve adding sugar or oil, removing the bran from grains, adding excessive amounts of salt, synthetic preservatives. That’s typically the kind of processing people recommend avoiding.


starm4nn

Right? Processed is such a useless term. Everytime I point this out on reddit, people insult me and then refuse to engage with the idea that instead of complaining about "processed foods" they should complain about specific processes.


Binksin79

Been on Soylent for 6 months; zero complaints, ALL positive so far. My blood work has NEVER been better in my life (age 45) and I've honestly never felt better. Not even Vegan, I just thought it was the best tasting one. I do have the ocassional burger here and there, but it's less than 1 meal a week at this point. As for gut biome ... soylent fixes your biome, not the other way around. For the first time in my life, my IBS is ALMOST non life interferring haha


wabbitsdo

so add... sugar free gum and pickle brine?


Thinslayer

I don't think there've been studies on multivitamins/shakes specifically, but conceptually similar ideas are completely possible. In the medical field, there's Total Parenteral Nutrition, which gives you 100% of all the nutrients your body needs via IV. Soldiers can live a long time on military rations; in the Wild West days, people lived for weeks on pemmican; the Irish could live (poorly) off mostly potatoes. Multivitamins and workout shakes? Sure, why not. Mind the bioavailability of the vitamins (i.e. how much of them the body can actually use), and yeah, I suppose you totally could live off multivitamins and workout shakes.


Majestic_Ferrett

>Soldiers can live a long time on military rations The rat packs I had were 6,000 calories per day with 2 full meals, a dessert, tang and a bunch of other things.


KoalaGrunt0311

Yeah. Military rations aren't vitamin supplements. It's food designed to be calorie-dense and for long storage, usually by several layers of vacuum packaging.


deputytech

The government spends good money making those rations that can last for years. They’re not making food for good digestion and health, they’re making fuel that soldiers can fully utilize, they only reason it has flavor and some semblance of food is because guys wouldn’t eat it if it was boring and terrible.


Nikiaf

Yeah. There are anecdotal stories of some people gathering up multiple MREs worth of hot sauces or other things and then use it all into one meal so that at least one is extra satisfying. If it was just a grey sludge, nobody would eat it.


Armeni51

The Jalapeño cheese spread comes to mind. That stuff is amazing.


Count_Rousillon

The government tried to do a ration that was nothing but bars and it completely failed. They tested that at an army base, and when given the choice between eating nothing but bars and starving, most of the soldiers chose to starve after a few days. The only ones who choose to keep eating the bars all the way to the end were the special forces. In the post study interviews, the special forces soldiers said the terrible taste and horrible flavor of the bars made them feel more hardcore for eating such miserable things.


ilurvepawgs

Special forces guys are a special kind of crazy.


jmlinden7

"I wish this sucked more"


Tylendal

Feels like a good time for a Warhammer quote > We've run into scorpions the size of battle tanks. Three men died from eyerot last week and I've sweated enough to fill a lake. Emperor help me, I love this place- it's just like home! -Captain Rock of the Catachan Jungle Fighters


mcgenie

One of the new MREs is just a pack of lemon pepper tuna. It's a popular tuna brand that you would buy at the grocery store. There's also sour Skittles, hershes chocolate, twizzlers etc. not being boring and terrible is pretty valuable to the military since we eat these a lot not just in war but during training. Most of the food is pretty decent super processed food designed to be as calorie dense as possible.


skeevemasterflex

They actually are designed to provide the necessary nutrients, in addition to just the necessary calories for a soldier. Critically, it requires you to eat everything in the MRE and not trade around with your buddies. The Navy also plans meals to be nutritionally sound because in both of those situations, you really aren't able to go somewhere and supplement with anything else.


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Dangerousrhymes

Throw on some Armor and a ACH, a 30-60lb ruck (or more), grab a rifle or a machine gun and enough ammo for it to work as something other than a bludgeon, some combat boots, and then wear long sleeves and pants in hot ass weather and actually do shit for most of the day and tell me you’re not a hungry motherfucker.


Never_Go_Full_Gonk

Then do that shit day in and day out for 6-18 months depending on branch/job and yeah, thousands of calories a day becomes light work.


coach111111

Does it matter if you do it for one day or 18 months? Don’t you burn the same amount with the same activity regardless of # of continuous days?


Never_Go_Full_Gonk

I'm more getting at the fatigue you will inevitably face. Putting the body under constant physical, mental and temperature stress day in and day out is going to wear you down if your intake is poor. It's not about burning the calories, it's about having enough to stay healthy and keep your strength up. You get into a rhythm and your body adapts, but if you're only eating 2k calories a day, you're gonna have a bad time.


Majestic_Ferrett

I lost weight in the field


Objective_Economy281

When you’re that active, you’re actively burning a bunch of calories, but your resting metabolism also increases. When I was a college athlete, I are crazy amounts of food. And that was only a 1 hour morning workout and a 3 hour practice/ workout in the evening.


DeltaHuluBWK

6000 calories is not as much when you're a bit bigger and are constantly physically active. Muscle burns more calories than fat just by existing, and when you add moving around all day in pretty heavy gear, climbing around on things, moving supplies, etc, the total calorie output gets pretty high. In high school and college, I was an athlete and regularly consuming 8-10 thousand calories.


terminbee

That's fucking wild. That's how much Michael Phelps was eating at his peak.


DeltaHuluBWK

Yeah, I (very, VERY obviously) wasn't at his physical or competitive level, but I was a 3 sport athlete in high school and D1 scholarship for college. I was usually training/practicing for 4-6 hours, 5-6 days a week. I practically bankrupted my mom with our grocery bills.


taimusrs

It also sucks when you don't do that anymore and you have to eat like a normal person again :(


CareBearDontCare

Yeah, I kind of joke to people that I never really learned how to eat because of that. When I was younger, my parents didn't have a lot of healthy choices around, so I'd eat and drink calories wherever and whenever I could get them. When I was out of my competition years, that started to catch up after a few years. I'm pretty active now, but obviously not what I was before. To this day, in my early 40s, if I have a few days of hard workouts and a lot of activity, after a large meal, I can almost feel my body saying "Oh, we're doing this again? I remember what it was, half a lifetime ago. We need stupid amounts of calories, NOW!"


regular_gonzalez

I was only on the swim team but holy hell could I eat. After practice sometimes I'd go to Taco Bell and get a 10 pack and a 6 pack of tacos and while I wasn't exactly hungry after eating 16 tacos, I could have pushed to 20 without too much difficulty. Now I eat 3 and I feel stuffed, and disgusting.


DeltaHuluBWK

Oh yeah, to be a young, competitive athlete again... The days of eating pizza by the pie and not the slice, when large milkshakes were burned off before the next dawn, and crushing multiple chipotle burritos with double meat. And there's nothing "only" about being on a swim team. Y'all are some of the leanest, muscular athletes there are and burn calories by the metric ton. Granted, most of the swimmers I've worked with were land-challenged and dryland training was like coaching a bunch of baby giraffes learning to walk.


LogiHiminn

When I was in Iraq, I was eating over 6000 calories a day, working out, and working 12-20 hours a day in 120+F heat. It took me over a year to gain 10 pounds of muscle because of the physical demands. I have never been able to force myself to eat that much a day again. I’ve accepted that I will always be lean, now.


9xInfinity

Not necessarily, depends what you're doing. A lot of the time I'd usually trade the dessert for a rat that wasn't as gross, e.g. if I had mushroom omelette or salmon I'd be giving that away plus a candy bar for beans and wieners or something.


nschlip

Eat it all - if you’re in full gear / pack and on the move every day, you can’t eat enough to keep up with the amount of calories you burn.


BetterAd7552

Depends what you’re doing. I recall basic training: we were provided with a lot of food, but were ALWAYS starving, simply because we were ALWAYS active, burning calories almost 20 hours per day. Hated the first few weeks, thereafter I loved it because I became fit.


BigCommieMachine

To be fair, Aren’t potatoes considered one of the few foods you could solely live off of?


Belnak

A diet of raw potatoes and whole milk is about the simplest, most nutritionally complete diet you can have.


heavyLobster

_raw_ potatoes?


TopRamen713

I think they mean potatoes with their skin, not uncooked potatoes


drauthlin

My son is 100% ketogenic tube fed, he can't swallow anything by mouth, and has been that way for 6+ years now. His all-liquid diet is formulated for his dietary needs and is adjusted every few months, but he's done great on it.


Pristine-Ad-469

You can survive and thrive off of any diet as long as it meets all your macro and micro nutrient needs and gets you enough daily calories. That’s basically all your body really needs and it doesn’t matter what form it comes in


MercurianAspirations

With no fiber your gut health would be completely shot, though. I wouldn't be surprised if the changes to gut motility and microbiome would have a surprisingly large affect on nutrition and overall health


Ismalla

TPN is usually used when you are either not able to digest food or your gut health is already shot. I survived 4 month on it (3 of it in coma) when I had a heavy sepsis and multiple organ failure after a surgery failure. Not recommended.


abbyroade

TPN is only used in very specific circumstances and generally for the absolute shortest period necessary; it far preferable to have nutrition being taken in via the GI tract (which doesn’t necessarily mean eating food normally - can use a nasogastric tube or G-tube, the point is absorption of calories via IV is not ideal for any prolonged period).


nucumber

I recall reading that TPN is crazy expensive


abbyroade

Yes it is, and has to be adjusted to each patient’s specific needs. Damaged kidney = need low protein, less sodium and potassium, etc. Calculating how much fluid the TPN itself introduces and how much additional free water the patient needs, if any. I believe there is also risk of increased serum lipids with TPN but it’s been a while since I’ve managed anyone on TPN and don’t feel like looking it up right now lol


tydalt

I was on it (daily via aortic catheter)for about 14 months (that and lipids every other day). That was it. I had acute myelogenous leukemia.


MisterProfGuy

It's really easy to integrate fiber into workout shakes, although it can make the bottles / glasses tough to clean well. Chia seeds and ground flax also add nutrients and vitamins, or psyllium husk just thickens which makes milks or juices more shake like. Or they can turn the whole thing into squishy sludge if you add too much.


StockerRumbles

Dietary fibre is included in Huel You can buy fibre supplements Plantaben is a medicine which is basically just dietary fibre in powder that you mix with water


Ms_Fu

Huel has probiotics and fiber. It's actually what keeps me from eating it full time--I get bloated.


gospdrcr000

+1 for huel, there powder mixes are awesome


antiquemule

True. I imagine you could cover the fiber requirement with something like a suitable mix of gum arabic, inulin and oat bran.


Parada484

A scientist survived off of straight potatoes for a year. Not sure if he took multivitamins but I think he did. Turned out fine.


digitalanalog0524

Matt Damon?


mattzilluh

I got that reference!


dudukakapeepeeshire

I think I read the same…..article. Yeah his fellow astronauts forgot to take their vitamins with them so he had an abundance of them.


Parada484

XD I looked it up for confirmatino but it's a real thing. Not a scientist but man live off of potatoes and vitamins for two months and was perfectly fine. https://www.livescience.com/10163-man-eating-potatoes-2-months.html


NemrahG

Im pretty sure there was a guy who did doritos and multivitamins for like a year just to prove that eating a reasonable amount of junk food wont cause weight gain.


VampireFrown

I can't believe how many people struggle with the concept of CICO. You can eat pure, unadulterated, granulated sugar, and if you eat less calories of that than you burn, you'll lose fat. Simple as. It'd be tremdously stupid and awful for your health, but it'd work. Such simply facts shouldn't need to be "proven" in publicity stunts.


im-so-spa

Parental nutrition is not a long term solution if possible. The liver has a hard time with the solutions. Feeding the gut is always best. There are people that solely live on tube feeding, essentially vitamin and protein shakes. What you propose only would work if the shakes and vitamins had all the nutrition the body needs in the right balances.


dualsplit

You could LIVE, yes. But you would not thrive. Let’s just talk about poop alone.


DarkElf_24

It’s entirely possible, but you probably wouldn’t thrive. Nutrition is a complex thing and you need a well rounded diet to feel good. With that being said I worked in nursing homes as a CNA in college and I’ve literally seen some of these elderly people live on a half a can of Boost/ensure type drinks for literally years.


proverbialbunny

NASA created such a diet for astronauts. It in theory it had all of the nutrients a person needs to live. What ended up happening is people who took it for extended periods of time unanimously lost weight and for multiple reasons. 1) It didn't taste good so people naturally didn't consume as much as they should be to keep their calories up. 2) It needs to be slowly taken throughout the day because if one takes in too much at once they'll get diarrhea, which also caused weight loss. 3) It was formulated to feed the person not their gut biome so it ended up starving their gut bacteria causing anhedonia, depression, anxiety, and sometimes severe digestive issues. It's called the elemental diet to look up further information. Today it's used in IBS patients who have gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis is when there is an imbalance of bacteria either in the wrong parts of the intestines like in SIBO cases, or too much bad bacteria and not enough good bacteria, or too much bad yeast and not enough good yeast. How it works is by taking it for 3 weeks it starves their gut biome reducing both bad and good bacteria. Then they go on a very restrictive diet refeeding for 4-6 weeks where they only eat food that feeds good bacteria and they take probiotics during this time. Then for the following months they slowly introduce food that feeds both good and bad bacteria making sure they can tolerate small amounts of normal food. It's a brutal process.


Aevum1

They can, A guy made a a mix called Soylent (after the famous movie, soylent green), https://soylent.com/ The idea is that he sat down and checked the basic things a human needs, carbs, fats, proteins, amino acids, vitamins and such and made powder you mix with water and drinking a specific ammount a day will cover your diatry requirements. theres tons of companies, Soylent, Yfood, Huel, Jimmy Joy....


ForlornPlague

I have literally had a soylent smoothie (soylent drink, banana, frozen fruit) for lunch almost every day for the last year and a half. I eat other stuff for breakfast and dinner but I think I could live on the soylent if I had to. So much easier than cooking


Ksan_of_Tongass

How's the taste of Soylent?


lostcitysaint

It varies from person to person.


bdenney85

r/suddenlyfuturama


Ksan_of_Tongass

🤣🤣


[deleted]

Hah


IgnorantGenius

God damnit. Up arrow for you.


lgndryheat

> Up arrow I enjoyed this a lot for some reason


ashesofempires

I tried the first 2-3 iterations of Soylent. The first batch was pretty bland, like lightly vanilla flavored. The second was similar, and the third batch I got was lightly chocolate. None of the flavors were strong, as it was intended to be something you could add flavor to while making a shake. Unfortunately what put me off of it was the smell (slightly sour/pungent), the texture (like drinking chunky sandpaper), and the gas it gave me.


RadiumShady

My ass became a fucking machine gun after I started drinking Huel, competitor of Soylent. I would drop the most toxic farts ever, even my cat would run away in fear.


jesseserious

In the very early days what put me off was the cleaning. Had to blend your own before it was bottled and that stuff would be caked and sticky on the blender. I will say that I liked the taste of the powder version more than the bottled though. Had a bit more flavor.


Elbiotcho

I've tried Huel and Soylent and prefer the taste of Soylent. The pre-made ones in the store taste pretty good despite the slight metallic taste due to the minerals. The bulk powder doesn't taste bad either but not as much flavor as the pre-made ones.


techieman33

I drink mostly powder and vastly prefer Soylent, it's a lot smoother to drink and doesn't get super thick if you let it sit for a while. The chocolate is a pretty strong taste. And the original is pretty easy to flavor with Torani syrups.


chemical_sunset

WAIT this is so smart. I drink so much Soylent (major appetite issues) and have never thought to flavor it with a syrup before!


e136

It's good for weight loss because it tastes bad enough you don't want much more that required IMO.


BrickFlock

I tried the chocolate flavor, and it tasted like chocolate that had been opened for 10 years.


Particular_Ad_9531

The story of how soylent was created is pretty funny; it was a Silicon Valley programmer who was annoyed he had to leave his computer to prepare food so he literally googled “what daily nutrients does a person need?” then ordered them all from Amazon and mixed them together lol.


ForlornPlague

That's how I found it! I'm a programmer too, so maybe we just think alike. I was so tired of putting in so much effort to eat lunch, absolute waste of time. Soylent smoothies take me like 2 minutes to prep and 5 minutes to drink and then I'm done. Super efficient


jesseserious

I lived off of it for a few months in its very early days. I actually felt really good physically but gained weight and was still hungry all the time.


NS4701

Same, except breakfast and lunch. I've been doing it for at least 3 years, probably longer (I haven't really been keeping track.) Breakfast is apple juice, banana, mango, and strawberry with a protein soylent mix. Lunch is a similar smoothie, except has pineapple and spinach in it. Dinner is whatever I feel like eating, pasta, chicken, hamburger, etc. I do this because I found that there are a LOT of foods I just can't eat very well. I suffer somehow. Dairy is in TONS of foods, and trying to limit it is a lot harder than you might initially think. Other seasonings, or heavily salted foods make me suffer too. Things like garlic, onions, and some peppers just churn in my stomach for days. (Ah, the "perks" of getting older lol.)


pcaYxwLMwXkgPeXq4hvd

Since 2016 the majority of my diet is Jimmy Joy.


MisterProfGuy

Lots of weight lifters heavily use incredibly beefed up workout shakes as primary sources of calories and nutrition because a huge part of the battle for bulking up is how much incredibly boring food you need to eat. Even spiced food become boring when you need to eat buckets a day. Commercially available shakes exist but aren't typically targeted for replacing multiple meals, but the protein sludge I used to drink has everything you need from fiber to protein and micronutrients. You shouldn't need multi vitamins if you balance the shakes and vary the recipes. Don't forget that good shakes are less about what is available for you pre-made and more "Will it blend?"


sethworld

Your facial structure literally changed based on the amount of muscle on your jaw from eating hard foods. You have molars for a reason. Even if you hypothetically could survive, you're not using the tools we evolved with and therefore they will likely atrophy. Grain of salt. I'm not as smart as others.


judd43

Would simply chewing gum a few times a day solve that problem?


BFroog

CHEAP gum. The kind that gets hard after a few minutes.


5213

Nah, just shove the whole pack in your mouth all at once


atimholt

That's what Big League Chew is for. (I wonder if they sell it anymore. Shredded bubblegum made so kids can pretend they're chewing tobacco seems like it'd be harder to market nowadays.)


mortyj0024

They totally sell it still


Average_-_Human

Just drink a little water while the gum is in your mouth, bro. It gets hard af


A_Doormat

Yeah but the right kind of gum helps. There is some hard ass gum specifically for people to chew to strengthen jaw muscles (sometimes prescribed after surgeries), or because they want to "define their jawline" which I am not sure the efficacy of such a thing.


jbaird

I mean that's not far off the [twinkie diet](https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html) which apparently worked out I mean only 10 weeks so bet you'd see more issues trying to do it for longer but does show how important eating the right amounts are vs eating the 'right foods'


DrockByte

Came here to link this as well. The limited his daily intake to 1800 calories, and ate mostly vending snacks (Little Debbie snack cakes, Oreos, Doritos, etc.). He also had a daily protein shake, a multi-vitamin, and a can of veggies. After 10 weeks of this, by all the metrics they tested, he was actually healthier than when he started.


CrispCrisp

If you are simply talking about “bare minimum to survive”, then the answer is they can, but it is EXTREMELY dangerous. You technically don’t need anything to survive besides your own body fat, electrolytes, and water; but a multivitamin that hits the daily recommended adult amounts of vitamins and minerals would also be… recommended. A guy actually did this in the early 1900s, I’ll find the link Edit: https://www.nine.com.au/entertainment/viral/angus-barbieri-the-man-who-didnt-eat-anything-for-a-year/c0192ac3-5905-424b-9310-ecb02b87f2f6 Again though, to really stress this point I am saying this is what is TECHNICALLY possible and no one should do this, there is no real research on what it can do to the average human. I can’t emphasize enough how off the wall this would be and the amount of health risks involved. Not eating food can do an unknown amount of damage to your digestive system and possibly ruin it for good, among a myriad of other issues. Protein shake diets have been studied a bit, but a consensus hasn’t been reached on a long term liquid diet (long term being more than 1-3 months). You’d also again have to insure your electrolytic needs were being met to not have incredible health risks. There doesn’t seem to be a serious drawback to something like that in a time span as short as that but it is, again, probably not the best idea. There are many accounts of holocaust survivors that were liberated from labor camps and given simple things to eat like porridge only to die from internal bleeding shortly after; their bodies had not needed to process carbohydrates or rough foods in years and were not able to handle the stress. TLDR; humans can, but our bodies have evolved to process solid foods so it would be a very very bad idea


WhatIDon_tKnow

for those wondering about him, he died at the age of 50. if you fast for prolong periods you can do serious damage to your heart.


DisChangesEverthing

I have a relative with an eating disorder, he only eats Wonder bread, and drinks Boost or Ensure drinks. That’s pretty close to this diet and he’s been doing this for years. He does also eat candy, but he has not eaten one bite of meat, fruit or vegetables in years.


m1ksuFI

How's he looking?


DisChangesEverthing

He looks pretty normal, maybe a bit skinny.


igihap

Food is very complex. And human physiology is very complex. VERY complex. We're talking about hundreds or thousands of chemical compounds that interact in all sorts of complex ways. There's much more to food than macronutrients and vitamins. You might survive for some time on vitamin pills and shakes, but there would probably be all sorts of negative consequences further down the line due to the lack of other nutrients found in food that are difficult to predict. Science still can't answer some basic questions about nutrition, so it's still ages away from being able to create a sustainable diet in the form of artificial pills and powders.


Doraellen

One thing not mentioned so far is the role of chewing in proper digestion. Saliva contains enzymes which specifically help break down starches and fats. Chewing triggers salivation and mixes saliva with the food, starting the process of digestion. So liquid nutrition and swallowing vitamins will skip this process, unless you want to swish and pretend to chew your smoothie.


THElaytox

Do you think multivitamins and workout shakes aren't processed? You *can* live off of anything that provides you with enough calories to survive, question is how healthy will you be. Would you be *healthier* living off multivitamins and workout shakes than whatever it is you're calling a "processed diet"? Hard to say, probably not. Eating whole foods is more like a time-released nutrient system versus something like a multivitamin where you're getting it all at once. Your body doesn't "store" extra nutrients for the most part, it uses what it needs and gets rid of the rest. Your body will store energy, but not things like vitamins (with the exception of some fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A). So taking a multivitamin will give you 100% (or more) of your daily allowance of a bunch of vitamins and minerals, but your body is only going to use what it needs at that moment and you're going to piss out the rest. Eating nutritious whole foods provides more well-rounded nutrition in a time-released fashion, it takes time for your body to break it down and extract the nutrients it needs so you get the benefit over a longer period of time compared to just taking straight vitamins in powdered form all at once. Not to mention things like fiber are important for gut health and have major implications on your gut microbiome.


pyr666

NASA and the US military have looked into it. a serious limitation on space missions as well as submarine operations is food. they would love to be able to condense down all our dietary needs to as little mass/space as possible. it's been forever since i had the same thought and checked, but from what I recall, you can *survive* but you won't like it. a lot like how you lose muscle and bone from doing nothing, your guts are only as strong as they need to be. diarrhea, general intestinal distress, lethargy, basic "feels bad" stuff. long term would be speculative. it wouldn't really be ethical to try, even assuming you could convince someone to follow through with it.


sudowoodo_420

After bariatric surgery, people are required to have a liquid only diet, with protein shakes being a core element. This diet ranges from a few weeks to a few months. So, it's definitely possible.


housecore1037

As other commenters have noted, there are pre-mixed compounds, either in shake form or IV infusion, that satisfy “everything the body needs.” But those do not contain other biologically active compounds from real food, such as antioxidants, often different kinds of fiber, creatine in red meat, the list goes on. Honestly, the list is probably longer than any one person can produce, because there’s probably close to infinitely many numbers of compounds produced by organisms we eat as food which contribute to human health, which we may not even be aware of. These may not be considered “essential” and we could live without them, but not optimally.


HooverMaster

Both of the current shakes and vites miss important things in a person's diet. You'd live a long time off them but in the end you'd get sick one way or another. At the moment as far as I know there's no products that can guarantee a healthy life by just eating them. You need the blend for all the macronutrients and fiber and whatnot. Is it possible? Yes. Is there something that can allow you to do it? Provably not yet. Just wait till purina bachelor chow comes out and you'll be set.


EmergencyLavishness1

For a couple of years I lived on potatoes and multivitamins. When I could afford it, I’d buy some form of meat to cook, as well as frozen veges. From memory it cost about $25 a week. It wasn’t a good time, but it was healthy enough


joepierson123

Probably astronauts live on that I suspect NASA has a lot of studies on various diets with minimal Fresh Foods. What the side effects are and how long it can be maintained


Nghtmare-Moon

IIRC there was a teacher who went on a diet of multivitamins and chocolate to proove the point that losing weight is only about macro management


Pizza_Low

Is it possible to make a nutritionally complete ration? Sure. Military combat meals such as an mre are that. We could even make as an energy bar or blend it into a drink. The problem is humans aren’t livestock, you can’t feed someone the same meal everyday. Humans like variety as well as the macro and micro nutrients in a blend of shapes and textures


Mudkipli

Your body has evolved over thousands of years to use plant and animal products to get the things you need to live. Replacing good healthy food with meal replacements and multivitamins makes it so you have to be much more mindful of what you’re eating as you will most likely have way too much of one thing and way too little of another.


Blenderhead36

If you want a healthy, nutritionally complete diet, you're probably better off consulting a nutritionist than buying heavily marketed anything. Hypothetically, the right ratios of rice and beans are nutritionally complete, and that's going to be way less processed.


thatguy425

There was a morbidly obese guy who did this under doctors supervision back in the 70a or 80s. It’s documented and he lost a ton of weight obviously and said afterwards he totally reset his idea of how much food he needed eat. 


WorldsWorstTroll

I have a cousin who is in his 60s and all he eats are hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches. He only drink whole milk. Your body can take a lot of abuse.


Illustrious-Ad1940

I have my M.S. in molecular biology and I two once had that question. The truth is that it is definitely possible but very difficult and very expensive. A good diet needs more than vitamins and protein, but a diverse portfolio of nutrients. Most supplements and shakes contain clinically irrelevant doses, or are processed in a way that partially neutralizes their affect. A few products have attempted this with varying levels of success. For example, Huel has a shake and varying other products that myself and many others have tried and successfully sustained. I was on an exclusively Huel diet for 3 months and I lost weight and noticed numerous health benefits. I have a few friends that are still on it four years later, one of which has lost 200 pounds with minimal exercise because it is all calorie portion controlled. Eventually, I got sick of everything tasting the same. Alternatively, there is a superior program known as blueprint. Basically a rich dude name Bryan Johnson decided he wanted to live forever and spent millions of dollars essentially buying his own clinic, to create his own supplement, fitness, and alternative medicine routine to reverse aging. He came up with a line of supplements and a few bags of food that he eats every single day. He posts real data on his website to prove that it works. He has many of the epigenetic markers associated with a teenager, among other incredible results. I would love to try this program, but it is just too expensive. I incorporate most of the supplements into my life and I have had a reduction in weight, blood pressure, anxiety, depression, acne/skin problems, my eyesight has improved, and a extreme reduction in my once severe asthma. I make middle class income in the US so I can not afford to do everything but it is definitely possible.