MetaChat - Do you

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

28 June 2006

Do you think it is possible to live on nothing more than 4 king size snickers, 3 quarts of gatorade and a multivitamin a day? Without dying of malnourishment?

post by: sciurus at: 11:51 | 25 comments

You wouldn't die, but why would you want to? ::bleech::

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 28 June | 12:00

For one day? Yes. Much longer and I'd say you'd start to have issues.

Is this a bet you're contemplating?

posted by fenriq 28 June | 12:00

Define "live".
;-)

posted by shane 28 June | 12:02

You can live on it, sure. For a limited amount of time. You'll be depriving yourself of vitamins, minerals etc (vitamins in a bottle are total crap) that you need to build new cells, and that means that over time all of the new tissue built by your body will be based on the extremely limited and probably toxic nutrition that can be gleaned from gator ade and snickers and fake, probably chemical vitamins. You'll start to look like hell and feel like hell too. You'll actually slowly starve to death as your body eats away at itself in a desperate attempt to find stores of nutrients in your tissues and organs. Your immunity system will become less and less efficient and you'll probably die from something easily curable, like a cold or flu.

Have a nice day!

posted by iconomy 28 June | 12:03

Dear God I hope so.

Substitute or supplement the multivitamin with an Emergen-C packet and you probably could. (Emergen-C has a ton of stuff hardly any other supplement has, like micronutrients and minerals in a good balance and in an easier to metabolize form.)

You'd need some real fiber and some fresh veggies and fruit now and again, though. But that's basically been my diet for about two months, except less Snickers and more canned beans and ravioli and such. (I'm fridgeless at the moment.) I feel pretty damn good, though, and I've lost a whopping 40 pounds - which is good.

posted by loquacious 28 June | 12:05

So, how is it going so far?

I prefer the Johnnie Walker Red and Spagettios diet. You'll be looking like a Sumo wrestler in no time.

posted by warbaby 28 June | 12:07

fake, probably chemical vitamins

iconomy, I'm with you for most of it, but this...?
Huh?

posted by gaspode 28 June | 12:08

Doesn't Gatorade contain a lot of sodium?

posted by jrossi4r 28 June | 12:10

Apropos of nothing, I had a roommate once who lived on stale movie theatre popcorn for about a week because he had no money. By the end of his week, he said his rectum felt like someone was rubbing alcohol into open cuts.

posted by fenriq 28 June | 12:12

gaspode, I just meant that most vitamins are synthetic. Your body wants and needs the real stuff...the stuff that's in food.

Even natural vitamins (in a bottle) do a job on your liver, which has to process them overtime. The best way to get any nutrient is to eat it or get it from the sun. So even if the Snickers said something like "new and improved, with added Vitamins A and D!", those vitamins are not easily processed and aren't really worth eating.

posted by iconomy 28 June | 12:18

Also, due to the lack of fiber, you'll probably never poop and would eventually explode.

posted by jonmc 28 June | 12:18

vitamins are synthetic. Your body wants and needs the real stuff...the stuff that's in food

While there's some truth to this (like missing out on the folates and such, and trace metals in multi-tablets being in poorly digestible forms), I can assure you that "synthetic" vitamin C is absolutely and completely indistinguishable from "natural" vitamin C. The vitamin compounds are very well known and easy to assure quality for.

Yeah, and the fibre issue (or rather, lack of issue). Your ass is going to be SO sore.

posted by bonehead 28 June | 12:24

So the answer I seem to be getting is: No.

What if I just lived off of seal liver and blubber, like the Inuit?

posted by sciurus 28 June | 12:26

You'd blubber too if all you ate was seal liver!

*taps microphone*

this thing on??

posted by jonmc 28 June | 12:27

No. and neither are my pants.

posted by sciurus 28 June | 12:28

bonehead, how do you know about the body's inability to distinguish? I don't believe any tests done by any party with a vested interest in the results, though.

posted by iconomy 28 June | 12:30

No. and neither are my pants.

Me either. People are gonna start talking, dude.

posted by jonmc 28 June | 12:32

You wouldn't die for a long, long time, but it would cause all sorts of problems. Kidney stones? Diabetes? Who knows. bad idea.

I like the no pants thing, though. Keep it up. Uh... nevermind.

posted by Specklet 28 June | 12:43

Actually, all that sugar might make up for the lack of fibre. Trust me on this.

Seriously, I can supply the semi-gory details if anyone wants to know.

posted by deborah 28 June | 12:43

But if you ingest enough vitamin C, you can get diahrrea, solving the fibre issue!

posted by cmonkey 28 June | 12:48

See also: I was curious to know if it was possible to leave off of just sugar and multi-vitamins?

posted by Rhomboid 28 June | 13:16

sciurus, YOU'RE A RUNNER! You need carbs and fruits and veggies and real food. And PROTEIN.

posted by shane 28 June | 13:33

For what you would spend on snickers and gatorade, you could buy real food.

posted by mischief 28 June | 13:57

Iconomy: I've sent a too-long, askmeish reply to your mail.

posted by bonehead 28 June | 14:52

I was gonna say something profound, but now all I can picture is sciurus and jonmc without pants (nice tushie, by the way).

posted by redvixen 28 June | 18:55

← Drink locally, warm globally! || We are flooded! →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN