Some people thrive for decades (including Stephen Hawking) tube fed with nutritionally complete enteral formulas. Semi-annual blood tests pick up any deficiencies, and supplements are added if needed. Several companies make “Soylent”, the one I am familiar with is Abbott Nutrition.
If there’s something there that isn’t priced for sale to hospitals, or restricted in sale to hospitals, and has been formulated so as to be edible by people who are tired of real food, go ahead and post it. My understanding is that tube-feeding is not the same use-case as Soylent at all, with tube-fed material needing to be essentially predigested and correspondingly expensive or something along those lines, and no concern for edible taste for obvious reasons.
I’ve done some looking, but I haven’t seen anything out there that looks like it’s meant to be eaten, meant to replace food, and priced at an affordable level for sole consumption.
I’ll let you know that I researched the matter (“Could an adult live entirely on baby food?”), and found this answer on answerbag.com:
i have heard on tv that victoria beckham eats nothing else, in order to stay well nourished but stick thin
That settles it, then. And as every doctor knows, children are just small adults … small Victoria Beckhams specifically.
In seriousness though, you’d be fine. Here’s the nutrient data for an infant formula from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. You can compare what you’d get from the formula with the RDA and check that you wouldn’t overshoot the tolerable upper intake levels (UL), but without having done any of those comparisons, I’d place a large bet that you’d be fine.
Your daily nutritional intake based on various Ramen, Pizza, some salad and/or Fast Food doesn’t adhere to some “perfect” mix of ingredients either. You’ll be just fine.
Your daily nutritional intake based on various Ramen, Pizza, some salad and/or Fast Food doesn’t adhere to some “perfect” mix of ingredients either. You’ll be just fine.
Good point—it possibly wouldn’t be as good as a formula designed specifically for adults, but it probably would be a vast improvement on what a sizeable fraction of the population are eating.
Well it’s not clear there is one optimal level for most nutrients. You should hit all the Recommended Dietary Allowances and stay under the Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (links to both given in the grandparent), but in between that large range (often a factor of ten), who knows, it doesn’t seem to make any difference (which is why the ULs are so high).
Given most usual Western diets, the problem isn’t malnourishment (although it does exist, Vitamin D deficiencies in general, and problems with low SES populations subsisting on soda and chips come to mind). The problem is simply too many calories (and salts) consumed. Fast food is actually quite healthy … if consumed in the appropriate amounts.
In other words, as long as you stay in the range, there’s probably little difference between a formula designed specifically for adults, and a formula designed for kids which when scaled up is also in the correct ranges.
But there is a significant difference between taking a medical formula under doctors supervision and mixing up the most common nutrition ingredients and claiming it to be a cure-all-be-all food. Didn’t the guy forget to include iron in his first mixture?
Another ‘Soylent’ equivalent I know of is Sustagen Hospital Formula.
Some people thrive for decades (including Stephen Hawking) tube fed with nutritionally complete enteral formulas. Semi-annual blood tests pick up any deficiencies, and supplements are added if needed. Several companies make “Soylent”, the one I am familiar with is Abbott Nutrition.
If there’s something there that isn’t priced for sale to hospitals, or restricted in sale to hospitals, and has been formulated so as to be edible by people who are tired of real food, go ahead and post it. My understanding is that tube-feeding is not the same use-case as Soylent at all, with tube-fed material needing to be essentially predigested and correspondingly expensive or something along those lines, and no concern for edible taste for obvious reasons.
I’ve done some looking, but I haven’t seen anything out there that looks like it’s meant to be eaten, meant to replace food, and priced at an affordable level for sole consumption.
Baby formula. Duh.
IIRC, the nutritional needs of adults aren’t those of babies scaled up by a constant.
I’ll let you know that I researched the matter (“Could an adult live entirely on baby food?”), and found this answer on answerbag.com:
That settles it, then. And as every doctor knows, children are just small adults … small Victoria Beckhams specifically.
In seriousness though, you’d be fine. Here’s the nutrient data for an infant formula from the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. You can compare what you’d get from the formula with the RDA and check that you wouldn’t overshoot the tolerable upper intake levels (UL), but without having done any of those comparisons, I’d place a large bet that you’d be fine.
Your daily nutritional intake based on various Ramen, Pizza, some salad and/or Fast Food doesn’t adhere to some “perfect” mix of ingredients either. You’ll be just fine.
Good point—it possibly wouldn’t be as good as a formula designed specifically for adults, but it probably would be a vast improvement on what a sizeable fraction of the population are eating.
Well it’s not clear there is one optimal level for most nutrients. You should hit all the Recommended Dietary Allowances and stay under the Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (links to both given in the grandparent), but in between that large range (often a factor of ten), who knows, it doesn’t seem to make any difference (which is why the ULs are so high).
Given most usual Western diets, the problem isn’t malnourishment (although it does exist, Vitamin D deficiencies in general, and problems with low SES populations subsisting on soda and chips come to mind). The problem is simply too many calories (and salts) consumed. Fast food is actually quite healthy … if consumed in the appropriate amounts.
In other words, as long as you stay in the range, there’s probably little difference between a formula designed specifically for adults, and a formula designed for kids which when scaled up is also in the correct ranges.
But there is a significant difference between taking a medical formula under doctors supervision and mixing up the most common nutrition ingredients and claiming it to be a cure-all-be-all food. Didn’t the guy forget to include iron in his first mixture?
Another ‘Soylent’ equivalent I know of is Sustagen Hospital Formula.