Thread: Miraculous Liquid Food

Has there ever existed (or been interest in creating) a 'perfect' food that would fulfill all the dietary requirements of a human? The 'Bachelor Chow' from Futurama comes to mind here, a bland, colorless cereal that has all the proteins, vitamins, minerals, carbs, calories, et al that we need to survive.

Would such a thing even work? Would drinking say, two or three cans of miracle liquid a day as your only source of food have serious complications involved with it?

It is called the 'baked bean'

Well there's bottled baby food.

If you puree enough ingredients together, why not?

There's tube feeding formula.

http://www.cwimedical.com/compleat.html?=nextag

Thanks Harold =) I did take a look at Total Parenteral Nutrition (the stuff they give you intravenously when you're in a coma and the like). It seems common problems with this diet would be hyperglycemia, abnormalities with electrolytes and minerals, volume overload, bone demineralization, adverse reactions to lipid emulsions, hepatic complications, and 'gallbladder complications'. I suspect this has more to do with the specific formula for TPN fluid than the idea of a complete dietary supplement though.

Also, I imagine a diet of liquid would give you a persistent case of diarrhea if drunken instead of taken IV, no?

Originally Posted by Frenchi

Also, I imagine a diet of liquid would give you a persistent case of diarrhea if drunken instead of taken IV, no?

Luckily, I have no experience with the stuff. They do advertise it has dietary fiber, though.

Originally Posted by Frenchi

Also, I imagine a diet of liquid would give you a persistent case of diarrhea

A healthy body can absorb large volumes of water, no problem; it dumps the excess through the kidneys. Diarrhea is caused by failure of the large intestine to take up liquid (why it causes the more serious condition of dehydration).

Much of the apparently solid food we eat becomes runny if blended, proof of its high water content (I used to prepare meals for my spoon-fed baby). I'm pretty sure that if you just took everything normally consumed in a day, blended it all together, you'd get the consistency of thin soup.

Actually, just chewing your food, it's nearly liquid before it hits the stomach.

My point is that this futuristic miracle liquid is no different from what our bodies normally digest already.

it's BEER!