Solids in Beer

[sterwill]

A few weeks ago, some friends and I were debating the nutritional merits of beer, and I arrived at the following question. If one were to consume only beer for one year, would the body evacuate any solid waste on a regular basis? Of course we would assume all of the body's nutritional needs could be supplied by a substance proven "solids free", perhaps in the form of an intravenous drip. We're also assuming our subject is not consuming the bit of solid yeast that would normally settle at the bottom of a batch of beer, and could be transfered into bottles.

I suppose this question goes beyond beer itself, and is more of a general inquiry as to the body's intestinal reaction to a fluid diet. But the specific alcohol content and very natural ingredients of beer got me thinking.

[Surgoshan]

Consume only beer for a year?

Hmm, are we talking "Hey, I'm hungry, I'll have a beer!" here? Or is it a 'if you want to consume something, you can drink beer' thing? Or is it "Three beers on the hour every hour"?

[sterwill]

Aah... yes, much more along the lines of, "if you want something to consume, beer is all you have." We can still pretend you won't dehydrate yourself (you have fluid IV drip) or otherwise die.

[bibliophage]

From Fecal Matters (http://www.eos.uoguelph.ca/webfiles/james/wjfecalmatters.html)Because a large part of feces is not of dietary origin, feces continue to form and are passed even during prolonged starvation.

Though I don't know about the claim from the bottom of that page "An average person defecates some seven pounds per day." The Encyclopedia Britannica puts the figure at 3 to 6 ounces per day. Normally, feces are made up of 75 percent water and 25 percent solid matter. About 30 percent of the solid matter consists of dead bacteria; about 30 percent consists of indigestible food matter such as cellulose; 10 to 20 percent of cholesterol and other fats; 10 to 20 percent of such inorganic substances as calcium phosphate and iron phosphate; and 2 to 3 percent is protein. Cell debris shed from the mucous membrane of the intestinal tract also passes in the waste material, as do bile pigments (bilirubin) and dead leukocytes (white blood cells). The brown colour of feces is due to the action of bacteria on bilirubin, which is the end product of the breakdown of hemoglobin (red blood cells). The odor of feces is caused by the chemicals indole, skatole, hydrogen sulfide, and mercaptans, which are produced by bacterial action.

[Sofa King]

I successfully survived for two years largely on a daily diet of a twelve-pack of Schmidt's and a bag of potato chips. I shat quite normally, although it was often of a very thin consistency.

With tax, I was paying five dollars and twenty-five cents a day to live, with a healthy dose of recreation tossed in as a freebie. Amazingly, I suffered from almost no health problems, and was in pretty damned good shape. At the same time I was working construction and trying to keep my Scandinavian girlfriend honest by screwing her five times a day, every day. I think I was sleeping on average about three and a half to five hours a night, tops.

While I don't recommend the all-beer diet for obvious reasons, I'm living proof that it can be done.

[barflyer]

Maybe you could get an ad on TV like Jared, the Subway sandwich spokesmodel.

A beer diet would be very popular!

[Dystopos]

so would a "screw-a-Scandinavian-girl-five-times-a-day" diet.