Just wandering through some blogs and I ran across an old post about a patented idea for a compressed food. I could see this as bachelor chow, but also fuel for farting contests! Add some sort of minerals and vitamins and assorted amino acids and I think it would appeal to a bunch of people. I sort of wonder what it would taste like, it seems lacking in seasoning.
I think that once reconsituted it will taste like a mix of Spam and sawdust.
I lived for a year and a half on a product called 2/cal HN. An eight ounce can has four hundred seventy five calories of complete nutrition. I had six to seven cans a day. Tasted like an artificially flavored vanilla milk shake. Of course for most of that time I didn’t have to taste it since I injected it straight into my stomach. It took care of hunger but did nothing for cravings. But was very convenient. And since it was prescription it was covered by insurance and saved lots of money at a time when money was tight.
I’ve long thought that People Chow would be quite a hit - I’d keep a bag of it on hand for the times when we need to eat but I don’t feel like cooking.
Just so you know, there are at least 3 or 4 threads in GQ regarding the creation of Bachelor Chow, or some sort of perfectly fortified instant human food. It always seems like an idea that needs to be explored, I’ve said it already exists – cold cereal with milk, but adult humans simply demand more flavor and texture variety in their diet.
You could call it “Nutriloaf,” but that name is already taken by a similar product used as punishment in US prisons.
Isn’t that Soylent Green?
Um, you can’t leave us hanging like that man? What happened?
They stuck my head in a microwave everyday till I got better.
Yup, hence the ‘redux’ 
I tend to have oatmeal for breakfast about 90% of the time [with cinnamon and raisins, no sugar] so I have no problem with boring food, as long as it is of good quality and tastes good.
My version of Bachelor Chow is rice & beans (with onion, garlic & jalapenos). Left to my own devices, I would probably eat this every day. Sometimes I slice up a sausage in it.
A division of Purina, LabDiet, makes several varieties of bachelor chow. Well, they call it non-human primate diet, but I think we know what they’re talking about. The High Protein Monkey Dietlooks pretty good.
The food in the link sounds suspiciously like the portable soup in the Aubrey-Maturin books (and I presume used in the real Royal Navy of the early 1800s).
I’m just going to leave this here.
I probably should post it in GQ, but given that this thread exists, and provide all necessary context – Can I surive on Purina Small Primate Chow™? Exactly as given on that page. I mean, I eat nothing except for 2-4% of my body weight in those bars for the 180 days that the Vitamin C content is stabilized. Would I be OK?
Sure like I said I survived for two years on:
The calorie values are pretty high, probably 1 g/kg body weight is better for a human being. At that you’d be taking in around 2,500 Calories per day for an 80 kg man. I was thinking the fiber might be low, but at 4.9% fiber 800 grams would give you nearly 40 grams of fiber, so actually pretty good. I’d give it a try.
mmmm better living through modern chemistry!
Actually that is pretty true - most everything listed is already found in regular solid foods in one form or another. Just mixing it all together from jars instead of making beef stew makes it look worse than it really is.
I was always fascinated by foods developed for the space program.
These people make nutritionally balanced pizzas using seaweed instead of salt:
http://www.eatbalanced.com/what-we-make/why-our-products-are-different.aspx
Quote from their site:
“Our award-winning range of nutritionally balanced pizzas provides you with the right levels of all the main nutrients you need, with all the flavour you would expect.”
Bachelor Chow? Honestly I know more single women who do absolutely no cooking than single men.