# Can man live on peanut butter \[or ketchup\] alone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 6, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033 "2013-04-06T19:21:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/21 "2013-04-07T02:25:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If human diets were as rigid as some folks seem to think, we’d have died off ages ago. Yeah, it’s best if you get certain amounts of certain things, and in the long run you’ll have some health problems if you don’t, but you can go an awfully long time on just about anything as long as you’re getting Calories from it. That’s why I’ve always thought it was a reasonable survival food. Yeah, it’s boring but I expect that the zombie apocalypse will provide some margin of entertainment. Having said that, I was always impressed with [Ötzi’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi#Body) (The Iceman) varied diet judging from the contents of his digestive system when he died five thousand years ago: Analysis of Ötzi’s intestinal contents showed two meals (the last one consumed about eight hours before his death), one of **chamois** meat, the other of **red** **deer** and **herb** **bread**. Both were eaten with **grain** as well as **roots** and **fruits**. The grain from both meals was a highly processed **einkorn** **wheat** **bran** , quite possibly eaten in the form of bread. In the proximity of the body, and thus possibly originating from the Iceman’s provisions, chaff and grains of **einkorn** and **barley** , and seeds of **flax** and **poppy** were discovered, as well as kernels of **sloes** (small plumlike fruits of the blackthorn tree) and various seeds of **berries** growing in the wild. Of course, it’s possible that he may have been atypical. Probably one of those insufferable health nuts always going on about BMI and the food pyramid. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/22 "2013-04-07T02:52:54Z")
The problem with peanut butter is that, although it has a significant amount of protein, it’s an incomplete protein, deficient in histidine and especially tryptophan. [Cite](http://www.livestrong.com/article/505852-essential-amino-acids-in-peanut-butter/). How important this would be if subsisting on it alone for a month is more than I know, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be adequate as a lifestyle diet. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/23 "2013-04-07T04:20:33Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Going back to the peanut butter part, I would imagine if you packed enough peanut butter and added enough bottles of the missing micronutrients to cover the rest you would be more or less bored out of your skull but fine. There’s actually a product which is pretty much this: [Plumpy-nut](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut). ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/24 "2013-04-07T08:02:28Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > There’s actually a product which is pretty much this: [Plumpy-nut](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut). In the _novel_ Make Room, Make Room [the base for Soylent Green movie] there is a scene where some chavesque woman and her child are getting a prescription for peanut butter because the child has qwashikor, but she actually intends to sell the peanut butter, been a while since I read the book but I think she was going to buy booze with the money. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/25 "2013-04-07T15:19:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If human diets were as rigid as some folks seem to think, we’d have died off ages ago. Yeah, it’s best if you get certain amounts of certain things, and in the long run you’ll have some health problems if you don’t, but you can go an awfully long time on just about anything as long as you’re getting Calories from it. Yep. In the [Minnesota starvation experiment](http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1347.full), for example, volunteers were fed a semi-starvation diet while walking 22 miles a day. Since the whole purpose was to figure out how to bring people back from starvation, the volunteer diet imitated the European refugee diet of potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, dark bread, and macaroni. In other words the volunteers were not getting a balanced diet, and not enough of it, while exerting themselves more than the average bear. After 6 months they were very hungry, very weak, and somewhat mentally disturbed, but they were all alive. I’m not aware of any nutritional deficit – including eating nothing – that can kill you in a month unless you were already very sick. Lack of water will kill you in around five days, though. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/26 "2013-04-07T16:24:40Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > There was a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-405642.html) here that said that humans could survive on Purina Monkey Chow. Apparently the dietary needs of monkeys are close enough. Makes sense as we are all primates. I remember my grandfather telling me that when he was stationed in the Amazon during WW2 his unit was told that, if lost or stranded without food, a good rule of thumb would be to observe primates and eat whatever they were eating. The one time that they were forced to follow this advice all of the monkeys they could find were eating ants. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/27 "2013-04-07T17:07:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If human diets were as rigid as some folks seem to think, we’d have died off ages ago. Yeah, it’s best if you get certain amounts of certain things, and in the long run you’ll have some health problems if you don’t, but you can go an awfully long time on just about anything as long as you’re getting Calories from it. A long time can be long indeed, like the case of the [chicken nugget girl](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57367638-10391704/british-teen-stacey-irvine-hospitalized-after-eating-nothing-but-chicken-nuggets-for-15-years/), who ate almost nothing but chicken nuggets for 15 years before finally getting sick; with a vitamin/mineral supplement, you can probably go on even longer. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/28 "2013-04-07T20:01:36Z")
Going by that article, she didn’t eat “almost nothing but chicken nuggets”-- She also ate fries. Which, admittedly, also aren’t a very healthy food, but it does mean that she was getting twice as much variety as the headline states. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/29 "2013-04-07T20:28:21Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Yep. > > In the [Minnesota starvation experiment](http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1347.full), for example, volunteers were fed a semi-starvation diet while walking 22 miles a day. Since the whole purpose was to figure out how to bring people back from starvation, the volunteer diet imitated the European refugee diet of potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, dark bread, and macaroni. In other words the volunteers were not getting a balanced diet, and not enough of it, while exerting themselves more than the average bear… Potatoes are a [surpringly](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/10/potatoes-and-human-health-part-iii.html) [adequate](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-potato-diet.html#more)food source. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/30 "2013-04-07T20:54:40Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > I remember my grandfather telling me that when he was stationed in the Amazon during WW2 his unit was told that, if lost or stranded without food, a good rule of thumb would be to observe primates and eat whatever they were eating. The one time that they were forced to follow this advice all of the monkeys they could find were eating ants. I take it the monkeys themselves were too quick for the servicemen to catch. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/31 "2013-04-07T21:07:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Going by that article, she didn’t eat “almost nothing but chicken nuggets”-- She also ate fries. Which, admittedly, also aren’t a very healthy food, but it does mean that she was getting twice as much variety as the headline states. I don’t know about her but I met the real Chicken Teriyaki Kid once. I went into Whole Foods Alewife in Cambridge, MA for lunch with a female coworker. If you aren’t familiar with the area, it is ground-zero for flakes in general. A woman walked up to us and said that she needed to do some shopping and would we mind watching her three kids while she did it as if that was the most normal thing in the world to ask of strangers. We were eating lunch at one of the front tables and the request was so bizarre that we said sure. The kids ranged between 5 and 10 years old. Cute kids. The mother soon brought over food for the kids before she did the rest of her shopping. The 5 year old had a big plate of chicken teriyaki and nothing else. I commented that he must really like that. His older sister quickly revealed that chicken teriyaki is all he ate - ever and had since he was two. Not only that, it had to be chicken teriyaki from that specific store and no where else so the parents made trips to the store at least once a day to get it for him. He looked healthy enough and seemed happy. His older brother and sister ate more normally. As a bonus fact, we also learned that their father was a doctor and they had recently gone on a trip overseas and the biggest logistical problem was having enough chicken teriyaki shipped from that store to keep the youngest fed the whole time. That was a few years ago so I don’t know if he ever started eating anything else but apparently you can live on nothing but chicken teriyaki for at least three years. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/32 "2013-04-07T21:24:52Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > I take it the monkeys themselves were too quick for the servicemen to catch. Not sure, but based on other stories that he told me about his tour of duty in the Amazon I’m guessing that the servicemen weren’t sober enough to climb up trees and catch them.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/33 "2013-04-07T22:45:11Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > Not sure, but based on other stories that he told me about his tour of duty in the Amazon I’m guessing that the servicemen weren’t sober enough to climb up trees and catch them.😃 What units from what country were doing tours in the Amazon during WWII? ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/34 "2013-04-08T00:23:30Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I don’t know about her but I met the real Chicken Teriyaki Kid once. I went into Whole Foods Alewife in Cambridge, MA for lunch with a female coworker. If you aren’t familiar with the area, it is ground-zero for flakes in general. A woman walked up to us and said that she needed to do some shopping and would we mind watching her three kids while she did it as if that was the most normal thing in the world to ask of strangers. We were eating lunch at one of the front tables and the request was so bizarre that we said sure. The kids ranged between 5 and 10 years old. Cute kids. The mother soon brought over food for the kids before she did the rest of her shopping. The 5 year old had a big plate of chicken teriyaki and nothing else. I commented that he must really like that. > > His older sister quickly revealed that chicken teriyaki is all he ate - ever and had since he was two. Not only that, it had to be chicken teriyaki from that specific store and no where else so the parents made trips to the store at least once a day to get it for him. He looked healthy enough and seemed happy. His older brother and sister ate more normally. As a bonus fact, we also learned that their father was a doctor and they had recently gone on a trip overseas and the biggest logistical problem was having enough chicken teriyaki shipped from that store to keep the youngest fed the whole time. That was a few years ago so I don’t know if he ever started eating anything else but apparently you can live on nothing but chicken teriyaki for at least three years. Wow, enable much? Those parents were wacky ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/35 "2013-04-08T00:59:37Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > I take it the monkeys themselves were too quick for the servicemen to catch. My thought exactly 😛 ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/36 "2013-04-08T16:51:36Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > What units from what country were doing tours in the Amazon during WWII? U.S. in Surinam (Dutch Guiana at the time) to secure Dutch owned bauxite mines [(at the request of the exiled Dutch Government in London)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_%28Dutch_colony%29#20th_century) during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/37 "2013-04-08T17:04:55Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > U.S. in Surinam (Dutch Guiana at the time) to secure Dutch owned bauxite mines [(at the request of the exiled Dutch Government in London)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_%28Dutch_colony%29#20th_century) during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Excellent. That’s a nice bit of WWII trivia filed away for future use. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/38 "2013-04-09T13:31:44Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > There’s actually a product which is pretty much this: [Plumpy-nut](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut). That.. sounds awesome. Can it be bought in the U.S.? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/39 "2013-04-10T10:10:44Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > That.. sounds awesome. Can it be bought in the U.S.? I couldn’t say. Your best bet might be to contact the company and ask if any of their licencees make it for the US domestic market. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033/40 "2013-04-10T12:51:53Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > I couldn’t say. Your best bet might be to contact the company and ask if any of their licencees make it for the US domestic market. It looks like there’s a U.S. manufacturer, but only for the humanitarian aid side. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-man-live-on-peanut-butter-or-ketchup-alone/655033.md?page=3)