# cat food has everything needed for life....why isn't there a "people" food? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706 "2006-12-03T17:39:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/41 "2006-12-06T12:43:50Z")
[QUOTE=calm kiwi] ..Why subject a cat to 10 yrs of the same food.. Give your cat some cheese…it won’t kill them 🙂 [/QUOTE] Yeah…I used to give her canned food every morning as soon as I woke up at 6:00 a.m.— Until she decided there’s no reason to wait…why not just meow loudly enough, and earn her canned food at 5:30…then at 5:00…then at 4:30…etc,etc. YMMV (your meowing may vary) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/42 "2006-12-06T16:08:50Z")
[QUOTE=Pushkin] Is there any sort of, um, “mulch” I could make myself that could be set or frozen for lengthy periods of time? I was thinking that if I liquidised all my fruit and veg and poured it into a mould, or made a big cake out of it, the goodness in all the food I put into it would be lost pretty soon. [/QUOTE] I think the ‘smoothie’ is fairly close to this. Most mornings, I place the following in a blender and turn it into a drink: bananas, frozen fruit, honey, liquid vitamins, hemp or flax oil, optionally spinach or lettice or other greens (cabbage was a bad idea), water. I didn’t today because I was out of bananas. I keep menaing to try Thai coconut meat as well, and there’s all sorts of other things I could put in. I have tried freezing it, with dubious results. OTOH, the orange-pineapple-garlic ice cream I made in the same mixer, which wasn’t too much different in compisition (roughly-speaking, it had milk, and no veggies or oil) turned out to be excellent. I’ve really come to appreciate frozen fruit. How long does it keep its nutritional goodness? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/43 "2006-12-06T20:50:44Z")
> [@Gary Kumquat](#): > > No, you’ll be fine. I wouldn’t recommend it as a diet to anyone who wasn’t Scottish, but bearing in mind we scoff down such things as deepfried mars bars and chips, you’re almost a health freak by national standards. That explains one of my office mates from grad school, then. He lived for most of a quarter on a steady diet of Pasta Roni (basically, slightly fancier mac & cheese) made with powdered milk, and the rest of us were taking bets as to how long it would be before he got scurvy, but he never did. He must be part Scottish. [QUOTE=calm kiwi] Give your cat some cheese…it won’t kill them 🙂 [/QUOTE] You might want to be careful with the amounts and types of cheese, though. Many adult cats are lactose-intolerant. Large amounts of soft or unaged cheeses (American cheese and Velveeta can be quite high in lactose) probably aren’t a good idea, unless cleaning up cat diarrhea is your idea of a good time. Be careful about having too much of your cat’s diet come from people food, unless you know what you are doing when it comes to feline nutrition. A steady diet of canned tuna, for example, can cause health problems for cats, because tuna doesn’t contain some nutrients that cats need (particularly, taurine, without which they can go blind or suffer heart problems). There are people foods that are toxic to cats- onions, garlic, chocolate, tomatoes, and grapes are all bad for cats. I’ve also heard that avocados are toxic to cats. One of my cats went through a phase of begging for onions and avocado, so they don’t always know what’s good for them (of course, I never tried giving her any to see if she’d eat it). When we cook fish, poultry, or beef, the kitties always get a little raw meat or fish, which they love (They don’t get cooked meat or fish, because we cook most meat or fish with onions or garlic). If I use sour cream in something, I let them lick a little bit off the spoon. When we eat canned tuna, they get the “juice” squeezed from the can. But most of their diet is made up of a good-quality dry cat food, so I don’t have to worry about their being malnourished. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/44 "2006-12-06T21:11:57Z")
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee] I know we need certain micronutrients, most of which are in any multivitamin. (Anything missing can be gained from additional supplements. Biotin is too expensive to put a full dose in most multivitamins, so you’d probably need some of that.) I know we need a certain number of calories (about 2000-2500 on average) from a balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. We also need a certain amount of fiber. Is that all? Is there anything else we need nutritionally? If I made a mix of pulverized vitamin supplements, starch, powdered soy protein, soybean oil, and cellulose in the proper proportions, and consumed it every day with sufficient water, would I be missing anything besides my sanity? Would this be the ideal food, from a purely nutritional standpoint? If not, what would I need to add? ? [/QUOTE] Humans need calories and water as the top two. One can get Calories from Carbs, proteins or fats. Then humans need: proteins (a well balanced slew of amino acids), fiber, “essential fatty acids” “EFA”, minerals and vitamins. Besides Biotin, many multivites don’t have enough Calcium (Calcium is cheap but bulky), Magnesium, and sometimes Folic acid. Some few do have added EFA’s. I am not sure if Soybean Oil contains all the nessesary EFA’s, or if Soy protein contains all the amino acids and properly balanced. I could find out. There are also a host of other stuff like Anti-oxidents, Probiotics and such which althogh you might not _need_, they will make your life longer and healthier. **rocksolid** ’s (and I expect his user name has something to do with his lower colon 😛😃 ) diet might work with the proper cereals and breads. Some cereals and breads have enough protiens and fiber, and many are vitamin enriched. I suspect strongly he pours milk over his cereal, and perhaps drinks some Guiness or fruit juice too. He seems to need more protien, and a multivite wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’d make sure the cereal is decent whole-grain stuff, too, not empty calorie sugared stuff. It has been calculated that one could survive on Guiness, as long as one also drank a glass of whole milk and another of OJ per day. I hope for gawds sake that the OJ has all the pulp, as you’d need fiber pretty badly. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/45 "2006-12-07T02:30:48Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] It has been calculated that one could survive on Guiness, as long as one also drank a glass of whole milk and another of OJ per day. I hope for gawds sake that the OJ has all the pulp, as you’d need fiber pretty badly. [/QUOTE] Assuming that’s true, why would fiber be necessary for what is an all liquid diet? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/46 "2006-12-07T03:29:27Z")
Call me “crunchy hippie,” but that’s exactly what I’ve always used granola for. I mean the kind that isn’t too sugared. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/47 "2006-12-07T08:51:16Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] It has been calculated that one could survive on Guiness, as long as one also drank a glass of whole milk and another of OJ per day. I hope for gawds sake that the OJ has all the pulp, as you’d need fiber pretty badly. [/QUOTE] After a night on Guinness, I find I don’t really need fibre to empty myself in the morning 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/48 "2006-12-07T13:19:18Z")
I know a woman well into her forties whose diet has been the same every day for years: bagel and coffee for breakfast, a pint of frozen dessert for lunch, and a vegetable salad and glass of wine for dinner. ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/49 "2006-12-07T14:03:35Z")
[QUOTE=WonJohnSoup] ? Bread fills me up by it burns away pretty quickly. I think People Chow would need some kind of filler that lets it slowly digest so the person wouldn’t feel hungry. If you end up eating other things along with a Balance Bar to fill yourself up…then you might as well just eat other things. [/QUOTE] The posters seeking ‘people kibble’ have specified they don’t need a lot of variety; they want something fast that won’t leave them deprived of nutrients. So if the food supplement bar fulfils the nutritional requirements and the only concern is the empty feeling, keep on hand a stack of instant oatmeal packets which take all of two minutes to prepare. Voilà - speed + nutrition + not feeling empty. > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Alan Smithee > If I made a mix of pulverized vitamin supplements, starch, powdered soy protein, soybean oil, and cellulose in the proper proportions, and consumed it every day with sufficient water, would I be missing anything besides my sanity? Would this be the ideal food, from a purely nutritional standpoint? If not, what would I need to add? Flavour? Man, does that ever sound gross! Anyway, you’ve just listed the contents of most power bars so why not save the effort and buy them instead? I remember reading about a fellow with the same concerns about time and nutrition who concocted a recipe for a vegetable soup that contained most of the day’s nutrients. He figured out that eating that soup plus a tomato sandwich on whole grain bread would supply everything he needed per day and that was his diet. I can’t remember if he had it for lunch and dinner but I suppose he must’ve. He’d make big batches of the soup and then freeze it in individual servings. It does mean you have to cook, but only once in a while. Or you could do like Jarred and follow the Subway diet. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/50 "2006-12-07T15:34:10Z")
[QUOTE=Aesiron] Assuming that’s true, why would fiber be necessary for what is an all liquid diet? [/QUOTE] By the time the liquids get digested into food, they get compacted in your lower colon just like anything else. You might excrete the water as urine. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/51 "2006-12-07T15:49:15Z")
So is it possible to create a diet that has all the nutrients a person needs, _and nothing else_, so that it gets completely used-up or absorbes in the intestines, and there’s nothing left? If you did this, would you stop defecating and simply urinate? Or does feces contain things that aren’t food remains? Is roughage or dietary fibre necessary to the functioning of the intestines? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/52 "2006-12-07T16:05:06Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] So is it possible to create a diet that has all the nutrients a person needs, _and nothing else_, so that it gets completely used-up or absorbes in the intestines, and there’s nothing left? If you did this, would you stop defecating and simply urinate? Or does feces contain things that aren’t food remains? Is roughage or dietary fibre necessary to the functioning of the intestines? [/QUOTE] No. It could be theoretically possible but not IRL. Yes, you might not “move” for days, true. This has been documented with those on starvation diets. There’s minor amounts of other stuff in your feces- bile, dead cells, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2007, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/53 "2007-01-26T17:46:28Z")
_Futurama_ joke: Fry: “Soylent Green? Does it taste good?” Leela: “It varies from person to person.” Gotta love that show! ---
**Author:** ![Josephstalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85f322/32.png) [@Josephstalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Josephstalin)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/54 "2024-07-02T21:00:51Z")
Soylent is pretty expensive. Also it’s a liquid, which is different from what OP was looking for ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2024, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/55 "2024-07-02T21:25:04Z")
That incredibly loud whooshing noise you just heard was the joke sailing right over your head at supersonic speed. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2024, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/56 "2024-07-03T10:27:00Z")
Well, yes and no. 13 years ago it was a joke on your part, but I think @Josephstalin is referring to meal replacements made by Soylent (.com) since 2013. I don’t think they’ve ever called their main (liquid) product “Soylent Green”, though. Welcome back, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2024, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706/57 "2024-07-03T13:37:31Z")
Soylent never called their liquid product “green“ but they did have a mint chocolate flavor that came in a green bottle. They also came out with small Soylent Green bars on the anniversary of the movies’ release. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-food-has-everything-needed-for-life-why-isnt-there-a-people-food/382706.md?page=2)