# How long would I survive on a diet... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839 "2012-08-18T01:31:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/22 "2012-08-18T17:53:39Z")
Last winter there was [a man in Sweden who got trapped in his car](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/19/man-trapped-snowed-car-hospital) for “just” two months. He was able to melt snow for water, but had no food. From what I understand it’s surprising that he survived that long, and the theory is (or was, at least) that the extremely cold temperatures helped to make that possible. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/23 "2012-08-18T17:56:08Z")
> [@iamnotbatman](#): > > James cook navigated the globe over the course of 3 years with nary a better source of vitamin C (some boiled canned sauerkraut), and none lost to scurvy. . He made frequent stops for fresh fruits and vegetables. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/24 "2012-08-18T18:09:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I’ve heard parrots tend to live for about 50-70 years… If you are referring to scurvy, for most animals, dietary Vitamin C is irrelevant, since their bodies produce the equivalent of a dozen grams or more a day in a human (one of the very few species that can’t synthesize it). Also of note, the amount of Vitamin C needed to prevent scurvy is much lower than the RDA ([75-90 mg/day](http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminC/)), as long as you don’t have any infections or injuries: > [@](#): > > [In human dietary studies](http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Vitamin-C.aspx), all obvious symptoms of scurvy previously induced by extremely low vitamin C intake, can be reversed by vitamin C supplementation as small as 10 mg a day. However, needed vitamin C intake for dealing with infection or large amounts of tissue repair (such as in burns) is much higher than the minimal dose needed to reverse scurvy. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/25 "2012-08-18T19:26:46Z")
I’m tellin’ ya, he’s still gonna go blind without vitamin A. As has been mentioned, sunflower seeds have some vitamin C, but **no** vitamin A. Nor does jerky. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/26 "2012-08-18T19:34:54Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > If you are referring to scurvy, for most animals, dietary Vitamin C is irrelevant, since their bodies produce the equivalent of a dozen grams or more a day in a human (one of the very few species that can’t synthesize it). Actually I wasn’t referring to scurvy; I was making a joke about how the diet the OP proposed looked so similar to bird food. The bits about the mirror and the shell were intended to reinforce the joke. And thank you for making me explain it. My career as a comedian has reached its pinnacle. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/27 "2012-08-18T20:28:50Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Sunflower seeds are high in fiber. According to [this site](http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3167/2), one cup provides 14.3 grams, or 57% of RDA. > > On the other hand, [according to their web site](http://www.jacklinks.com/PrintInfo_Product_JERKY_PEPPERED.aspx), Jack’s Links Peppered Beef Jerky contains no dietary fiber at all. This isn’t surprising when you consider that it’s mostly meat with some flavoring. Dietary fiber comes from vegetable sources. Jerky meat appears to be quite fibrous in texture, but apparently in reading about jerky nutritional specs this does not translate to useful dietary fiber. I sit on the throne corrected. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/28 "2012-08-18T20:32:21Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Wikipedia talks about starvation death occurring in days or weeks, not months. > > You may be thinking of proper who go on hunger strikes, but those people are drinking liquids with nutrients in them. I have first hand experience with cancer patients in hospice who are already off pretty bad and are dying from cancer and have lost a lot of weight already, and yet who have survived over a month on water alone. This includes both of my parents (bad luck), where I was the primary care giver, and so I know that they were not cheating. They were not overweight. When you’ve stopped eating and moving around, your daily calorie expenditure can drop well below 1000. That means losing roughly 1-2 lb a week. That is the equation you have to solve. Full stop. If you are 100 lbs overweight you can survive over 50 weeks, and even then you have many weeks of getting “under weight” before you burn all your remaining fat and muscle stores. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/29 "2012-08-18T20:46:10Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > I’m tellin’ ya, he’s still gonna go blind without vitamin A. As has been mentioned, sunflower seeds have some vitamin C, but **no** vitamin A. Nor does jerky. They always told me jerky would make me go blind. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/30 "2012-08-19T18:41:22Z")
Jerky is lowfat and I believe sunflower seeds in the shell are as well. Is the OP taking a chance with rabbit starvation? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/31 "2012-08-19T20:50:48Z")
As alluded to above, meat contains Vitamin C. Humans are the only animals who don’t synthesize it, but we can get sufficient amounts from meat sources. There are Inuits and Aleuts who go for many months eating nothing but meat, and don’t suffer from lack of C. I don’t have any knowledge about whether it’s possible to get sufficient Vitamin A without eating organ meat, though. Does the jerky contain any? ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/32 "2012-08-19T21:02:13Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Jerky is lowfat and I believe sunflower seeds in the shell are as well. Is the OP taking a chance with rabbit starvation? As I pointed out above, sunflowers seeds are actually very high in fat. Most nuts and seeds are (or at least the ones we eat). > [@needscoffee](#): > > As alluded to above, meat contains Vitamin C. Humans are the only animals who don’t synthesize it, but we can get sufficient amounts from meat sources. There are Inuits and Aleuts who go for many months eating nothing but meat, and don’t suffer from lack of C. There are plenty of other animals that can’t synthesize it, including other apes, monkeys, bats and guinea pigs. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/33 "2012-08-20T01:53:26Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > There are Inuits and Aleuts who go for many months eating nothing but meat, and don’t suffer from lack of C. Organ meats contain vitamin C, but muscle meats don’t. The nutrition facts on the Jack’s Links web site says that their peppered jerky provides 0% RDA of vitamin C. According the [Wikipedia article on liver](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_%28food%29), 100 grams of pork liver provide 28% of RDA of Vitamin C. The Inuits and Aleuts don’t get scurvy because they eat things like seal liver. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/34 "2012-08-20T04:39:02Z")
Raw meat does contain some Vit C. Jerky has none. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/35 "2012-08-20T16:16:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Raw meat does contain some Vit C. Jerky has none. Hmm. . . I didn’t know that about raw meat. I assume the vitamin C is destroyed by cooking. Does this happen in other foods? For example, do cooked tomatoes have substantially less vitamin C than raw tomatoes do? ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/36 "2012-08-20T22:25:00Z")
If your goal is simply survival (i.e., you are prepared to accept other health detriments, including potentially irreversible ones), I think you could last quite a while. Hyponatremia (salt depletion) is the fast killer, but there should be plenty of salt in your jerky. Your diet should also provide you with all the calories you need and with adequate potassium. So you’ve got sufficient water, salt, calories, and potassium, which I believe are, in order, the quickest killers. You also have complete protein and many, but not all, micronutrients. You probably want to eat 80 - 85% sunflower seeds, to maximize the amount of vitamin C you get; you don’t want to go much higher than that, or you’ll start getting the dreaded salt deficiency. Scurvy is the most likely killer, I think, but if you get at least 10% of your RDA that should hold death off for a considerable time, maybe for a few years. For a related discussion (how long you can survive on just water and sugar, subsequently amended to add salt), see [Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2012 July 16 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2012_July_16). ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/37 "2012-08-20T23:06:04Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Hmm. . . I didn’t know that about raw meat. I assume the vitamin C is destroyed by cooking. Does this happen in other foods? For example, do cooked tomatoes have substantially less vitamin C than raw tomatoes do? If you go by the nutrition labels on most canned food, yes, as many canned vegetables and other food with vegetables in it (which are precooked) show 0% (or only a few %) of the RDA for Vitamin C (and often little or no Vitamin A or other vitamins), which makes one wonder how so many canned foods can claim to have a “full serving of vegetables” in them. This is also why some argue that foods like pizza, regardless of how many vegetables are used, shouldn’t count as vegetables in any way. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/38 "2012-08-21T02:04:08Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > If you go by the nutrition labels on most canned food, yes, as many canned vegetables and other food with vegetables in it (which are precooked) show 0% (or only a few %) of the RDA for Vitamin C (and often little or no Vitamin A or other vitamins), which makes one wonder how so many canned foods can claim to have a “full serving of vegetables” in them. This is also why some argue that foods like pizza, regardless of how many vegetables are used, shouldn’t count as vegetables in any way. Well, some nutrients arent lost by cooking and then there’s the fiber. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839/39 "2012-08-21T14:39:25Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > Hmm. . . I didn’t know that about raw meat. I assume the vitamin C is destroyed by cooking. Does this happen in other foods? For example, do cooked tomatoes have substantially less vitamin C than raw tomatoes do? Cooking destroys about 50 % of the vitamin C in veggies. But it doesn’t take cooking to lose vit C: drying foodstuffs also wastes it away effectively, although this varies. Rose hips are one food that contains loads of vitamin C even when dried (fresh, it ranks among the most vit C-rich fruits in existence, containing up to a gram of it per 100 g). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-i-survive-on-a-diet/631839.md?page=1)