In “Futurama,” Philip Fry is often seeing consuming “Bachelor Chow,” which as the name would suggest is a commercial food made to feed a human. The implication is that it’s boring to eat but provides a person with the right nutrition to remain alive, like Dog Chow does for dogs.
Is there a commonly available food stuff - something you could buy at a grocery store, and not have to combine two or more things (except water, if applicable) that would serve as Bachelor Chow? That is, a human could eat literally nothing else but that product and drink water and would remain healthy, even if it was really boring? Beans, maybe?
There are online recipes to create your own Human Chow, if you will, but of course there are. I also believe there’s some “soylent” thing you cna buy online but that’s cheating; you must be able to buy this in a conventional grocery store. I’m wondering if you could walk into your local grocery store and buy a product that does that.
My local Walmart carries Soylent. (But not the plain/original one which is my preference.) They also have Ensure and several other brands of complete nutrition drinks. I think most supermarkets carry Ensure at least.
Protein bars. If they made savory ones in addition to the sweet ones I know quite a few people who’d be happy as pigs in shit never to have to cook again. Gross.
We used to put the phrase “kid food” on our shopping lists. The kids were boys, and they weren’t married, so I guess it could pass as bachelor chow. What it meant to us was, a couple of canned things–Spaghetti-Os and Dinty Moore Beef Stew, and Manwich sloppy joe mix–and boxes of macaroni and cheese. I don’t know that you could make a balanced diet out of eating that stuff all the time but those were things they would always eat. Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Os, I mean, ugh.
Pizza would fit the description depending on how many “toppings” are on it. Since pizza is just dough, sauce, and cheese plus “other stuff”, that “other stuff” could theoretically be anything and everything.
Mrs. J. sometimes serves something we call Bowl O’Meat. It consists of sauteed hamburger meat mixed in with onions and either rice or macaroni and cheese. Add boiled peas and it could sustain life indefinitely.
It’s been known for decades: Bread & water is sufficient to sustain human life.
It’s likely lacking in certain vitamins & minerals (unless those are ‘enriched’ into the bread), so that after months or years on this diet alone, a human will start to have some deterioration. But they will still live for a long time.
You’d need a minimum the following
Macronutrients (protein, fat, carbs), including various essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, etc.
Micronutrients (dozens of vitamins and minerals, and possibly phytochemicals for health).
I don’t know if there is a naturally occurring food that would have all of those in one. As is mentioned there are products you can design, but a single food that has all the above would probably be hard to find.
OK, I can understand that people may not want to cook, but there are ways not to do that and still eat normal food. So are there people who find so little enjoyment in food (the tastes, textures, smells, for example) that they’re willing to eat some boring “bachelor chow” on a regular basis?
I’ve heard it said (but I have no idea where or by whom any longer) that black beans and brown rice, plus the occasional citrus fruit, contained all necessary nutrients for human beings. True? I have no idea.
