'm looking for information and sources for something that I can only
describe as ‘people chow’. That is, some inexpensive substance that I could
consume which would provide for all of my dietary and nutritional needs
without the fuss or bother that goes along with the normal human feeding
rituals.
I have other things to do with my life than figure out what I’m going to
eat (watching sodium levels and such), preparing it, cleaning up, etc. As
far as I’m concerned, the day to day feeding cycle is just another
necessary evil in my life which I would like to minimize.
Taste isn’t a factor. If I want taste, I’ll have professional cooks prepare
me a wonderful meal. There are plenty of mindless foods (prepackaged cereals
and such) but they are often fairly unhealthy foods. Having a healthy diet is
actually fairly difficult because most of the foodstuffs commercially
available are fill with yummy but unnecessary or bad things.
It seems ‘eating’ is by far the biggest recreational hobby held by mankind.
Our obsession with this hobby is so great that it’s actually very difficult to
not participate.
My requirement is simple and utilitarian: I’m looking for a food substance
which will keep me alive and healthy. I don’t care what it tastes like, but
it should be fuss free so I can focus on other things, and it would ideally
be inexpensive.
So you want perfect nutrition and fibre and energy in a simple, easy to use form.
I’d like a pony.
Look into Spirulina, a type of blue-green algae. I believe it has an impressive nutritional content. You won’t get massive amounts of energy out of it though, well maybe if you eat a lot of it.
As for the “hobby” of eating, there is real enjoyment in preparing, and crafting a nice meal. Of course that doesn’t count if you’re tossing KD into a pot to fling down down your throat, but only an idiot would try to live that way.
Brown rice with a few veggies mixed in should work pretty well. Throw in some multivitamins if you tend to worry about that sort of thing. Add some soybeans if you’re concerned about protein.
With only a little trouble, you could make this reasonably tasty. No doubt it’s cheap – could probably be done for under $1/person/day.
Whether you could be happy long-term is a question. The tendency of human societies to get involved with nutritionally frivolous foods (e.g. coffee, spices) is strong and of long standing.
You can cut down on the number of different types of food by sticking to “superfoods” - bananas, walnuts, broccoli, avocadoes, tomatoes - which are nutrient packed.
Otherwise I guess you’re looking for a recipe for that foul sludge they served in the Matrix.
Alternatively - you might try buying some sort of freeze dried astronauts’ food.
There are several meal replacement type drinks like Ensure that might be worth looking into for a couple of meals a day anyway. It meets your requirements of no mess and no fuss at least. I don’t like them so I am sketchy on specifics of whether you could live on that alone, but you said taste isn’t an issue.
I’ve been doing a little more research, and there seems to be some universal cheap foodstuff called “corn soya blend” that the US is always giving out as food aid. Most of the articles online seem to be centered around other countries rejecting the genetically modified foodstuffs, but that isn’t important to me.
I don’t see it mentioned in the other threads on this subject, though I’m only half way through reading them currently.
This stuff looks like it would fit the bill, so I’d like to order some. I found some pricing information online… $290 a ton… This is very inexpensive, I could meet my caloric requirements for about $0.25/day, so there is plenty of room to add other things to improve it’s nutrtional value/taste without busting the bank.
Unfortunatly I can’t seem to find anyplace offering less than 500 ton’s a month. I wouldn’t mind buying a huge quantity just to get a little, but I can’t find anything!
I’ll say it again - dry dog food. It’s formulated in a way to meet all fo a dog’s dietary needs, which aren’t too different than that of a human. Many foods are also formulated with waste in mind; there are certain brands known for … uhhh, being very efficient, and resulting in smaller, more solid doo-doos. I’ve tasted dry dog food, and to me it tastes like a bland combination of beef jerky and Italian bread, with a definite meaty aftertaste that stays on the palate much longer than normal people food. It’s really quite inoffensive, one you get over the “ick” factor.
My first try at responding got cut off by a bit of a power outage…
Anyways, I concocted something in my kitchen that might serve as people chow.
4 cups breakfast cereal
1 1/2 cups soy nuts
1 cup dried fruit
eat with milk
You’ve got a nutirent enriched base of cereal, lots of vitamins and minerals. You have high protein, high fiber and high fat soy nuts, and dried fruits for vitamin C and other good things. The milk adds more protein, fat and other nutrients.
I first tried it with knock-off cheerios, it was WAY high fiber, too high for me, so I went with store brand corn flakes the second time.
Mix it up in bulk ahead of time, it should store VERY well, and it’s not that expensive. It is a bit high in carbs, but if you’re looking for long term storage, carbs are the way to go. I wouldn’t do this as my ENTIRE diet, but I personally (in my completely non-medical and non-nutritionist opinion) think it would work as the majority of your diet, supplimented regularly with a variety of foods.
