A few weeks ago, some friends and I were debating the nutritional merits of beer, and I arrived at the following question. If one were to consume only beer for one year, would the body evacuate any solid waste on a regular basis? Of course we would assume all of the body’s nutritional needs could be supplied by a substance proven “solids free”, perhaps in the form of an intravenous drip. We’re also assuming our subject is not consuming the bit of solid yeast that would normally settle at the bottom of a batch of beer, and could be transfered into bottles.
I suppose this question goes beyond beer itself, and is more of a general inquiry as to the body’s intestinal reaction to a fluid diet. But the specific alcohol content and very natural ingredients of beer got me thinking.
Hmm, are we talking “Hey, I’m hungry, I’ll have a beer!” here? Or is it a ‘if you want to consume something, you can drink beer’ thing? Or is it “Three beers on the hour every hour”?
Aah… yes, much more along the lines of, “if you want something to consume, beer is all you have.” We can still pretend you won’t dehydrate yourself (you have fluid IV drip) or otherwise die.
Though I don’t know about the claim from the bottom of that page “An average person defecates some seven pounds per day.” The Encyclopedia Britannica puts the figure at 3 to 6 ounces per day.
I successfully survived for two years largely on a daily diet of a twelve-pack of Schmidt’s and a bag of potato chips. I shat quite normally, although it was often of a very thin consistency.
With tax, I was paying five dollars and twenty-five cents a day to live, with a healthy dose of recreation tossed in as a freebie. Amazingly, I suffered from almost no health problems, and was in pretty damned good shape. At the same time I was working construction and trying to keep my Scandinavian girlfriend honest by screwing her five times a day, every day. I think I was sleeping on average about three and a half to five hours a night, tops.
While I don’t recommend the all-beer diet for obvious reasons, I’m living proof that it can be done.