Sugar + Multi Vitamins = Healthy?

June 21, 2006 5:24 PM

I was curious to know if it was possible to leave off of just sugar and multi-vitamins?
posted by nosophoros to Food & Drink (25 answers total)

No. You also need essential fats and amino acids.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:26 PM on June 21, 2006

I lived primarily off Coke (The Cola), mashed potatoes and multivitamins for about 8 months several years ago.

I felt like shit.
posted by 517 at 5:35 PM on June 21, 2006

You'd lose muscle mass. We metabolize protein and carbos in about equal proportions, and if the protein isn't present in the diet, it comes from your body.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:35 PM on June 21, 2006

Potatoes contain a lot more than just sugar and starch. They are, in fact, a nearly ideal food for humans, and though we might not like it, it's actually possible for humans to live on potatoes and nothing else whatever for years at a time.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:36 PM on June 21, 2006

you might need water too.
posted by brandz at 6:48 PM on June 21, 2006

Wouldn't eating only potatoes result in scurvy?
posted by bingo at 6:57 PM on June 21, 2006

Wouldn't eating only potatoes result in scurvy?

Nah. Potatoes have Vitamin C. Plus the 517 was taking a multivitamin.
posted by bisesi at 7:09 PM on June 21, 2006

The vitamin C content of freshly dug potato is high being 30mg per 100 gm but is reduced to 8 mg after storage of 9 months.

As long as you can replenish your stock with fresh potatoes, nope - scurvy's not a problem.

I'm not so sure about fibre, though.

As others have mentioned, mammals need a set of essential amino acids [the building block for proteins] and a set of tri-glycerides and fatty acids - each and every one of your cells is a lipid bilayer and in order to replenish cells you need fat as raw material. (Cholesterol is what keeps your cells supple and fluid so you need some of that, too.)
posted by porpoise at 7:10 PM on June 21, 2006

Sure, if you need diabetes yesterday.
posted by parallax7d at 7:22 PM on June 21, 2006

You're asking two different things here. Would it be possible to live for a short while, yes. You would feel like shit and you would be literally wasting away by digesting your body's stored reserves of all the nutrients you wouldn't be getting. But it would be possible for some period of time. But in your title you mention health, and I can't see under any circumstances where this would ever be considered healthy.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:25 PM on June 21, 2006

Related question
posted by cillit bang at 7:33 PM on June 21, 2006

My parents knew a guy who believed he could live off vitamin tablets alone. The problem is you are getting no roughage, no fats. You'd live longer than if you stopped eating altogether, but you would be doing yourself a lot of harm.
posted by tomble at 7:55 PM on June 21, 2006

I think you also need a source of B12 if you're eating just potatoes. I remember reading that people in Ireland lived off just their potatoes and cow's milk, but I don't remember where.
posted by dreamyshade at 10:24 PM on June 21, 2006

First, you can't necessarily absorb all the vitamines and minerals that come in those pills (for example, certain forms of iron like ferrous fumerate are non-absorbable but still constitute the iron in certain supplements).

Anyway, let's say the vitamines were perfect and you managed to get them all in the right balance, and then ate nothing but sugar. You still need roughage to help prevent colon cancer. And peptides to build your body's protiens.

And I'd like to second the water comment.
posted by GIRLesq at 10:49 PM on June 21, 2006

I remember reading that people in Ireland lived off just their potatoes and cow's milk, but I don't remember where.

There's a grain of truth in that -- hence the Famine disaster: there was plenty of food to go around, but most of it went to the rich and the occupying British. We were stuck with the mouldy spuds.

But getting back to the question in hand, multi-vitamins are supplements, not replacements: I believe you need protein in your diet for the vitamins to attach themselves to during digestion. (That's why my multi-vitamin tub says I should take mine with a meal.)
posted by macdara at 3:26 AM on June 22, 2006

You need amino acids and fat, or you'll really $%#& yourself up.

Try living on 2% cheese, multivitamins, and fish oil supplements.
posted by ewkpates at 3:52 AM on June 22, 2006

Wait - are you still curious, or is everyone just wasting their time writing these answers?
posted by xanthippe at 4:44 AM on June 22, 2006

ewkpates is doomed for multi-organ failure in ~3-4 months.
posted by grateful at 6:32 AM on June 22, 2006

I was curious to know if it was possible to leave off of just sugar and multi-vitamins?

Yes, it's possible to "leave," rather die, from doing that.
posted by agregoli at 7:45 AM on June 22, 2006

Slander, grateful, or merely bench press envy? You decide, America...

Meanwhile, and more to the point, amino acids are majorly important because of their role in chemical signaling... so without them organ failure is a possibility...
posted by ewkpates at 8:18 AM on June 22, 2006

So what's the most minimalist thing you can do to take in the amino acids that you need?
posted by bingo at 9:03 AM on June 22, 2006

I think whey protein is probably the best way to go, tastes horrible, but mix it with water and drink it down.

Alternatively you could consume 20 or 30 amino acid pills per day (as, somebody, Joe Weider? was once rumored to do). These are complete protein in a pill type deals... Twin Labs has a good one.

So, if you eat fish oil, protein pills, and multivitamins all day, you won't die. You won't have any energy, either, and you'll go into ketosis... and start peeing fat... I eat a piece of fruit or something once a day for the fiber...
posted by ewkpates at 10:15 AM on June 22, 2006

I'd call eating meat a more minimal way to take in the amino acids you need. (I'm a vegetarian, but that's my take on what minimal would mean in this context.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 12:26 PM on June 22, 2006

Eggs, Eggs, and more Eggs.

Don't overdo it on the multivitamins either. You should take one per day, and no more. You only need trace amount of most vitamins, and more is definitely not better.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 4:22 PM on June 22, 2006

Why would anyone want to do any of these things? What's wrong with normal food? Some of the longest living people and most healthy people in history ate food, after all. Most of them, even.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:35 PM on June 22, 2006