Aww man, glucose syrup again?

October 25, 2005 1:06 PM

You are imprisoned in a science lab. Can you create a healthy diet solely from elements? In other words, what is the smallest set of molecules a healthy human requires in food? Boredom is not a factor.
posted by Pretty_Generic to Science & Nature (25 answers total)

I assume when you say "science lab" you mean some sort of chemistry lab.

I think the biggest problem would come from a lack of fats. You could probably manage somehow if all the amino acids were in the lab, and there are carbohydrates (simple and complex) available in most chemical stockrooms.
posted by nekton at 1:09 PM on October 25, 2005

H₂0 would be the minimum. Someone can get by pretty long with just water. Sugar C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ would be my next choice, although maybe there's some form of protein or carb that is simpler to make.
posted by furtive at 1:12 PM on October 25, 2005

Maybe you'd also want to mix up some chelates.
posted by furtive at 1:15 PM on October 25, 2005

Well, I work in a fungal genetics and immunology lab and among our reagents we have V8 juice, boxes of mashed potato flakes, and dry milk powder for making various types of media. That would probably keep a person functional for quite a while.

Then again, those aren't typical reagents for all labs...so you'd have to pick your lab carefully.
posted by divka at 1:17 PM on October 25, 2005

CHON food (sorry, couldn't find a better link).

Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Nitrogen

Fatty acids would probably be easier to synthesize than amino acids. A problem you'll run into are other elements that enzymes (and other proteins) require to function.

Iron, sulphur, calcium, sodium, potassium, chlorine come to mind. Molybdenum, magnesium, and zinc are pretty important, too.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 1:21 PM on October 25, 2005

Oh, fibre might be a problem, too - but I guess you could chop up paper and sprinkle it into your CHON paste.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 1:22 PM on October 25, 2005

My lab has a telephone, so I called out for pizza.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:23 PM on October 25, 2005

Is there a colleague who might be consumed?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:25 PM on October 25, 2005

Response by poster: Could a person live indefinately on one carbohydrate, one protein, one fat, water, vitamins and minerals, or is variety important? Which carbohydrate, protein and fat would be best to use?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:25 PM on October 25, 2005

Throw everything in a big pot and liberally apply lightning.

There will be some boredom for several million years.
posted by unixrat at 1:27 PM on October 25, 2005

Making your basic macronutrients (carbs, amino acids, and fats) wouldn't be too hard in a well-stocked chem lab. If you had the elemental forms of all the essential micronutrient minerals, you could probably pretty easily incorporate them into bioavailable compounds.

Making all the essential cofactors (vitamins) is a whole other story. Nobel Prizes have been won in the discovery of how to make these things in a lab.

Without any enzymes, you're screwed when it comes to some things... for example, vitamin B12. This thing is a ridiculous honkin' big structure. Without the enzymes that are used by microorganisms to put it together, you'd probably be stuck on that one for a while.
posted by rxrfrx at 1:31 PM on October 25, 2005

Best answer: Depends on how well stocked the lab is. As far as the question of what you need, "The human diet must provide the following: calories, amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins."

You actually don't need fat per se--you can produce that on your own--but you do need some of the precursors, fatty acids.

Glucose (a source of energy) and the essential amino acids might reasonably be found in a well-stocked biochemistry lab (along with many but perhaps not all of the minerals); an inorganic chemistry lab should provide all of the minerals. The vitamins and fatty acids might be harder to come by, if you're not already in a lab which specializes in the research of these. As far as synthesizing them from materials which are commonly found in labs, the fatty acids in particular might be difficult, as they have long carbon chains with double bonds in very particular places; the synthesis of these might be rather difficult.

As far as which minerals in particular are required, "Minerals are categorized as major or macro- (calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, and sulfur), and trace or micro- (iron, iodine, zinc, chromium, selenium, fluoride, molybdenum, copper, and manganese) minerals, the former needed in quantities of 100mg/day or more, and the latter required in much smaller, or "trace," amounts."

I have degrees in chemistry and biochemistry but it's been years since I've worked in a lab, so take the above accordingly.

On preview: Could a person live indefinately on one carbohydrate, one protein, one fat, water, vitamins and minerals, or is variety important?

One carbohydrate would be sufficient. One protein would work if the protein had sufficient amounts of all eight (ten if you're a child) essential amino acids. The fats, however, would have to provide a source for the three essential fatty acids, so I believe at least three different fats would be required. (Each fat contains only a single fatty acid unit.)

Also on preview: oh yeah, I forgot how big B12 was...that could be pretty tough.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:34 PM on October 25, 2005

Best answer: For nutritional purposes, a protein is no more than a chain of amino acids. The digestive system will break the proteins down into component amino acids, which will be absorbed by body as necessary. Of the 20 amino acids, seven are called "essential", signifying that they cannot be produced inside the body and must be taken in from outside. So, as long as you fed your body the seven essential amino acids, plus the deficit of non-essential ones which the body can't produce enough of in the long term, you'll be fine. On the protein front, anyway.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 1:36 PM on October 25, 2005

Best answer: (Each fat contains only a single fatty acid unit.)

Gah, got that backwards. One glycerol, three fatty acids. So you could conceivably make a single fat containing one each of the three essential fatty acids and live off of that.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:36 PM on October 25, 2005

I think DevilsAdvocate is right: there are 8 essential amino acids, not 7. And yes, kids will need 10. Man, this knowledge thing... in one ear, out the other.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 1:37 PM on October 25, 2005

Can it be a food-science lab? With hundreds of tasty treats waiting to have their calories calculated?
posted by delmoi at 1:52 PM on October 25, 2005

Best answer: Oh, and as far as fiber, a diet without fiber would be incredibly unpleasant (all sorts of gastrointestinal problems, not to mention that you would probably feel hungry all the time, even with consuming sufficient amounts of everything else), but not, I think, fatal, at least in the short-to-medium term. But yeah, if you do have a source of fiber in the lab--even paper--you're probably better off eating some of it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:09 PM on October 25, 2005

Bear in mind that if you're synthesizing anything in the lab, and even if you know what you're doing, unless you have a pretty good set of purity analysis tools, you'll probably poison yourself.
posted by lalochezia at 2:14 PM on October 25, 2005

You are imprisoned in a science lab.

yes, yes i am.

*sigh*
posted by sergeant sandwich at 2:51 PM on October 25, 2005

yes, yes i am.

hah
posted by rxrfrx at 3:57 PM on October 25, 2005

Edna Krabappel: Who can tell me the atomic weight of bolognium?

Martin Prince: Ooh ... delicious?

Edna Krabappel: Correct. I would also accept snacktacular.
posted by chino at 4:05 PM on October 25, 2005

Pretty_Generic, if there's a library that keeps a copy of Stryer's Biochemistry around you, I suspect you'd find it a vastly interesting read.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:47 PM on October 25, 2005

Response by poster: Is it possible to drink amino acids and fatty acids directly?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:06 PM on October 25, 2005

It looks like the essential amino acids have been covered, but the essential fatty acids have been left out. You would also need to have a source of linoleic acid and α-linolenic acid, though you could probably do for a good while before you really needed these. If you are lucky, some jokester has a Chia pet growing in the lab and you are set (no, really). Other fats, assuming you had enough caloric intake, could be synthesized so you can do without.

And yeah, you should be able to dring the amino acids and fatty acids directly as there is no real difference between their monomer form (in the case of amino acids) and what your digestive system converts them into and the fatty acids are the same either way.
posted by The Bishop of Turkey at 9:56 PM on October 25, 2005

I think you would have better and easier luck making an explosive device to break out of the science lab, gases to take out the guards on the way out, plus enough plain water to make it to the next checkpoint. What kind of dumb prison warden jails a chemist in a lab?
posted by vanoakenfold at 7:01 AM on October 28, 2005