Long enough to get a degree
How long could one survive with only water and beer and no food?
Submitted 11 months ago by 666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It probably would depend on what kind of beer. You could probably live a long time on just water and Guinness, but not very long at all on Natty Light. Either way I think you’d probably be pretty sick of beer within a week or less
WoahWoah@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Guinness has very few calories.
pyrflie@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Yep, Guinness was my diet breakfast for a few years.
The first glass still feels like a cup of coffee for me.
yesman@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Beer has very little salt. Sodium is essential for basically everything your body does. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia
Youtube vid about a dude who consumed nothing but beer for 6 weeks. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfrdKXEdPFU
Luke_Fartnocker@lemm.ee 11 months ago
That was my diet when I was in my 20s.
Pacmanlives@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Well it was said some monks would only drink beer during Lent as part of their fasting.
catholicnewsagency.com/…/these-17th-century-monks…
There was also this man who raises charity money doing it as well www.cincinnati.com/story/…/6705238002/
peopleproblems@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Hmmm.
I suppose if you’re drunk enough to stay less than conscious those 40 days would be an easy fast
OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I dunno, you wake up after a night of abbey ale, you’re going to want a mcmuffin or two
renormalizer@feddit.de 11 months ago
With 43 kcal/100ml you need about 4.6 liters or 5 qts to satisfy your caloric needs (2000kcal/day). If you even out the intake over the whole day, alcohol levels should be low enough to keep you functioning. Beer also contains a bit of protein and low levels of sodium, potassium and magnesium.
Long term, you’ll get scurvy after a few months due to lack of vitamin C and liver cirrhosis from the sustained alcohol use.
neidu@feddit.nl 11 months ago
I learned once upon a time that a healthy person needs about three weeks to starve to death if they have water. Not sure how accurate it is as it’s part of the rule of three mnemonic; 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. However, it does at least seem reasonably plausible, so we can use that as a baseline.
Now, beer does have some nutrients, but far from enough of the ones you need. It has to be balanced with water to be able to burn the alcohol without dehydrating yourself. I would therefore think that the beer in moderate amounts might help some, but not a lot. Four weeks toral, maybe?
set_secret@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It really depends on your starting weight too. A really obese person with only water and beer could go far longer than 3 weeks, probs 6 months or more. They’d start getting in trouble when they exhausted their fat soluble stores of AEDK.
meco03211@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Protein I think would be the issue. There was a case study on a morbidly obese guy that did this with doctors. What I remember is he basically told his doctor he was going to stop eating entirely. They could either help him and give him medical advice along the way, or try to just advise against and he was going to do it anyways. He would take a daily vitamin for general vitamins and I believe some yeast paste to give him protein. I think the dude lost like 400lbs in a year. Had small bowel movements every 30 to 40 days.
neidu@feddit.nl 11 months ago
A really obese person wouldn’t be considered healthy, though.
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Beer is 95% water. If you’re counting on it for all your calories, you probably won’t want to drink any additional water or you lose your precious salt and vitamins.
As others have noted vitamin C and salt are probably the most immediate lacking nutrients. If you had a margarita once a week, I think that might be enough.
Numerous people have done a 40-day fast for lent, taking only beer. So that is easily doable. Multiple months is probably possible, but seasons/years maybe not.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
High malt, low alcohol beers could keep a person surviving for a pretty long time. You would likely run into some deficiencies in certain vitamins eventually, but that would take months to be a problem.
WarmSoda@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You’ll be in a very rough place after three days of that. If be surprised if you could even eat if you wanted to.
blahsay@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I knew a girl who would eat at all the week she went to a beer festival. It can be done. Don’t 😅
shellsharks@infosec.pub 11 months ago
“Asking for a friend”
satanmat@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Well…
yahoo.com/…/man-commits-beer-fast-lent-loses-25-p…
Since beer is liquid bread.
Quite a while, especially if you also had a multi vitamin…
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I wanna see the Martian envisioned where instead of sustaining on pieces of potato, he drinks beer.
I also want to see more pirate-themed rants, preferably drunk.
satanmat@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Arrrr Johansson be listening to her damnable ABBA again, I’ll make her walk the plank for all this Disco…
assplode@kbin.social 11 months ago
Agreed. It's been common throughout history for people to live on only beer and water for a few weeks at a time.
I imagine you could survive at least a few months on doppelbock if you were in good health beforehand.