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Could a human survive for a time grass-fed? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by cheese_greater@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca
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[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

We lack the right bacteria to break down the majority of it. So it amounts to fiber and little else. It isn't zero available nutrients, but in terms of calories and sustenance, there's just not enough available to our system to extend time before starvation enough to notice

Edit: That's the thumbnail version. It's a more complicated no, but I figure the details would be boring as fuck baggage because it's all "we don't have X"

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Its a more complicated

I didnt know you were ~~Scottish~~ Italian ;)

[-] OfCourseNot@fedia.io 5 points 2 days ago

You'd survive longer just fasting. As others have commented you won't get almost any calories from it, but your body will still waste some energy trying to digest it which would amount to a net negative.

[-] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

I think it is kind of mean of you to talk about this like your mom isn't getting along fine in her pasture.

[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago

Are you allowed to supplement it with cow dung?

Because that will be necessary to get the bacteria needed to digest it. But cows also have to ruminate in order to get enough nutrients from grass to survive; you’d have to have grass and cow poop smoothies to get any nutritional benefits from it.

[-] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

This week on Fear Factor

[-] DeepDown@leminal.space 5 points 3 days ago

This happened during a certain English attempt at genocide. The answer is no

[-] m4xie@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago

There's too many of those, can you please specify? Do you mean the famine of Bengal, the Irish Potato Famine, the Boer War, or one of the other ones?

[-] DeepDown@leminal.space 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Ooh. Good opportunity to hit me with the "you have no idea how little that narrows it down".

It was the potato one though. Grass stains on an Irelander's lips became a signifier of when a person was a few days from dying. That may have happened to others but Ireland has a particular cultural memory of that little misery

[-] toomanypancakes@crazypeople.online 4 points 3 days ago

For a time? Sure. It's only if you want a longer time that things start to get dicey

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Like how long, what would happen

[-] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

If you're literally just eating green grass, you're going to starve right away. I think it takes like 2-3 months to actually die when you don't get any calouries, but from what I know it's not pretty ...

[-] bizarroland@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Most modern people would die in less than 40 days without eating anything.

Maybe a bit longer if they took vitamin supplements.

I'm sure the grass would extend that time by couple of days if they would consistently eat grass.

But...

Grass doesn't taste very good, it's not pleasant to eat, and even if you did have good tasting pleasant to eat food, if it was the only food you were allowed to eat until just before you die from malnutrition you'd go bonkers.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I think it takes like 2-3 months to actually die when you don’t get any calouries

There's a guy in Scotland who went for over a year with essentially no caloric intake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast

Angus Barbieri (1938 or 1939 – 7 September 1990) was a Scottish man who fasted for 382 days,[2] from 14 June 1965 to 30 June 1966.

For 382 days, from 14 June 1965 through 30 June 1966, he consumed only vitamins, electrolytes, an unspecified amount of yeast (a source of all essential amino acids) and zero-calorie beverages such as tea, coffee, and sparkling water, although he occasionally added milk and/or sugar to the beverages, especially during the final weeks of the fast.

After 1 year and 26 days without food, Angus Barbieri ate his first solid meal at 10 AM on 11 July 1966: a boiled egg and a slice of buttered bread.[5] He said to the gathered newspaper reporters and photographers, "I have forgotten what food tasted like ... It went down OK. I feel a bit full but I thoroughly enjoyed it."[4]

That being said, he had a lot of body fat on him going into the thing, which he lost; it was his body consuming that fat that provided the calories.

Barbieri went from almost 33 stone / 456 pounds (207 kg) to 13 stone / 180 pounds (82 kg), losing 20 stone / 276 pounds (125 kg)

Most people aren't going to have enough fat to go for over a year.

[-] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 0 points 2 days ago

Not eating is certainly easier if your drinks aren't zero calourie ....

[-] e0qdk@reddthat.com 3 points 3 days ago

Wheat is a grass, so... yes? You can live on just wheat products (and water) for a fair while, but it's not nutritionally complete by itself -- so you'll get some sort of nutritional deficiency eventually if that's all you eat.

[-] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

some sort of nutritional deficiency

Vitamin C is probably the most important one, considering that it was a common issue for age-of-sail sailors - after a couple of weeks at sea, they mostly had hard (probably whole wheat) bread, preserved meat, probably some preserved vegetables that got their vitamin c cooked out of them, water and usually some sort of alcoholic drink, and scorbut is AFAIK the most common nutritional deficiency issue they developed.

[-] e0qdk@reddthat.com 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah, I figure scurvy is probably most likely followed by some sort of issue with not enough fat, but I'm not a doctor.

[-] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Like eating rabbit. It has a lean and hungry taste

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Well I think the point is that corn, wheat; these are grass products. That means bread, tortillas, wheat gluten; these things are available to you.

But your assumption of what is meant by grass might be different.

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

bananas, also a grass product

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Bruh hella bananas.

[-] Beacon@fedia.io 1 points 3 days ago

Common-ish myth. It's not a tree, but it's also not a grass

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

More so a pain in the ass. Although a fruitful one. I have two main banana patches and its taken me literally days to dig just one up. They are so prolific.

[-] exaybachae@startrek.website 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

If you mean true grass, prolly not.

But there are typically handfulls of edible plants in any wild field and most yards.

So, pesticide poisoning aside, you could survive for some time eating greens and and roots scrounged from pretty much wherever.

this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2026
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