Can You Only Drink Protein Shakes and NEVER Eat Food?

a meal in a pill or a bar or a shake something from science fiction or the food of the future what if we never ate again [Music] look I get it eating takes up valuable time especially when you actually prepare meals instead of instant noodles mating and not all of us can subsist on high-grade caffeine alone that might be why the idea of a meal in a bottle or a pill is nothing new but now that you can find meal replacements in just about every store a question is raised a question that I have to thank one wonderful viewer for asking take it away BOTS it's Howard Kyra asked first of all brew I love you oh thanks makes us so happy when people like the show second of all can people live completely only drinking protein shakes I'm getting tired of having to go outside or depending on deliveries preaching to the choir I have weighed the burning light of the Sun as much as physically possible so can you get everything you need to survive from meal replacements and protein shakes alone and what would happen if you tried but first we're looking at a topic today that has to do with nutrition like any diet it could be controversial I'm not telling you what to eat or how to structure your diet if you're eating something or drinking something with a label on it chances are that there's a lot more information on the back or mount a website and if you're still not sure never earth to talk to a doctor or dietitian and with that out of the way let's get into it before we dig into the big question there is a distinction that we need to draw specifically between protein shakes and meal replacements protein shakes aren't designed to replace any part of your diet instead they're designed to supplement your diet by adding more protein to facilitate intensive workouts and are typically lacking in vitamins other than calcium more than their meal replacement cousins plus since they're not meant to replace meals protein shakes have far fewer calories and a lower fat content meal replacement drinks on the other hand are intended to substitute regular meals they're meant to be more filling than protein shakes and tend to have more calories more fat more vitamins and less protein not to say they're lacking and protein altogether they just have less since they're not intended to be gulped down before lifting a few hundred pounds also known as something I don't do we're going to lean further towards meal replacement drinks for today's topic since they actually contain the nutrients you need from a meal plus between the two meal replacement shakes have a calorie count closer to what you need in a day without having to eat anything else and like so many modern technologies we can find a link between today's topic and science fiction of yesteryear yay science fiction loves travel back to the Year 1893 specifically the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago the American Press Association asked writers from different fields to imagine what the far-off year of 1993 would be like then published their works in small town newspapers America suffragette Mary Elizabeth Lise submitted her vision of a future where food would come in the form of small vial and would furnish men with substance for days and thus the problems of cooks and cooking will be solved but this vision was presented a full 6 years earlier in a novella called Republic of the future or socialism a reality by an abandon of course Dodd steak was more tongue-in-cheek using the concept to mock socialism feminism and automation parody or not the idea of healthy meal alternatives that took time out of eating spread wide and far the classic pill form has appeared in everything from 1930s science fiction to Naruto and instant hydration meals can be found in films like The Fifth Element and Back to the Future so what's the deal it's 2019 why can't I get a full day's food out of a single pill by now and where's my hoverboard well that's currently impossible according to Popular Mechanics no matter how many nutrients we shove into pills we just can't fit in enough calories to keep someone running all day long imagine if you will that a person is a Coltrain calories would be the coal we shovel into the engine to keep it running according to the US Department of Health starting at age 13 a minimum of about 2,000 calories a day is needed to keep someone going now unless the pills you're taking are made of lard you won't get even close to that amount and even if they are that would add up to about a half a pound of lard per day which is a hard pill to swallow assuming that you'd be taking 1,000 milligram pills each of these would equate to about zero point zero zero twenty two pounds each so unless you're sucking down somewhere in the range of two hundred and thirty pills per day you're just never gonna reach that goal what about something with a bit more have to it like drinks that could be a lot simpler and without the need for fistfuls of pills so it's no surprise that someone eventually took that idea and ran with it trademark at its incorporation one of the first was known as shape a shake by Metro cell based off of baby food formula in the 60s the space race craze brought attention to another meal replacement astronaut food well of a kind astronaut meals needed to be lightweight and compact which meant powdered drinks and dehydrate foods that could be restored using water from the life-support system tang was one such powdered drink and sales soared after it was advertised at the drink of astronauts even if it was just artificial flavors and sugar Pillsbury released space food Styx the 70s brought neutral loaf a product now mostly found in prisons and described as and liked by the post stars John Alexander since then the meal replacement fad has shifted back to liquid form and those balanced chemical concoctions have grown much more regulated in markets like the European Union and Canada where laws have been made to specify what can go into anything marketed as a meal replacement speaking of regulations do you like playing by the rules do you enjoy being a lethargic loafing why do you want a beverage that is certified safe for human consumption well then don't try eat what goddamnit come on pull yourself together you can do this you're the man come try Yanks pull yourself together try a pure potent powerful if all this is sounding somewhat familiar you might be thinking of another diet in a bottle juice you've probably heard of some kind of juice cleanser diet you may even know someone who's tried it treating juice is some kind of cure-all isn't anything new there are records of everything from sixteenth century men using onion juice as a cure for baldness to the ancient Greeks and later Britons using garlic as an aphrodisiac today juice diets and cleanses are usually marketed as a way to lose weight detox the liver and cleanse the body these programs usually lasts between about three to ten days with juice filling in for every meal during this period also known as starving yourself for a limited period of time though juice diets that include solid food can run for longer but do they work and could you live off of them it might surprise you but I've done the research and no that's not how this works first off that's not how toxins work despite how he may feel some mornings our bodies aren't old sewer systems and while we do naturally create harmful byproducts those are handled by our liver and kidneys then expelled by our body's built-in waste disposal system other bad things like carbon dioxide are handled via the lungs and expelled when you exhale this natural detox program runs 24 hours a day 365 days a year drinking juice isn't gonna make that run any more smoothly besides juice usually doesn't have all the calories needed to keep you functioning or the nutrients your body needs these deficiencies can lead to mood changes tiredness and cause you to lose focus I am dying and while it can cause weight loss you might not be able to keep those pounds off once you switch back to solid food finally it can sometimes cause gastrointestinal distress that said in the short-term juice cleanses aren't harmful assuming that you're an average ly healthy person and you're not doing anything extreme but whatever the case enough people swear by juice cleanses that they're here to stay gaining attention in Silicon Valley and getting venture capitalists to invest in home juicers like the juice arrow what is the juice arrow I hear you ask well I can't speak for the quality of the drink but this one-stop shop for all your juicing needs was basically none of those things priced at 700 US dollars at launch and requiring not only praia tere juice bags not fruit and vegetables that you could just juice but also a constant internet connection and we haven't even gotten to the most genius part yet you could squeeze the juice out with your bare hands so the only reason you needed the machine itself was because they wouldn't let you buy the juice bags without one ah come on buddy search deep in that databank I'm sure there's something there the juice era was more or less well doomed to failure and fail it did launched in 2016 juice arrow closed its doors a mere 16 months later but the juice arrow isn't the only juice related product that had issues MonaVie a now-defunct multi-level marketing company focused on juice was also no stranger to controversy besides accusations of being a pyramid scheme or as Forbes writer Emily Lambert and Klaus Neil put it a pyramid scheme MonaVie was also accused of falsely marketing its juice as having healing qualities an article in Newsweek quoted fans as claiming that monavie's juice could cure pain disease and malnutrition and further quoted MonaVie distributor Diane Nafzger as claiming that a diabetic MonaVie user broke his need for insulin shots okay the company would later be issued a letter from the FDA over monavie's claims that its juices could stop inflammation or in their words the therapeutic claims on your website established that the products are drugs because they are intended for use in the Cure mitigation treatment or prevention of disease the marketing of these products with these claims violates the Act and I believe that we've used solid principles in the in the forming of the foundation for MonaVie that will take us many many years into the future you go do the work and then one day you wake up and MonaVie is delivering up new black Mercedes to your door dreamed a big dream don't dream a small dream the worst thing that could happen is a small dream would come true MonaVie would eventually foreclose in 2015 after defaulting on a one hundred and eighty two million dollar loan but on that earlier topic of money and venture investments that brings us back to our big question can you live exclusively off bottled meals well that's the question that engineer biohacker entrepreneur and occasional mad scientist Rob Reinhardt sought to remove the distraction of cooking from his life in his own words in my own life I resented the time money and effort the purchase preparation consumption and cleanup of food was consuming Ryan Hart said in a blog post I don't want to lose weight I want to maintain it and spend less energy getting energy his solution to research the nutrients needed by a human body and try to mix them into a drink though it keep himself operational a drink that would eventually be known as Soylent a drink that Reinhardt would subsist on almost exclusively only eating food when he craved flavors or when eating out with friends and never cooking it himself now I know what you're thinking did it work well yeah actually I'll admit I'm a bit surprised but he's still going but he's not the only one that's gone on an all liquid diet motherboard reporter and video creator Brian merchant went on an all Soylent based diet for 30 days and managed to survive the Verge's deputy editor Chrissie glar went almost a month solely on the meal drink and many others have lived off Soylent for week-long stretches but how filling is it well given that it's a shake surprisingly filling according to youtuber tread talks a single bottle of Soylent original kept him feeling full for about two and a half hours and in terms of nutritional value he found himself mean to drink five drinks in order to meet his 2,000 calories a day target and that's just going off an all Soylent diet something that is possible but not expected by the creators because in addition to lacking flavor there's also a social aspect those who went on meal and a bottled diets described feeling left out of spending time with their friends at lunch or over food but on the flip side it did provide them with much more time and I have no friends so hey this is just sounding like a win-win for me bro you heartless homie it's ok chill he didn't mean oh right I'm still not used to this plus there's even coffee once of course that's just one meal replacement drink and one that doesn't pass the test worldwide at that for all the praise it's gotten in some communities you'll only be able to find Soylent in the United States at the moment while it is classified as a diet supplement by the FDA the Canadian Food Inspection Agency labeled it as a meal replacement and banned it from the country after finding that it contained ingredients that are prohibited from use in meal replacements like caffeine and sucralose the CFIA also found that Soylent did not meet nutritional regulations with 13 vitamins or minerals below minimum requirements what about other meal replacement drinks well there's Huell a british shake that's supposed to act as a full meal on its own though its creators don't advise living solely off of it and encourage ramping up intake to grow accustomed to it vices hayden vernon went on a Huell diet for a week and made it out though the dieticians he spoke to at the time advised against it like award-winning nutritionist danielle O'Shaughnessy who warned that the vitamins and minerals and drinks like Huell or silent are often synthetic inactive varieties and that the drinks don't factor in people who need more than the daily minimum nutritional values the Daily Mail's NIC Harding went on a week-long diet of only various meal replacements which was once again advised against by a dietitian Harding took a blood test before and after his experience and found both his phosphate and cholesterol levels reduced over the week Harding also noted feeling low-energy over the week and that he had experienced shaking episodes Zach Watson a writer for fitness and health publication greatest tried to get another meal replacement called ample for a week how did these all go well everyone made it out though several people reported some of that after mentioned gastrointestinal distress ranging from gas to well rushing to the bathroom will say do you suspect I smell a smelly smell that smells but there is potential here the United Kingdom's National Health Service has been looking at the potential for a liquid diet for weight loss purposes though there is concern that this could result in what is known as a yo-yo dieting or weight cycling a process where people lose weight on a temporary diet but can't maintain the weight loss resulting in rapidly losing and gaining weight so can you live purely off shakes and never eat again well going off what we've found at least in the short term yes but dietitians are concerned about the long term viability of such a diet to quote Domingo Panero a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University the short answer is no it can't be sustainable long term we know we can keep individuals on elemental diets as long as all the essential nutrients are supplied which is very hard but there are problems in the long run and there is one last kind of important thing to mention here dietary supplements are largely unregulated by the FDA which means that you may not even know what you're getting or the conditions that it was made under what does that mean well in my humble opinion I'd recommend before starting an off on any meal replacement diet do your due diligence take a look at the reviews do some research on if it works or is healthy for you see if there have been recalls or outbreaks around a certain product like Soylent had in 2016 in 2017 and if you're still concerned talk to a doctor but hey Who am I to give dietary advice [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Brew

Views: 1,038,361

Rating: 4.9160109 out of 5

Keywords: protein shakes, protein shake, are protein shakes bad for you, protein shakes bad for you, protein shakes bad, are protein shakes bad, solved mysteries, unsolved, unsolved mysteries, investigation, investigate, theory, mysteries unsolved, mysteries solved, solved mystery

Id: yowo5KlYYpI

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019