I’ve been questioning the idea of how much food one really should be consuming over the course of normal routine and got curious as to how long I could last without eating at all. The questions started when thinking about how abundant food is for a lot of people now and that the hunter/gatherers of thousands of years ago had to endure long stretches of time with minimal or no food at all. Over the past couple hundred years (or even less), food has become far more available and that’s not enough time for a population to regulate itself by way of evolution or mass population decline.
The obesity issues in the United States are a pretty telling indication that we really just weren’t meant to eat as much food as we are now. Not even just McDonald’s or Oreos, all food is food. The base animal urges that drive us to consume large quantities of calorie dense food are now more likely to work against us. Those urges made sense 50,000 years ago; if a tribe made a big kill or found a large crop of edible plants, our instincts would drive us to consume as much as possible for as long as that food source is available. But if that food source is available all day every day, our urges end up working to our detriment.
So I’m not eating for a little while.
I’m not laying down much of a plan and I’m going to be flexible in my adherence to it. One starting rule is that I am limiting myself to one raw vegetable a day around the size of my fist. I would omit food completely and may some days, but having that rule will allow me to move forward without facing a dramatic hard fail scenario. I’m also concerned about the way your body prepares yourself for food when the aroma or sight of it is around. Since I can’t blind myself to food existing around me, I want to have the option of providing some sustenance to assuage any concerns relating to bodily fluids being generated in excess without food to digest.
It’s little more than a fast combined with personal exploration. It is depressing that I can call it that when there are millions of people on the planet who have no choice but to go without food. Maybe I should tally up the savings on my food budget and donate that. If anyone knows any good charities, please let me know.
p.s.
Oh, beer. I probably shouldn’t have beer but I’m leaving the option to have one every now and then because I’m only human. And the generation of fermented beverages has been around for ages, so that fits, right?
Update: The full experience