I remember watching The Jetsons as a child and the idea of meal replacement pills was both intriguing and lost on me. I understood convenience (I liked not having to make anything for myself — MOMMM…) but why did the people of the future abandon the pleasure of eating altogether? As I got older, discovered the dieting industry, and realized that a lot of people take pills for various reasons they attribute to good health, it started to make more sense.
We have such a pessimistic view of the word diet, based on a definition of strict limitations, but a diet is more properly defined by what you do eat, rather than what you do not. A diet defined by contrast to indulgences will only be seen as punishment and denial of gratification, and of course, a perpetual denial of gratification will only lead to persistent cravings (or is that spiritual enlightenment? I often get these things confused.)
The old adage of “everything…” does not pertain to some appetites who know no moderation. If only there were a pill you could take that would satiate all of your nutritional needs and your hunger, freeing yourself of the time-consuming task of eating and the burdens associated with it. We have vitamins and appetite suppressants; flavor and texture simulations; so why haven’t we made the leap to true meal replacement pills?
Food is more than taste, vitamins and nutrients. Even if we could isolate everything essential to human health and could fix them into an ideal delivery system combined with desirable flavor profiles, it would not be enough. We need to take in calories, and you simply cannot get enough calories from taking a few pills.
When you look at a nutritional label, the calories are broken down by carbohydrates, protein and fats. Both carbohydrates (excluding fiber, which passes through the body undigested) and protein provide four calories per gram, while fats provide nine. I’m sure it speaks volumes about me that I spend portions of my free time calculating how this information is falsified in some way for marketing ploys. Who knew simple addition and rounding could be so deceptive? But I digress.
Fat clearly being the most efficient delivery of calories, you would still need to consume about 225g of pure fat (approximately a cup) to meet the average 2000 calorie needs of an adult. Combined with glycerin and formed into capsules… that’s a whole lot of capsules. And that whole lot of capsules would still be too few, as the body will not function too well on pure fat and multivitamins alone.
While we’ve managed to isolate nutrients and fool our mouths and brains, the rest lays in the realm of impossibility. Which is certainly good news for those of us happy to eat real food, lest we succumb to the perils of heavily commercialized nutrient-fortified super “foods” in their place…
