How long can a healthy person survive a total diet change to cake?

[Aiken_Drumn]

Today I ate some amazing chocolate cake for breakfast because I was feeling sorry for myself.

I wondered.. its obviously not the most healthy option, hardly loaded in vitamins.. but how quickly would my body begin to shutdown and have severe side effects if I JUST ate cake from now on.

 

[Narz]

IIRC there was a tale of sailors carrying sugarcane who crashed on a barren island w nothing but sugar to eat. They all died within two weeks. Whereas two weeks of fasting would be fine for almost all individuals (most people can go over a month without food without long term damage)

So eating nothing but sugar is worse than not eating at all.

Cake has a few other nutrients besides sugar. Cocoa is actually pretty nutritent dense. Nevertheless not to be recommended.

My ex-baby-momma claimed she ate nothing but bagels & ice cream for over a month as a pre-teen (her mom was pretty neglectful). Now she has chronic digestive problems.

So yeah I dunno, maybe just have cake for breakfast once a week.

 

[H4run]

So eating nothing but sugar is worse than not eating at all.

This. Some sugar types like a certain type of fructose (corn-syrup) can get absorbed easily into your blood and make your blood sugar level high which increases the production of insulin to stabilize it, but it drops quickly and you are left with a low blood sugar level and your body carve for more food after that, this indirectly formed a binge eating habit.

I think eating simple healthy food two times a day is really nice. But a generous amount of daily sugar with nothing else will make you miserable.

 

[The_J]

In contrast to the sugar example, the cake will also include lipids and a minimum amount of proteins (although not major), so macro-nutrients will probably be okay for a while.
Wiki says that you'll get scurvy after a month with hardly any vitamin C. Given that this is the most prevalent vitamin deficiency known, I'd say that a month is the max. Unless you have add lemon or oranges to the cake mix, then longer.

 

[H4run]

My father has been losing his appetite for food/eating, he sometimes passed a day just eating mere cakes, but he consumed lots of vitamins daily and drink ensure milk. I don't advise anyone to do that, seems fundamentally harmful to me.

 

[AmazonQueen]

In contrast to the sugar example, the cake will also include lipids and a minimum amount of proteins (although not major), so macro-nutrients will probably be okay for a while.
Wiki says that you'll get scurvy after a month with hardly any vitamin C. Given that this is the most prevalent vitamin deficiency known, I'd say that a month is the max. Unless you have add lemon or oranges to the cake mix, then longer.

Or other fruit. A diet of cheesecake and trifle seems tempting.

 

[Remorseless1]

Let's just agree cake for breakfast is a great thing, especially chocolate.

 

[El_Machinae]

I will check with the local for-profit prison system if we can run a double-blind placebo-controlled study.

 

[Ajidica]

I'd guess quite a while actually. I watched some 'documentaries' (ie TLC freak shows) about people who only ate one food for years, such as pizza, french fries, whatever the heck a Yorkshire pudding is, etc. While they weren't what you would call healthy, it wasn't like they were on the verge of death.

 

[The_J]

TBH Pizza would definitely not be the worst choice. There's vegetables in there, so a minimum of vitamins probably too.
I doubt you can live a year on French Fries only, there must have been some supplements.

 

[Farm Boy]

I bet the Nutriloaf people don't make their data public, but if they sell to prisons, I bet there are studies that have been generated on the topic of whole foods. If not there, then maybe the order of diseases developed by POWs in the historical record might suffice. Too lazy to dig, tho.

 

[El_Machinae]

TBH Pizza would definitely not be the worst choice. There's vegetables in there, so a minimum of vitamins probably too.
I doubt you can live a year on French Fries only, there must have been some supplements.

Especially given the range of pizza choices. Your risk is still too many calories, the body itself is pretty robust until the end of breeding age. I'm assuming that we have no choice but to eat the whole pizza, because if we're allowed to shuck parts of it ... it's actually quite easy.

 

[Ajidica]

There's vegetables in there,

For a while, the USDA did consider pizza to meet the requirement school lunches provide vegetables.
Same with ketchup and relish.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Consuming nothing but cake (the OP says nothing about drinking and meds) would kill me in about 3 days, maybe 4, for medical reasons.

 

[Quintillus]

It probably does depend on how broad the definition is, and as Valka alludes to, whether the restriction applies specifically to eating. Regular cake, fruit cake, cheesecake, there is some variety, if not as much as with pizza. Do sweetbreads count as cake? I could make a nice banana bread for potassium, and add some icing if need be. For beverages, I'd have a nice glass of milk with chocolate cake for breakfast, but if I was having some lemon cake in the afternoon, I might deign for a glass of orange juice or lemonade on the side, and thereby avoid scurvy. Or is only water allowed?

But as delicious as chocolate cake is, I'm okay with leaving this as a hypothetical.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Let's just agree cake for breakfast is a great thing, especially chocolate.

It improved my day considerably!

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

whatever the heck a Yorkshire pudding is

TAKE THAT BACK!

A Yorkshire pudding is the greatest thing ever to grace a plate (assuming there is sufficient gravy).

Now i'm sad I don't have one

 

[amadeus]

You could go a long while as long as you have some variety. Shortcake, carrot cake, chocolate cake, angel food cake, devil’s food cake, lemon cake. The important thing is that you shake it up and switch between them, that’s really what I’m getting at here. But you know, that’s just my strategy and I don’t carrot all.

 

[Ajidica]

TAKE THAT BACK!

A Yorkshire pudding is the greatest thing ever to grace a plate (assuming there is sufficient gravy).

Now i'm sad I don't have one

I know England is a silly little land, but I utterly fail to see how a sad muffin can ever be called a 'pudding'.

 

[Zardnaar]

I know England is a silly little land, but I utterly fail to see how a sad muffin can ever be called a 'pudding'.

English concept of nice food is shaky at best.