>It's not that I disagree with you because I think this is probably correct but... I mean do we know that? As a sure thing?
My understanding is that we don't know either way, really. Hell, there's still a lot of legitimate controversy about the RDA - and that is just a very short, and certainly incomplete list of micros.
(personally, I'd be more concerned about the missing micros (or that they put in the wrong chemical form of the micros) than I would be about the structure of the food; but I'm no doctor, and certainly chewing is a part of digestion, so maybe that is important, too? I bet you could actually find good studies on that part, though; figuring out if a liquid diet is ok should be easier than figuring out if you have all the micronutrients you need; there are plenty of cases where people are medically tube-fed over the medium to long term.. but I think that even that involves pulped fresh food, and how is that different from food that wasn't recently living? the obvious starting place is the bacteria, but I'm sure there are other differences, too.)
That's the thing, it seems like this would make for interesting medical research but it's instead advertised as a time-saver, without a lot of actual medical supervision.
Again, the 'extraordinary claim' here is just that you can live solely off of the stuff... if they marketed it the way the other meal replacements are marketed, e.g. we tried to make this good for you, but don't let this be the only thing you eat, I think it would be a fine product.
My understanding is that we don't know either way, really. Hell, there's still a lot of legitimate controversy about the RDA - and that is just a very short, and certainly incomplete list of micros.
(personally, I'd be more concerned about the missing micros (or that they put in the wrong chemical form of the micros) than I would be about the structure of the food; but I'm no doctor, and certainly chewing is a part of digestion, so maybe that is important, too? I bet you could actually find good studies on that part, though; figuring out if a liquid diet is ok should be easier than figuring out if you have all the micronutrients you need; there are plenty of cases where people are medically tube-fed over the medium to long term.. but I think that even that involves pulped fresh food, and how is that different from food that wasn't recently living? the obvious starting place is the bacteria, but I'm sure there are other differences, too.)
That's the thing, it seems like this would make for interesting medical research but it's instead advertised as a time-saver, without a lot of actual medical supervision.
Again, the 'extraordinary claim' here is just that you can live solely off of the stuff... if they marketed it the way the other meal replacements are marketed, e.g. we tried to make this good for you, but don't let this be the only thing you eat, I think it would be a fine product.