Can you survive solely on prunes (and water) for a year?

I said it before and I'll say it again:

Hemp seeds are one of the cheapest, completest foods out there... But no one listens to HiAliens.

Hemp would end famine tomorrow, and they know it. Tastes good as well and makes you feel awesome.

Any one fruit and your body will eventually become deficient in something.

www.jackherer.com...

Hempseed: Humanity's Best Single Food Source
Of the 3-million plus edible plants that grow on Earth, no other single plant source can compare with the nutritional value of hempseeds. Both the complete protein and the essential oils contained in hempseeds are in ideal ratios for human nutrition. Only soybeans contain a higher percentage of protein. However, the composition of the protein in hempseed is unique in the vegetable kingdom. Sixty-five percent of the protein content in hempseed is in the form of globulin edestin.1 (The word “edestin” comes from the Greek “edestos,” meaning edible.)
The exceptionally high edestin content of hempseed combined with albumin, another globular protein contained in all seeds, means the readily available protein in hempseed contains all the essential amino acids in ideal proportions to assure your body has the necessary building blocks to create proteins like disease-fighting immunoglobulins -antibodies whose job is to ward off infections before the symptoms of sickness set in.2

[edit on 24-2-2009 by HiAliens]

Being fully serious, I'd rather gnaw off my own arms and eat them than survive for a week on prunes, let alone a year. The entire point of preparedness isn't just to 'survive,' it is also to thrive. Technically speaking, a person with no food storage at all (but plenty of water) could probably last as well as a person with a year supply of prunes merely through foraging alone.

But one of your goals should be a varied AND enjoyable diet. I won't eat a damn prune now, so I surely wouldn't want to make a stressful situation worse by limiting my whole diet to only prunes. I also think based on their high sugar content, your day would essentially consist of massive energy peaks and crashes interspersed with crapping your guts out every few hours. You'd probably gain a new level of respect for Crohn's disease sufferers.

There was a German guy on Tv a while back claiming to of lived off nothing but water and fruit juice for a year, so maybe it's possible.

I'd prefer the ambrosia option myself.

Originally posted by Dr Love
They wouldn't need cold storage, they're one of the most nutrient-dense foods available, high in antioxidants, and they help keep you free of toxins (bowel movements, liver cleansing). Assuming a food emergency hits, is there any better food to stock up on?

Yeah, I know prune talk is funny, but I'm being serious here. Keep it clean please.

Peace

You mean SOLELY on prunes?

Well let's see dried (dry) prunes have the highest possible rate of antioxidant, that's per 100 grams 5770.

Measured is then the total content of vitamines C en E, beta-caroteen, flavonoids & glutathion.

A “high performance liquid chromatograph"is used for that process.

link is in Dutch sorry but trow thru Babelfish or something if ya want to read it all: www.circadian.nl...

Prunes also contains omega-3, Vit B6, Vit K1, Natrium and some I certainly have forget to mention.

Prunes also do contain lots of fruitsugars nesecary for proper working mucles and brain

For my body a year long only prunes wouldn't work. I would die of dehydration very soon.

But if you make me a diet of prunes, bananas, coconut, raisins and all kind of other nuts (and water) I would be willing to give it a try

reply to post by Dr Love


I'll take a crack at the second question. Coconut, the almost perfect food. Now, regrettably, some folks are allergic to nuts (my wife is allergic to nuts, however she tolerates me -- years of desentisization).

As you can see by the link, coconut has a good allotment of fats, protein, fiber, carbohydrates, as well as a host of vitamins and minerals.

I've done some experiments in the past year, and have been able to dry out coconut meat sufficiently with solar power to be able to crush it into a powder. No additional fats necessary to make a decent bread. If you add some yeast, then it gets a little more stretchy and can even make a pita or tortilla out of them.

Dried coconut is very portable, and ounce-for-ounce probably the most nutritious emergency food -- next to real, traditional pemmican (dried, pounded meat, berries and fat, rolled in a ball). Dried coconut is self-preserving and will last longer than pemmican.

The ultimate? Yep, you guessed it. Coconut pemmican. I know, sounds like it would be more *cough* cleansing..... than prunes, but not so.

Excellent thread, Dr. Love. Let us all not wait until the emergency to compile the emergency goods.

Reminds me of a time in 'Nam when they got prunes in the chow hall. Despite the location, fruit of any sort was pretty much nonexistent as the local supply was tainted with Agent Orange. So when they offered the fruit everyone was so overjoyed we went back for seconds and thirds before anyone remembered what prunes actually did.

That little experience cut our operational efficiency by about a third or so for the next couple of days due to the very frequent visists to the latrines and the long waits once there, lol...it wasn't pretty and got a bit odiferous to put it mildly. Add prunes to a stressed body and the effects are magnified in my experience.

So, no, absolutely not. Personally I wouldn't stock prunes as a food item; they'd be in my medical kit, though.