Personally, I'm still convinced that a calorie is a calorie
Do you believe that a person can subsist only on mayonnaise?
According to this: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=calories+in+mayonnaise, it seems that 50 tablespoons of mayo will get you around 2500 calories, so that should be enough calories per day, right?
Your answer might be "no, you also need vitamins". So suppose I add to this hypothetical experiment the daily recommended intake of vitamins through pills (and similarly for other things, like fiber). Would the hypothetical subject live, according to your estimation?
What a curious reply. Obviously a person needs more than calories to live. Protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water are all essential to life. Dietary fibre is pretty handy, but being indigestible is not counted as a nutrient.
I'm not sure I understand your reply:
Protein: OK, add to the hypothetical experiment enough protein shakes.
Carbohydrates: their inclusion in your list seems to suggest that a calorie is not a calorie, in the sense that one can't substitute all one's carbohydrates with fats, as long as the calories add up to the same amount. Right?
Fats: Mayonnaise has quite a lot of fat.
Vitamins, minerals: Take enough pills of those.
Water: OK, drink water as much as you want.
Would a person living on this diet be healthy? If not, and we controlled all the non-caloric variables, does that mean that the premise that "a calorie is a calorie" is false?
