[MarianaM (OP)]

Trent asks...

Is there any food that’s more nutritionally dense than it is physically dense? Meaning, if you eat 100 g of it before going to bed, you’ll wake up 200 g heavier (or at least 101 g heavier?)

What do you think?

[Halc]

Is there any food that’s more nutritionally dense than it is physically dense? Meaning, if you eat 100 g of it before going to bed, you’ll wake up 200 g heavier (or at least 101 g heavier?)

Mass cannot just be created from nowhere.  You can consume 100g of hypothetical super food with 10,000 calories in it and you will mass exactly 100g more until you take on additional mass in the form of say air or water.

So I might gain more than 1g by eating a gram of salt, but that's because it makes me thirsty and I retain more of the water I drink to rebalance my salinity level.

[alancalverd]

In a word, no. "Conservation of mass" was your first chemistry lesson, and "you are what you eat" was your first compulsory games lesson when it was too wet to play outside. But that was back in the day when school was about learning, not self-expression.

[Bored chemist]

If your hash brownies give you the munchies...?

[syhprum]

I think what the correspondent had in mind was are there any foodstuffs that contained a lot of energy in relation to their mass, Mars bars come to mind.

[alancalverd]

Or glucose, or oil, or Brazil nuts. But none will increase your mass by more than the mass you eat.

But suppose we could find an edible plant that converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into fat or protein that we then absorb as food without digesting the original plant, rather like termites farming fungi inside their mounds. The human body can then become a self-sustaining biosphere, independent of farms or shops.

[Bored chemist]

Or glucose, or oil, or Brazil nuts. But none will increase your mass by more than the mass you eat.

But suppose we could find an edible plant that converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into fat or protein that we then absorb as food without digesting the original plant, rather like termites farming fungi inside their mounds. The human body can then become a self-sustaining biosphere, independent of farms or shops.

[alancalverd]

My hero.

[4312]

it's not about the mass of the product, but about its nutritional value)

[CliffordK]

There are foods that can make a person retain water.

So, eat very salty foods, or perhaps dry foods, and they can make you thirsty.   

Thus, if you eat, say 1/2 kg of jerky, plus unlimited water, you may in fact see a greater transient increase in weight greater than the weight of the food consumed.

[Bored chemist]

There are foods that can make a person retain water.

So, eat very salty foods, or perhaps dry foods, and they can make you thirsty.   

Thus, if you eat, say 1/2 kg of jerky, plus unlimited water, you may in fact see a greater transient increase in weight greater than the weight of the food consumed.

Not for long.

[wolfekeeper]

If you eat foods with glucose the glucose is stored semi-long term as glycogen in the muscles and liver. For every 100g of glucose, the body has to absorb about 300g of water to make glycogen. So if you eat 50g of glucose, you'll gain ~200g of weight, provided you also drink.

[Bored chemist]

For every 100g of glucose, the body has to absorb about 300g of water to make glycogen.

Why?

[charles1948]

The "natural" food we eat isn't nutritionally very dense.

Couldn't greater density be achieved, by eating physically compact "artificial" pills, containing all the vitamins and minerals that we need to nourish our bodies?

[Kryptid]

The "natural" food we eat isn't nutritionally very dense.

Couldn't greater density be achieved, by eating physically compact "artificial" pills, containing all the vitamins and minerals that we need to nourish our bodies?

Multi-vitamins already exist, so I would say yes. Unless you are talking about a pill that also contains all of your daily caloric needs. You couldn't fit enough carbs and fats into one such pill. Multiple pills would be needed.

[charles1948]

A single pill would, as you suggest,  probably be too big to swallow.  But we could take (say)  2 pills for breakfast, I pill for lunch, then 3 for dinner, followed by 1 for supper.

Surely the simplicity, and swiftness, of such a pill-based diet must have an intense appeal.  At least to those of us who value our brains more than our taste-buds,

[Bored chemist]

The "natural" food we eat isn't nutritionally very dense.

Couldn't greater density be achieved, by eating physically compact "artificial" pills, containing all the vitamins and minerals that we need to nourish our bodies?

You didn't understand the question, did you?

[alancalverd]

 My dog eats "dry" dog food - essentially various bits of animal protein, fat, vegetable fiber, vitamins and minerals, desiccated and compressed into flakes or tablets to save weight and space, and to give her something interesting to crunch and chew. This works fine for domestic dogs because the other 80% of their food comes out of a water tap, and it's good for owners because it doesn't smell as awful as tinned gunge, or bleed all over the refrigerator. But she still can't weigh more than the total mass of food and water.

[Bored chemist]

A single pill would, as you suggest,  probably be too big to swallow.  But we could take (say)  2 pills for breakfast, I pill for lunch, then 3 for dinner, followed by 1 for supper.

Surely the simplicity, and swiftness, of such a pill-based diet must have an intense appeal.  At least to those of us who value our brains more than our taste-buds,

You need energy- roughly speaking about 2500 Kcal per day.
The least mass/ bulk of food you could get that from is something like 250 grams of fat.
That's 6 big pills. (not to mention fibre etc)

More importantly, what would one gain from this?

[alancalverd]

Weight. We eat for pleasure as well as sustenance, and most pleasurable foods are energy-dense (that's evolution for you!).