this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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Almost every jar of pickles claims a serving of pickles has zero calories. Now clearly, this is incorrect and the result of exploiting some ridiculous FDA loophole, since anyone knows that cucumbers provide calories.

So let's say you're in a situation where you lose all access to food, but you've got effectively unlimited access to pickles -- like, you're trapped inside a recently abandoned pickle warehouse.

Could you conceivably eat enough pickles to survive for a month? Two months? Or would your body just shut down from all the sodium and acid?

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[–] punkwalrus 209 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

Well, it really reminds me of that famous GreenText about pickles

[–] frickineh 44 points 11 months ago

Oh good, it's not just me. I came here to say that the odds of shitting pure pickle juice are way too high to make it worth the risk.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If anyone hasn't had a butt cam (colonoscopy) before, this basically describes the process for flushing out before the procedure, except the stuff they give you doesn't taste as good as pickles.

[–] punkwalrus 9 points 11 months ago

Hah! It's so true.

[–] thawed_caveman 10 points 11 months ago

Question answered OP, this will be your daily life until the sweet relief of death

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 11 months ago (3 children)

With a serving size of 20-30g and only 1 g carbs, unfortunately they’re not exploiting labeling. Cucumbers do not have significant carbohydrates, fat or protein and thus neither do pickled cucumbers. Maybe enough carbs to survive but not enough fat or protein, and so you’d end up with protein deficiency and whatever that condition is where people eating just rabbits starve from lack of fat. Probably also a horrific case of heartburn from such an acidic diet.

They do have a decent amount of some vitamins and minerals, and electrolytes such as potassium. It wouldn’t make up for the lack of protein and fat though.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Would it be at least marginally better to eat the pickles, or would you be better off just fasting? Could they give you a few more days to live, at least, in hopes of rescue?

[–] Broken_Monitor 80 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Are you stuck in a pickle factory? Blink twice if you’re under duress.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

OP, we can get you out. Just make sure the door isn't a jar!

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I mean, I don't want to make a big dill about this...

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[–] Jiggle_Physics 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

if you are discussing short-term survive-ability, while waiting for rescue, then eating pickles is better than nothing. They will provide water, vitamins, electrolytes, etc. If you are discussing living off of pickles as a lifestyle, or prolonged diet option, then it isn't enough.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It would do the opposite of providing water, it would almost immediately decrease the amount of water available to your body.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (2 children)

whatever that condition is where people eating just rabbits starve from lack of fat

Not sure if you're making a joke, but it's literally called "rabbit starvation".

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

Apparently the technical term is protein poisoning. Digesting protein creates urea, and the body needs at least some fat in order to convert to ammonia that can be excreted. It's also called "mal be caribou" in French (caribou sickness, I think), which I find fascinating.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Yeah... wouldnt you basically be able to live for a while, but not actually having much actual energy to move... and probably basically be having liquid stinging shits the whole time?

[–] [email protected] 48 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Hey are you by any chance trapped in a recently abandoned pickle warehouse?

[–] newcockroach 25 points 11 months ago

He's just asking for a friend. Dont bother him and awnser the dammn question👽👽

[–] Nastybutler 10 points 11 months ago

I suspect he's locked a hostage in one and wants to know how long he can leave him there before he adds a murder charge to his kidnapping charge.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Cucumbers themselves, like basically every green vegetable, dont provide sustainable amounts of calories. But assuming pickles cant have a different calorie count from the cucumbers they started with is a bit nonsense, it's like saying wood ash will burn as well as unburnt wood. It's undergone chemical processes that alter its makeup. If you're talking about conventional vinegared pickles, that's acids breaking down the few carbohydrates and proteins, and if you're talking about lacto-fermented pickles, that's bacteria eating the calories first and converting into carbon dioxide. You can also compare the vitamins for fresh cucumbers vs labeled on the pickle jar. They're not finding loopholes to not label the health benefits of what they're selling, the pickling process also destroys vitamins.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

But they are using a technicality that allows them to label them as 0 calories. While pickles don't have many calories, they don't have 0. According to fda guidelines a serving between 0-5 calories can be claimed as 0 calories and even the nutrition facts is allowed to say 0.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's not a technicality, it's just rounding. Go check out the nutrition labels on various foods you got. The majority of them will be rounded to the nearest tenth. A few low calorie ones might be rounded to the nearest fifth. Less than that is for all practical purposes 0 calories. You will not get a significant amount of calories no matter how many pickles you eat. Forget the sodium and acidity, your body cant hold enough pickle mass to add up to a snack's worth of calories.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago

I don't know enough to answer but I like this question

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So there are a lot of "basically nothing" foods you can survive on for a time until nutrient deficiencies kill you. However in the case of pickles I think you'd be better of literally not eating for a month. Like how drinking saltwater dehydrates you, eating pickles would blow anything of nutritional value out of you and then some

[–] PRUSSIA_x86 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I have you tagged on Connect as "ask about the stick", and so now I must ask, about the stick?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

No idea what Connect is but maybe you're talking about this comment? https://lemmy.ml/comment/5223327

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[–] tamal3 23 points 11 months ago

I don't know, but let us know how it goes.

[–] Crack0n7uesday 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Imagine the shit you would have to take after a few days of even trying. I would definitely not trust a fart after day three.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (4 children)

calorie negative food requires more energy to digest than they give you. The more you preprocess them like cooking, the more that changes. It the basis for the cabbage soup diet that while this wikipedia page pans my wife swears by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbage_soup_diet . Although she does not eat just the soup but uses it as a supplement cruch that does have a lot of non caloric nutrients to stay full. I have no idea why the wiki page say medical professionals say the weight lost is water. I find that hard to believe given the amount of water consumed as part of eating soup. Im just skeptical of what medical professionals or what proportion said that particular thing.

[–] Quetzalcutlass 12 points 11 months ago

The cabbage soup diet has many names, usually linking the diet to a mainstream institution, including the "Sacred Heart Diet", "Military Cabbage Soup", "TJ Miracle Soup Diet", and "Russian Peasant Diet". All of the institutions named have denied a link with the diet.

Russian peasants: "Don't blame us for this shit!”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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[–] spittingimage 9 points 11 months ago

People who are trying to eat healthy are probably also cutting back salt (intentionally or by eating less processed food), so their body retains less fluid in its tissues.

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[–] Skasi 15 points 11 months ago

I feel like Lemmy probably lacks the expertiese on pickles. Beans on the other hand...

[–] Jackcooper 15 points 11 months ago

Missing some vitamins and minerals as well as some obligate amino acids so without getting to the calories, no

[–] dual_sport_dork 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'd give it 3 or 4 days, if literally all you have is pickles. All that salt and vinegar will dehydrate you pretty damn good, despite all the liquid you're ostensibly consuming.

Even if you had fresh water present as well, I think you'd wind up with one hell of a stomachache by day 2 or 3.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I just bought some pickles today, AMA.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Have you eaten any? If so, did you survive?

[–] SidewaysHighways 8 points 11 months ago

Well it's been 20 minutes so

I call their speakers

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[–] Wild_Mastic 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Is this the follow up to the no poop question made months ago?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure this would kill you in a short amount of time. Chubbyemu had a video on Youtube where a single, large jar of pickles was enough to nearly kill someone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF69voHU_ys).

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[–] Adulated_Aspersion 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It would take more energy to digest the pickle than the pickle would provide.

One example that I like to use is this: would a cockroach eat it? Roaches eat everything from food crumbs to wallpaper paste. Anything with calories. Do you know something that roaches WON'T eat? Cucumbers.

So long as the pickles don't have sugar in the brine, I would say you would likely starve to death.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That is a poor metric. Pickles are salty and acidic as fuck. Covkroaches dont literally eat everything with calories.

[–] geogle 9 points 11 months ago

He mentioned that roaches wouldn't eat cucumbers, not pickles.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If you're also drinking water and only eating a few pickles a day for the salt and mineral content, you can water fast safely for a good while if you have enough body fat.

Folk with morbid obesity have safely water fasted up to a year.

The pickles would only be sustaining you so far as salt and minerals though, your body fat would be doing the rest to keep you alive.

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