Could humans create food pellets containing all needed nutrition similar to what we feed pets?

Question

Could humans create food pellets containing all needed nutrition similar to what we feed pets?

In: 166

Answer 1

Here’s a lateral answer: not really.

Producing pellets like this will be crammed full of all the nutrients we can think of: vitamins, fats, sugars, proteins, minerals and the calories that come with.
However, it’ll fail at the “needed nutrition” part. The human body has developed an incredibly robust, versatile and flexible system of consumption that we’re rediscovering truly how fascinating it is in the last decade – for example, the influence of the microbes in your gut!

Your daily intake of nutrients change, every day, every hour. Changes in your routine, in your habitat, which season it is, and what you eat, changes what you need to eat!
People do use supplements, for say vitamin or mineral shortages. But creating the “ultimate food pellet” with the perfect 100% nutritional value ultimately serves no one, because no one uses (only) 100% of those nutrients.