Eli5 So we need calories to survive. If there are 100 calories in a spoon of oil, how come we can’t survive on oil for emergencies?
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You can easily survive on just oil or simply not eating in emergencies.
The most imminent need is water. If that’s covered you can last for several weeks without trouble, as long as you weigh enough.
This time really cannot be extended much by solely consuming oil, because it‘s the lack of vitamins and minerals that is actually causing you to die.
Our bodies of healthy, and of average weight store quite a large amount of fat that would already be used if you are starving. Doesn‘t really matter whether you fat storage gets used or the oil you drink.
But there‘s vitamins that we only have stores for a couple of weeks, same with minerals. You are constantly losing salt through sweat and urine. So eventually your electrolytes won‘t work out anymore if you just have tap/well water to drink.
But on the other hand rhere have been experiments done with obese people, they weren’t given any calories. Just plain solutions of vitamins and minerals in water. And they weren‘t at all harmed after several months of not eating any calories.
They simply continuously lost weight by their fat storages being burned.
However this cannot be extended undefinetely without adding protein, because our bodies aren‘t perfect at recycling protein, so eventually you need to also supply a minimum amount of protein.
Usually calories are by far your least concern in an emergency. It‘s lack of minerals/electrolytes and vitamins that kills you first, before lack of calories; unless you are already starving weight before.
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