I have seen lots of posts about the diversity of the human diet compared to other animals and have learned a lot about how animals can synthesize nutrients or they have diets that are more diverse than we realize. But am I wrong to think that bees only eat honey which is essentially sugar? Could a human live on a diet of a proportional amount of honey to our size?
In: Biology
Bees feed on nectar, not sugar. Nectar is mainly a watery solution of the sugars fructose, glucose, and sucrose but also contains traces of proteins, salts, acids, and essential oils. Bees need a narrower range of amino acids than humans and nectar provides all they need.
Humans could likely survive indefinately on breast milk, but you wouldn’t be healthy. A British teenager collapsed and was taken to the hospital from eating only chicken nuggets for 15 years once. Potatoes are another one that people can live on exclusively for years. Technically cows milk could sustain you for a long time as well. But eventually if you’re eating only one thing, you will form ailments and finally die, but it could be a decade or more of ill health survival first. Not something worth experimenting.
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