This story begins like so many stories do: with two men challenging each other to do something that no one should really bother doing. One of them, Rajiv, expressed a love for Hawkins Cheezies (a.k.a. Canadian Cheetos). Specifically, he said, “I could probably eat only Hawkins Cheezies for the rest of my life.” Unfortunately, one of his dudebros heard him. And lo and behold, soon he had committed to eating only Cheezies for 127 hours in a row and his friend Ian had committed to eating only Hershey’s Nibs — little bits of strawberry-flavored licorice. They also got to eat water and vitamins.
A doctor told them: “You can go a week without eating anything and nothing would happen. But it’s still idiocy. You should cancel this.”
But they didn’t. Here are the results, as reported to Vice.
Rajiv: “I still functioned reasonably well at work … My poop didn’t turn orange/glow/kill me as most people kept asking, but it definitely took on a strange consistency … I was more worried about putting myself into heart failure or getting edema [fancy doctor talk for “swelling”] on my ankles because of the sheer amount of sodium I was getting.”
Ian: “About 14 hours into the challenge I started getting really hungry and was pretty close to calling Rajiv and admitting it was too ridiculous of an idea … Overall, my body felt awful for the whole week. I had constant headaches, my stomach was pissed at me, and I felt light-headed and dizzy a lot. I tried to stay busy without being too active, just to occupy my mind with something not related to Nibs.”
Honestly, these are some of the grossest things you could have chosen to live on for days, but something similar would probably happen if you tried to go a week on nothing but kale and chia seeds. You might do all right on potatoes and oatmeal, though.
