Can a being exist without eating anything, ever?
Can a being exist without eating anything, ever?
Sure plants do it all the time.
Plants do it all the time
Plants do it all the time.
Plants do this some of the time
Plants do this all the time.
In this world it would be tough, but if the Power of the human body (air gas machine) is high enough through generations of transitioning towards mucusless eating and fasting, and the Obstructions in the air, water, current body machine are removed then we could see high enough Vitality for breatharianism to exist. The humans would be the entities to realize this.
June 17, 1977 wrote:
Can a being exist without eating anything, ever?
Depends on your definition of food. Part of the definition of "living thing" is "take in and use energy" if you consider the stuff plants take in for energy as "eating food" then the answer is no. If you are strictly calling "eating food" what animals do, then yes...plants do it all the time.
For reference the full list is: the ability to grow, reproduce, take in and use energy, excrete waste, respond to the environment, and possess an organized structure more complex than that of non-living things
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WhodatJellyfish wrote:
Plants do it all the time
Plants still need to take in minerals like nitrogen. They often do this via a symbiotic relationship with tiny fungi attached to their roots, which in turn get these minerals from decomposing bugs and any other material that make it into the soil. There have even been groups of trees where it was determined they get a majority of their nitrogen from fish presumably left on the ground by bears and decomposed by fungi.
Does this count as eating?
Plants eat earth soil as food, that's where the chemicals are - in the earth from an exploding star. That's why plants contain the highest source of vitamins and minerals.
My (total layperson) understanding is that eating has two components to it. First, we eat as a source of chemical energy - we break down sugars as part of the Krebs cycle, or whatever, so that our muscles can contract and our nervous system can keep firing. Second, we eat to harvest the raw materials that we are built out of. So for example, we need to eat enough calcium to build our bones, enough amino acids to build our muscles, etc. Likewise, we need to eat enough vitamin C, iron, etc to replace what we excrete and keep these things around for whatever functions they serve.
With plants, as I understand it, the sun is their sole source of energy. But they also take in the components that they are built of from somewhere. Mostly carbon from the air, but also a tiny bit of minerals and stuff from the dirt.
This seems like a useful distinction for this conversation. While an organism could never get by without a source of energy (like glucose for us, or sunlight for plants), once it has been built the need to take in additional material could be very minimal.