Three Cubans survive on coconuts for 33 days on uninhabited island | Hacker News Reader

Three Cubans survive on coconuts for 33 days on uninhabited island

bbc.com

28 pointsbillyharris21 comments

I currently live in a place with a lot of fresh coconut vendors and it's a lot of work to open a coconut.

I've spent time thinking the various strategies one could use to open a coconut without a large butcher knife.

I think bashing the coconut on a sharp rock would spill the valuable coconut milk, and require too much energy to get to all of the coconut meat.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sDT1BYRwtKA makes it look extremely simple (for a type of coconut that doesn’t have milk)

I always thought those coconuts were the green coconut without the rind.

The coconuts here are significantly larger and more heavy with a stronger outer shell. [0]

[0] https://www.thekohsamuiguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/...

That's one way to isolate!

It raises the question of how long someone can survive on a diet of principally coconuts (although rats and conchs are also mentioned in the article). Googling doesn't help much, answers range from "basically forever" to "rapid dehydration".

There is an Aussie lady called Anne Osborne. She is known to go on fruit mono meal diets for long times (weeks and months). She only ate melons for 6 months, oranges for a few months (I don't remember the exact time) and so on.

There are also people who cured long time illnesses with mono meal diets. It makes sense to eat meals with less ingredients than more - most of us have no clue on how to combine foods correctly anyway. Plus it is less taxing on our digestive system.

Stop spreading dangerous nonsense.

There's also people who had psychiatric illnesses cured by traumatic brain injuries, but we don't go around recommending that.

By what unsound logic does it make sense to "eat less ingredients"? As if you had to be a nutritionist and chemist to cook a decent meal.

"No put in the chilantro BEFORE you put in the garlic otherwhise the curry could go prompt critical because the carrots act as a moderator!!!"

If nutrients are distributed by some statistical process then it makes 0 logical sense to only sample from one source.

Good luck eating butter for a month and telling us how much less taxing that was on your digestive system.

I'm a vegan and I'm hella carefull to not miss out on vital vitamins and minerals. It's totally doable but still requires active effort.

Crazy nonsense like monodiets are the reason veganism gets such a bad rep even though its a requirement for having a decent shot at climate change.

Do you know who Anne Osborne is? Have you interacted with her (or anyone like her)? I have.

Don't call something nonsense just because you are not aware of it. If you don't believe in mono meals, then that is your choice. There are vegans, fruitarians, mono meal eaters etc who are all thriving. Just because you don't know or agree with something doesn't make it nonsense.

Please link some studies. I couldn't find some by looking on Google Scholar for "mono meal", "single food diet", or "melon diet".

Self-reported anecdote should not be enough to make you feel comfortable spreading opinion around like gospel.

Science makes it nonsense. Interacting with people (even someone by the name of Anne Osborne) doesn't count as science.

Is this the same Anne Osborne as the eminent radiologist ?

It's all fun and "do your own thing" until parents feed their babies mashed potatoes till they die, and cancer patients skipping treatments because they're gonna "mind over matter" the diesease cutting out toast and spinning up a juicer 6 times a day.

You have a responsibility towards other human beings, and that includes not making dietary recommendations fueled by claims of miracle cure, that are potentially dangerous to their health and well being and exploit their desperation.

Keep your other worldy mumbo jumbo to yourself and stop endagering others. Your freedom to think whatever you want ends at that line.

If it's not nonsense, then it should be trivial for you (NOT US) to prove as much with a peer-reviewed study.

This honestly sounds pretty harmful to give as advice to anyone.

My uncle used to follow something similar he read online (in Australia) and was convinced he could live a healthy life eating only grapes. He was admitted to hospital after only eating grapes for 7 months and refused all other food. Shortly after he died of Pneumonia.

Worked for Steve Jobs, he ate carrots to cure his cancer and look at him now!

I remember when the Atkins diet was a fad. I actually read the book. Eliminate sugar was half of the first chapter. What was in the rest of the book? Putting the sugary (nutrient rich) foods back after a few weeks so you don’t damage your organs. What did we have? Stories about people getting organ damage because they stayed in the induction phase for six months. Stories about idiots that only read ten pages.

What you are describing is an elimination diet, which does in fact heal digestive problems by eliminating all food you could be allergic to and then adding them back in one at a time.

You are describing an elimination diet as performed by an idiot that only read ten pages.

That's about the time hunger strikes last [3], so eating coconuts is surely going to be longer than fasting.

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_strike#Medical_view

I'd look at cocoivores, it'd be years maybe? but you'd do irreversible damage from missing certain vitamins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Engelhardt

> "rapid dehydration"

Tom Hanks claimed - "Coconut milk is a natural laxative. That's something Gilligan never told us."

Thanks for that link, that's one fantastic story I'd never heard of.

My first thought was that I was happy to hear they were all relatively healthy. my second thought was.. huh, that's kinda like the Survivor diet..

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