Can an Adult Live on Breast Milk? This Guy is Going to Try
Curtis is going on a diet. The breast milk diet. He is going to exist on nothing but breast milk for as long as he can.
He is currently on day three and is documenting it all on a blog called: Don't have a cow, man! He and his wife Katie have a 9-month-old and Katie stored up an entire freezer worth of milk for her premature baby. The banked milk won't be needed by the baby and instead of throwing it out, they thought they would publicize the health benefits of breast milk by doing this publicity stunt.
Update: The Don't Have a Cow blog has been removed which makes me wonder was it a prank? Or could the couple not handle the media attention? We may never know.
They did look into donating the milk, but the amount is too large and too expensive to ship, as they explain in one of the posts.
Katie is a doula, childbirth educator, and lactation educator. She did the nutritional math, based on Curtis' height and weight, when she outlined the challenge:
How much breast milk will it take to nourish a grown man? How many days can a grown man life off breast milk comfortably?
Stats:
6'4"
185lbs-Curtis needs approximately 2,000 calories a day.
-Average breast milk contains between 18-22 calories per ounce. My breast milk has been tested and contains approximately 27-32 calories per ounce.-Roughly Curtis will need to drink 66 ounces of breast milk a day to get about 2,000 calories.
-We will keep track of the number of ounces he drinks daily.
-We will also monitor his weight to be sure he isn't losing weight.
-No other food will be eaten
My husband tried breast milk when I was nursing, I think most fathers do (whether or not they admit it). But I don't think he would want to take shots of it during the day as a nutritional substance. No matter how healthy it is.
The "ick factor" is pretty high on this one, even for me as a breastfeeding advocate. I'm just not sure where I stand on this. I would much prefer to see the milk donated to babies, or even cancer patients, in need. But I like the idea of normalizing breast milk as a natural and healthy substance. But I wonder if the sensationalism of their quest will actually lead to a fruitful discussion about breastfeeding.
What do you think? Is this offensive or weird or are you glad someone is doing it?
Want more chaos? Last year, I took a quiz on being a low-stress family, and the results weren't exactly what the writer intended.
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