[therese johnston]

My son has a question from his school:
What can a person survive on that does not come from something that is or was alive. Since you can't survive indefinitely on water alone, there is another answer and we can't figure it out.
Any ideaS?

[B52gundog]

I'm guessin' honey.

[kevin]

I would say nothing. One thought I had was honey, but technically it comes from something indirectly that is alive (bees). Let us know when you find out!

[kevin]

Originally Posted by B52gundog

I'm guessin' honey.

you beat me to it b52! I was writing and when I sent - there was your post.

[crashdive123]

That's easy. When I was growing up, every Christmas my aunt would send a fruit cake. Trust me when I say - nothing in it came from anything living.

[AlpineZone]

Originally Posted by crashdive123

that's easy. When i was growing up, every christmas my aunt would send a fruit cake. Trust me when i say - nothing in it came from anything living.

lol!!! :d:d:d

[Celticwarrior]

True, the very simplest plant and animal life, such as algae, plankton, and krill, if eaten in large enough quantities, would probably keep you alive but are ultimately living organisms. We need various amino acids and proteins, vitamins and minerals, and starches and sugars. While some of that can come directly from non-organic sources, you can't get away from the basic fact that the higher up on the food chain you are, the more 'pre-packaged' food supplies you require. Eating other higher organisms gives us a nearly complete replenishment for the things we burn through every day as we grow and use up our own internal resources. Vegetarians and vegans get complete proteins only by eating combinations of plants to get all of the amino acids we need to live. Animals have complete proteins and are more easily converted into the building blocks for our own cells. However, the fact is that humans cannot transform non-living matter into food. Plants take water, nutrients from the soil, and sunlight to create "food", and some bacteria can take things like sulfur or nitrogen and transform it into a type of "food" for it's development, much like plants use photosynthesis. Higher animals like us can't do anything like that, though. Everything, even honey, milk, and various edible oils, are all organic and have come from some living being.

[AlpineZone]

Originally Posted by therese johnston

My son has a question from his school:
What can a person survive on that does not come from something that is or was alive. Since you can't survive indefinitely on water alone, there is another answer and we can't figure it out.
Any ideaS?

I would guess hope but thats also coming from a living thing. Time maybe?

[Celticwarrior]

You need air to survive, obviously, but it sounds like they have something else in mind. I'd be interested to find out what they are referring to, personally.

[B52gundog]

Air is an excellent answer since it's one of survival's general rules of 3 (assuming only the first sentence is the official question).

Yeah, the surviving indefinitely part needs more context (if it's part of the question).