Interesting article nonetheless and it certainly makes me reconsider my own bird feeding practice. It's been years at least, since I gave bread to ducks - I'd love nothing more than to see permanent signs at lakes and ponds pointing out how bad bread is for ducks.
I've never understood this claim that a lot of people seem to make. There's plenty of starch and protein in it, two vital macronutrients. Same with the bizarre claim some people make about breakfast cereals, that you're better off eating the box it comes in. No, you're not, humans cannot digest cellulose.
you do realize, you dont need a ton of data in everything to draw conclusions.
Have you looked at what is in most of the things that are on grocery store shelves?
> ...the cardboard box starts to seem more appealing.
You go ahead and eat a cardboard box every morning for breakfast for a week and tell me how much better it was than a bowl of cereal. I'll wait.
I get what they intend to say, but when they use categorical language like that at least one word has to yield its actual meaning, whether it's 'nutrition', 'real' or 'value'. It's a bit like the Clintonian interpretation of 'is'.
Starch(in general) is considered a nutrient, but not because it can be used to produce glucose.
No, that's not what I'm assuming or implying.
I'm saying because starch is a highly efficient source of glucose, it has nutritional value.
Nobody who are saying citrus fruits have nutritional value because they are high in vitamin C are implying it's essential to ingest vitamin C through citrus fruits. You can't blame a lemon for not being the exclusive source of vitamin C, neither can you blame white bread for not being the only way to increase your blood sugar.
>Starch(in general) is considered a nutrient, but not because it can be used to produce glucose.
What else is it good for but to be converted into glucose?
It’s obviously not advisable for a regular diet. But in a strNded-on-an-island scenario, you could easily survive on chocolate alone for years.
Seems like quite an extreme claim. I'm not disagreeing, I simply don't know, but is this surviving with no ill effects (rickets for example) or surviving in the sense of just being alive?
Do you have any references?
However, there is something to be said for chocolate's nutritional value in special circumstances. Most modern military rations include chocolate or chocolate-flavored items in some form as a significant part of their caloric value (predominantly fats and carbohydrates, even for the flavored items, as your OP mentioned). Aside from its propensity to melt, its size and weight make it somewhat convenient to carry on patrol and for lightweight rations, calorie-dense items are important.
I'm sure there's probably some literature on its use in rations that may be a good starting point, but as far as I remember from watching far too much Steve1989 on YT [1], most of the historic survival rations--think plane crashes--tended to rely on candy, malted milk tablets, or compressed oatmeal/cornflake bars rather than chocolate.
I've linked his channel below because I think you might find it fascinating.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA/vid...