7mo ago

What would happen to your body if you only ate 750g of 2% cottage cheese every day for a month?

Picture for nutritional info.

117 comments

You’d become malnourished. You’re missing C, folate, iron, etc. you’d live, but you’d be sick and you’d have damaged your body.
- It would probably take more than a month to show signs of malnutrition though, assuming OP is eating reasonably healthy currently.
  
  It might not be to the point of permanent damage, but you certainly wouldn’t be feeling good. You probably wouldn’t be iron deficient, but a lot of vitamins are only stored in small amounts in the body.
- Can I just eat a multivitamin with it
  
  No. You’re not getting any fiber, this is a really shit idea.
- Not in a month...lol

Only 960 kcal/day is a starvation diet.
- Based on the label in the post, it'd be even worse than that, 750g would only be 720 kcal
  
  Whoops!
- If you have 0% body fat, lol.
  Worst that will happen is you'll lose some weight and probably recomp a bit but 4 weeks really isn't enough to do anything. 8 minimum to even start to see changes in my experience.
  Ymmv depending on bf %

You would be fine, you would need extra electrolytes and water.
120g of protein per day
36g of carbohydrates per day.
15g of fat per day.
You would lose weight, you'd be running at a calorie deficit. Assuming you had fat to start with everything would be fine. The protein levels are sufficient to maintain your muscle mass
You probably get bored of that food pretty quickly.
- You'd also need a vitamin. And if you're like me you'd probably want to break your keyboard in half and shove it down your throat until you can't see it anymore; cottage cheese is gross even before it becomes monotous.
  
  if you’re like me you’d probably want to break your keyboard in half and shove it down your throat until you can’t see it anymore
  Are you okay?
  Edit: It's fine if the answer is "no".
  
  Why do so many people hate cottage cheese? I love the texture and it tastes pretty bland, so you can just add some herbal salt and pepper to make it pretty tasty
  
  The only useful thing I’ve found for cottage cheese is pranking people.
  Incidentally, if you rember the old plastic clad iMacs and powermacs from the late 90’s (with the clearish white plastic and “fun” color accents?)
  Those power Mac’s incidentally had a space just above the PSU perfect for keeping a cottage cheese at the right temperature for getting foul.
  Foul enough to clear out a computer lab for a week. (It was a boring class, anyway. I’m not sure they ever found the tub…)
- Really? I've heard about rabbit starvation. Wouldn't cottage cheese be lean enough to suffer the same? Or is there more to it than that (e.g. type of protein, lipids, etc.)?
  
  You would not be getting enough bioavailable nutrients, but one month is not long enough for that to be a serious problem.
  This is not a healthy balanced diet, you could not live on it forever because of bioavailable nutrients and the like. But as emergency food, it's fine.
  If you did not have excess fat at the start of this diet, you would have trouble. There is not enough fat here to keep you going.
  750 cals per day, assuming you need about 2500 cal a day, your deficit is about 2000kcals a day. 7700 cals per kg of fat. You would lose about 7.7kg of fat... If you maintain your original metabolic rate, but the body is adaptable, and it would reduce your metabolic rate while you went through this emergency diet
  
  rabbit starvation
  FYI: For those that have never heard of the term:
  Protein poisoning (also referred to colloquially as rabbit starvation, mal de caribou, or fat starvation) is an acute form of malnutrition caused by a diet deficient in fat and carbohydrates, where almost all bioavailable calories come from the protein in lean meat
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

Scurvy?
Cottage cheese is not a significant source of vitamin C, and scurvy symptoms begin to appear between 1-3 months of vitamin C deficiency.

some brain damage: malnutrition tends to aggravate or cause brain damage.
I'm a brain damage survivor: it sucks, it takes decades to undo ( neuroplasticity takes time to do rewiring ), and life is never going to be what it could have been.
Don't damage people's brains.
'tis a good rule, eh?
_ /\ _

That's basically the Atkins diet (Keto) without enough nutrition. It'll function like a very short, very uncomfortable, malnourished crash diet.
You'll spend the first two weeks craving carbs and sugars like your life depends on it. It's awful. After that "break in" period, the cravings mostly go away.
But that's not all. So much as lick a piece of candy or chew on some bread, and you'll get a large dopamine rush followed by carb-craving mode again. If sheer willpower and deferred rewards are at all a problem for you, this might feel like one of the hardest things you've ever tried to do.
Edit: now that I remember, my grandma tried a "cottage cheese and grapefruit" fad/crash diet back in the 80's. Turns out that one has been doing the rounds for almost a century. IIRC, it doesn't work since it's easy to underestimate how insanely difficult this is to do.
- Did keto for a while preparing for some on-camera work. I've never looked more cut and never been so miserable. 9/10 doctors do not recommend. The 10th one has an eating disorder.
  
  I lost 40lbs on keto and after the first week of keto flu, I felt great. No sugar crashes, no energy level drops and overall, more energy than usual. I stopped after six weeks as I couldn’t deal with the lack of flavour and texture in the food I was eating. I reached a good weight that I've maintained, 7 years later.
  One thing it taught me, was to reduce the amount I eat and to balance things out if I eat more carbs than usual.
  
  I agree on those stats. Don't forget: Atkins himself died from heart disease. But hey, at least you have the pics to prove it.
  Were it me, the potential for humor would be impossible to ignore:
  Me: "This diet is miserable, don't do this."
  Also me: shows pics looking more shredded that a bowl of mini-wheats
- For real, back when I did keto, cottage cheese with hot sauce was half of my diet.
  
  I feel you. Hard cheese, bacon, and pickled eggs were my go-to. Anything with strong flavors. I did that for about a year and then stopped once I hit my weight goal.
  In the middle of all that, I noticed that vegetables started to taste sweet as they do contain small amounts of sugar. Especially cabbage. I kind of miss that.
  A workaround I employed was to eat lots of kimchi. Fermented foods like that contain sugar alcohols which taste sweet(ish), but are not digestible as such.
- Been on keto for a decade with breaks here and there. Currently two pounds below goal weight. Feel great and blood numbers are excellent. Changed my life.
  
  That's awesome. Glad that's working for you! If you have any tips on building willpower for the rest of us, please share, and thank you.
- I actually tried keto some years ago on a lark. I quickly learned to avoid supermarkets since I could smell all the sugar in the baking aisle halfway across the store. Before posting this, I didn't think such a high-protein, low-fat dirt could result in ketosis but I was educated by another user on how the process actually works.
  
  I forgot about the smells. My sense of smell shifted to be way more sensitive to sugars and starches too - it was tough.
  I didn't bother trying to track fat intake and wound up losing 2+ lbs a month that way; not bragging, but my goal wasn't all that big. I probably could have done things faster by cutting more fat, but it was already hard enough.
  I was educated by another user on how the process actually works.
  Fascinating, isn't it? It's like each of us is just full of survival mechanisms.

You'd become anemic from the lack of iron plus the blood loss from hemorrhoids due to lack of fiber.
- Hemorrhoids is a preventable condition, you’re not supposed to sit there and push. Just get up and do drink water or eat fiber. Try hot coffee or warm milk or a yogurt drink. No one needs to suffer from hemorrhoids at all, I am surprised there are still people who do. Should be a unit in middle school health classes to not force shitting
  
  You are not permitted hot coffee, warm milk, or a yogurt drink. You are permitted 750g of cottage cheese, each day, for a month.
  
  Got mine along with my first baby. Another example of blaming women for legitimate health issues?
  Agree about fiber, but more specifically, psyllium fiber like metamucil, and vegetable fiber have positive effects whereas nuts or seeds, especially flax, tear it open and cause bleeding even if it's been healed for months. Yogurt can also be constipating, despite the claims of probiotics.
  More to the point, there's zero fiber in cottage cheese.
  
  Some people just randomly get hemmroids for no apparent reason

someone just won a month's supply of cottage cheese.

I have done something like this. You will feel like hell and depending how vitamin deficient you are you could end up in the hospital. When I did it I just bounced back within a few months so it was not worth it.
If you are trying to lose weight counting calories over a long period helped me lose about 50lbs. Just try to stay in weight loss range and exercise for 30 min a day to burn some calories
- Nah, I'm more looking for a way to eat cheap for a month (maybe two) while still getting enough protein that I don't start wasting. Food is expensive, and dairy here is also expensive, but a months worth of cottage cheese is cheaper than a months worth of any meat. I'll see if I can move some things around in my budget to get a more wholesome diet, though.
  
  Dried beans. Their cheap AF. Nutritious AF. I make up a pot of soup every couple of days. Soak you beans the night before. Boil next day.
  Start a new pot off with butter. Sauteed up onion, carrot, and/or celery(all cheap AF, all optional). Add In meat if you like. Sear outsides but don't worry about cooking all the way through. Add chicken stock (or water) and boiled beans. Simmer covered 30 min-ish. Add in frozen spinach, cook another 5. Salt and season to taste.
  Congrats! You just made a pot of bomb ass soup. For like 3$! You can eat for days off that pot. Delicious AND nutritious. Your gut likes variety, give it to it.
  
  Try potatoes. They're ridiculously cheap (where I am) and loaded with nutrients.
  
  Milk and potatoes can give a good base of vitamins and minerals.
  Potatoes are pretty cheap and very easy to grow if you have the time and will to try it. Just toss a few potato halves into a bin of dirt, water periodically and you'll have more potatoes than you know what to do with
  Toast can be a fairly cheap breakfast, although not very filling. It's easy to quickly eat as you run out the door too
  I've found making sure your dinners have multiple dishes actually makes the food go further and helps in saving money on groceries overall compared to not
  A bag of freezer veggies can keep in the fridge for almost a week pretty easily, and it's very easy to pour a bit out, nuke it in the microwave for 30-60 seconds and help round out your meal.
  Hotdogs cook very well with ramen noodles (you can also sprinkle in some frozen corn too!), and that can make 2-3 meals for a single person
  if you're in the states, Aldi is genuinely a really good option to save money on groceries, plus their store brand stuff usually has less sugar than name brand
  white rice is usually dirt cheap and a good base source of nutrients

Can't wait for chubbyemu to explain what happens to OP.

So I can't answer your question exactly, but, as many here know at this point, I have been suffering through an illness where I have not eaten any solid food since last August (please no medical advice). Before I got, with the help of doctors, settled on a liquid diet of 6 Ensures and 4 V8s a day, I lost 80 pounds- 260 to 180, I was dizzy and lightheaded all the time from the lack of electrolytes, and while I still don't have much energy and have to rest for a while after walking the dogs for half an hour, I couldn't even walk a couple of blocks.
That said, my blood panels show everything is normal, so I'm clearly not dying. It's not exactly a great quality of life, especially since our entire society is based around food in every conceivable way, but it is survivable. In fact, one good thing came out of it- I no longer have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, so I don't have to take pills to counteract those anymore.
- I'm sorry to hear you're going through that. I can sort of imagine what you're going through, and it's certainly not fun, but it's probably not a 1:1 situation. I really hope you get better though.
  
  Thanks. Definitely not 1:1 but maybe sort of put you down the path?
- Why not just drink Soylent?
  
  Because, as I said, this was settled with the help of doctors.
  And, again, please no medical advice.

It's a scientific fact that you are what you eat. So following that logic, you would become a cottage cheese slime.
- New idea for a Stardew Valley mod :))))

Aside from the malnourishment others have already mentioned, you'll be spending a lot of time on the toilet..
- Or you'd never poop again
  
  Oh, I've had a few cottage cheese binges, only for a day or two at a time though. Unlike more solid cheeses, cottage cheese tends to go right through you.
  Many flushes will be had...

You'd become severely deficient in key nutrients

do you get any supplemental liquid?
- Anything non-caloric. Water, tea, coffee, diet soda, so on.
  
  What about crab juice

Obvious lack of many vitamines and some minerals. And obvious lack of energy / calories (depending on your need).
The impact after 1 month depends very much on your state before. For a healthy person I guess it is not dangerous at all, but you would feel weak.

Why is there no serving per container? How many servings in this tub?
- 750 / 125 = 6
- Couldn't fit the weight and nutrition data in the same image. Other comment is correct: 750g is 6 servings.

Weight loss. I don't like cottage cheese but I do something similar with greek yogurt, eggs, and chicken breast. High protein is easy weight loss for me. Always listen to your body.
- And if your doing a high protein diet make sure to watch your kidney function, make sure your doc does a kidney panel with every physical. I did low carb high protein for several months and my kidney numbers went from good to, not terrible, but not good either.

Since the comments indicate this is really a food budget challenge, let's talk about that. What is your monthly budget for food? Do you have any dietary restrictions you want to target?
- I target about $400/month for two big kids and two preschool aged kids, and largely manage to hit my target. I shop almost exclusively at Aldi, and our diets are very heavy in dairy, crackers, frozen veggies and involve a weekly taco night and pizza night. Oh and about a dozen or two sandwiches a week.
  I often have toast or vanilla yogurt for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch. I've been trying to reduce sugars over the last couple of years (I'm not actually tracking it, but just watching for high values in any processed foods I eat, and making buying decisions partly based on the sugar content)
- My budget at the moment is CAD$250 per month. 750g of cottage cheese a month would run me $225 at $7.49 a package. As others have indicated, it's an unhealthily low amount of calories despite it meeting my protein requirements. The only dietary restriction that I need to target is getting enough protein for maintenance of muscle mass. The reasons are twofold: firstly, as I've indicated elsewhere, I have had issues with ED in the past. I fear that losing muscle mass would cause a relapse and I can't afford that at present. More importantly, however, is that my current employment is fairly physical, so I can't afford to get weaker either.
  So, to summarize: $250/month, maximizing protein per dollar.
  Issues with cottage cheese idea:
  Unfulfilling psychologically
  Potential for malnutrition/health complications
  Extremely low-calorie
  Ideas to remedy the situation:
  Cheap carbs (potatoes, flour, pasta/ramen)
  Making things from raw (e.g. milk -> cottage cheese, flour -> bread)
  Cheap meat
  I think animal protein needs to be a part of the solution. Tried vegetarianism in the past and I couldn't function well on it. But all animal protein in Canada is expensive, either due to supply management (eggs and dairy), price gouging, supply and demand (e.g. price of chicken breast is ludicrous), or some other unknown factor(s). So plant based protein should also be part of the solution in spite of its lower quality. Others have suggested dried beans/lentils.
  It would be worthwhile to make things from raw. I can save roughly a dollar per kg of cottage cheese if I make the cottage cheese myself from milk. I can also use the byproducts in the making of bread, furthering the value and capturing all protein. There will be a significant time cost in doing this.
  At the moment we're looking at a diet of homemade cottage cheese, bread, and beans. If I can save enough doing this then I could incorporate vegetables as well, but it might be better to just take a multivitamin and eat the psychological cost. This will only be for a month, potentially two, and hopefully not more. I think I can go that long without becoming too miserable. I'd love to hear some feedback if you have any.
  (Bonus solution: find a better paying job.)
  
  I can't tell if you're over-thinking, under-thinking, or just plain havent invested time into grocery planning.
  an 8kg bag of basmati or jasmine rice can be found for $15 (freshco), if you have one cup (dry, 200g) of rice that will last you 40 meals. It's about 200 calories per serving and has vitamin B as well as a handful of minerals.
  Chicken can be found for $3/lb (food basics) or less if you are patient and shop around and is ~120g protein per lb of meat
  Add in some beans $2.97 at walmart for a 900g bag of dry kidney beans, each serving gets you fiber and protein, also 25 servings.
  $110 per month and you have staples and 60+g of protein per day. That leaves $35 per week to shop sales/flash food/etc for fruit, veg, and other meat.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKOvOaJv4GK-oDqx-sj7VVg -- either this channel may visit you, or you visit the channel.
The episode will begin with a dramatically narrated, HF is a <XYZ> years old <gender identifier>, and had <food> for a month! This is what happened next!
- Hmmm... potential payout?

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