The Monkey Diet Experiment

This page chronicles the feedback I've received from my visitors (both of them).

2007-06-24

From:Shannon Sloan

That was some true geek-osity. Ah well, I don't blame you, I tried the cabbage soup diet, which wasn't nearly as bad, but still strange and a little more than one should be working with to make substantial changes in their dietary habits. Heh, I lost a little over 20 lbs on that diet, but gained it all back immediately afterward.

2011-03-09

From:Preston Wagner

HAHAHHAHAHA funniest stuff I've ever seen!! But on a serious note, I've been looking to try out a monkey food diet and yes people call me crazy and give me the same strange looks as they probably gave you :P. So before I begin my adventure, I have a few questions that I will just list out. Ahem:

1. When you say the taste of the food is that of"bland" and "dry" wheat or rye bread. Does it have ANY of the sweetness ever so slightly associated with bread? Like a balled up piece of wheat toast left in the sun?
2. What brands of monkey food have you tried? I was shopping around and I noticed there were some "monkey chewies" and other kinds of flavored (banana, cherry, vanilla, marshmellow) foods, did you try these? If so, how were they? Also, did you try any of the canned food? If so, how was it?
3. I'm like you, after school I gained about 30lbs as well, im 230 now. Back when I played sports though, I lived off of tuna with mustard (before I knew about the tuna recommended regulations) and I only drank propel water/rockstar energy drink for a year and I never got sick of it, do you think someone like me would be ok living off that monkey stuff? Lol without committing an armed robbery of McDonalds? (kidding about the robbery of course)

I know I had more questions but my mind is blank right now :P. I'm extremely anxious for your reply!

2011-03-12

From:Nathan Edward Williams
(My response to Preston Wagner)

I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was a fun experiment, in a way.

The biscuits didn't really have any sweetness to them. The closest thing I can think of are those crackers you feed to giraffes. The aftertaste was the bad part. Very minerally.

I only tried the one brand of monkey diet. I wanted something with complete nutrition, and all the fruit chews said they were just for supplementing a diet of fruits and vegetables. I don't remember if I looked at canned foods. Probably found them too expensive if I did.

These days I'm pushing 250, but if I ever can climb back on the exercise wagon I might look good naked again someday. Maybe.

The monkey diet is more about willpower than anything else. Humans have a strong instinct for variety, so even people like me that tend to eat pretty much the same thing every day don't eat just ONE THING all day every day. But if you lived on tuna for a long stretch, you should do fine. Of course, I'm not a physician, but ask your doctor if Monkey Chow is right for you. ;)

And please, let me know how you do!

-Nathan

2011-03-12

From:Preston Wagner

Hahaha well I've had the food for two days so far, the first day I only had it for a few hours. Sooo, today I count as day .75 haha, I say that because I'm going to ease into it, for breakfast I had one egg an sausage biscuit, then a ziplock bag of LabDiet monkey diet (I scoop some peanut butter on it hah) and one chicken tender with a couple leftover fries.

However, I compared the "monkey diet" and the "high protein monkey diet" and I found that the latter is for new and old world monkeys, and the "monkey diet" is designed for pretty much only old world. I found out that old world monkeys (gorillas, chimps, orang,etc) nutritional needs are about 98% the same as ours but the new world monkeys (monkeys with swinging tails) are, not so much. Soooo pretty much whatever the old world's should and shouldn't have mimic our needs.

I figure that because these companies don't have to "convince" the primates to buy their foods, they dont waste money pumping in all that unhealthy fluff like they do to human foods, in a way, causing us to "fluff" right along with it haha :F. So they stick strictly with the good stuff when it comes to ingredients.

But back to my attempt, I saw that the feeding directions call to soak it in fruit juice to make it taste better, when I tried it, only the surface tasted better but was still crunchy grassy tasting underneath. The peanut butter actually makes it taste pretty damn good, I ate a ziplock bag full of it with 2 16oz diet cokes. Next I'll try to eat it with coffee like a biscotti :D. But as for plain taste, surprisingly, the monkey diet has the smell and feel of dog food (a little scary at first) a SLIGHT SLIGHT sweet taste, the after taste of some sort of unsweetened wheat cereal that's stuffed with vitamins an minerals, breath smell of raisin bran cereal, and burps smell of spaghetti...

The most surprising effects are that it causes a big lack in cravings (probably because the nutritional needs being met), the short bursts of energy, the loss of 3.8lbs (230lbs-226lbs) in two days and the strange craving for bugs :).

I'll send you the next update

PS: I've never had giraffe food haha