This was my initial reaction too: it doesn't seem to pass basic conservation of mass.
But actually how much mass must you necessarily lose to stay alive each day? Most of it is probably water, so if we allow "four pills plus as much water" at a meal then it's harder to rule out the pill diet.
Maybe a better way to bound it: apparently we exhale around 1 kg of CO2 each day, which has 370g of carbon in it so unless we can radically reengineer our metabolism I guess you need a minimum of 370g daily to maintain carbon levels. 370g / 3 meals / 4 pills = 30g per pill. Even with the density of diamond that would be (picking a convenient rough number) 8 cm3 or 2x2x2cm.
Which is... a hard pill to swallow. Maybe not impossible though.
370g of carbon required per day? That can't be. Even with a pure fat-based diet, 370g of fat (9 kcal/g) equals 3330 kcal daily - way too high for the sedentary HN requirement of 2000 kcal.
With 2000 kcal, three meals with four pills equals twelve lard pills, each in a squishy 2.7cm cube format, easy to swallow. ;-)
But actually how much mass must you necessarily lose to stay alive each day? Most of it is probably water, so if we allow "four pills plus as much water" at a meal then it's harder to rule out the pill diet.
Maybe a better way to bound it: apparently we exhale around 1 kg of CO2 each day, which has 370g of carbon in it so unless we can radically reengineer our metabolism I guess you need a minimum of 370g daily to maintain carbon levels. 370g / 3 meals / 4 pills = 30g per pill. Even with the density of diamond that would be (picking a convenient rough number) 8 cm3 or 2x2x2cm.
Which is... a hard pill to swallow. Maybe not impossible though.