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Japanese Company Makes Low-Calorie Noodles Out of Wood
AmiMoJo writes: Omikenshi Co, an Osaka based cloth manufacturer best known for rayon, a fibre made from tree pulp, is expanding into the health food business. Using a similar process, Omikenshi is turning the indigestible cellulose into a pulp that's mixed with konjac, a yam-like plant grown in Japan. The resulting fibre-rich flour, which the company calls "cell-eat," contains no gluten, no fat and almost no carbohydrate. It has just 60 calories a kilogram, compared with 3,680 for wheat.
The Germans apparently ate sawdust during WW1: The foul black bread that was served was known as kriegsbrot, which translates to war bread. The recipe is quoted from the records of the German food providing ministry published in Berlin in 1941 was "50% bruised rye grain, 20% sliced sugar beets, 20% tree flour (sawdust), 10% minced leaves and straw" - https://books.google.ca/books?...
I have no idea what it tastes like because its ludicrously expensive. Holland and Barrett sell quite a few brands of it. Most are packaged in watery bags which suggests the noodles themselves are saturated with water and lose their cohesion if they're allowed to dry out.
I'm afraid this isn't quite correct and you've got a lot of common fallacies in this.
Satiety is not a function of calorie intake. While not 100% understood the two strongest indicators we know of are a hormone released on consumption of protein, and the amount of material in the stomach. E.g. "In one study of 38 common foods, both men and women subjects consumed foods with equal calorie contents and their feelings of fullness were recorded every 15 minutes for 2 hours. Highest satiating power was found with high levels of protein, dietary fibre and water and low satiating power was related to higher fat foods." http://www.eufic.org/article/e...
"Overshooting" with energy dense foods is not regulated well by the human body - the obesity epidemic is extremely obvious evidence of this. You try to attribute this to "artificial food" but that is a very weak strawman - it's the (relatively) recent availability of extremely energy dense foods such as refined sugar, flour, HFCS with high taste appeal and low satiety that cause the issues.
The groups of people on "energy dense food" you mention are actually predominantly on high protein foods, which control satiety well as above. While it is possible to become obese on it it is unlikely in the real world as they are predominantly poor ethnic groups, or people with a vested interest in their diet. The obese are people on true energy dense foods (high carbohydrate and high fat) - it is a lot easier to eat 4000 calories a day of cakes than on a carb free diet.
It's obvious that food to humans in the first world is not just a matter of "supplying energy to the body" as you state, people eat for pleasure, and energy-dense foods contribute to obesity by being exceptionally rewarding to the palate to most people. Exercise is a contributing factor but secondary - you can't outrun a bad diet.
These noodles will help people to cut out energy dense material within their diet, and will therefore help obesity all other things being equal. Of course it's not as good as portion control, sensible diet choices and moderate exercise, but the obese aren't doing these anyway.