What Loneliness and Hunger Have in Common

And how food can show you the way to human connection.

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In 2021, the German YouTuber Fritz Meinecke started a crazy experiment.

He and six others were dropped separately into the wilderness of Sweden. The challenge was to survive for seven days with only seven items of their choice. No camera teams. No human contact. Complete isolation.

Watching this show is obviously addictive. Part of the reason is that you get to see seven people survive in the wilderness from the comfort of your couch. That’s wildly entertaining. But more importantly, you learn a great deal about the human condition when people are in such a raw environment.

And so this experiment answered a critical question: What are the true essentials of human life?

Two Essentials of Happiness

At first, it seemed the answer was shelter, food, and water. But once the candidates found rocks to sleep, berries to eat, and water to drink, a bigger problem was revealed: Loneliness.

The isolation was by far their biggest struggle. Whenever they recorded a video update with their GoPros, they admitted how lonely they felt and how much they were thinking about the others. The lack of human contact was sickening.

But there was another prominent pattern. Everyone rambled about how much they missed a warm, wholesome meal. In fact, Fritz once hallucinated about indulging in a mountain of falafels and fries covered in sauce.

What does this teach us?

Loneliness and hunger are signals to a happier life. Loneliness shows us the path to human connection. Hunger leads the way to a filled belly. Both states are essential to feeling satisfied.

It’s not that we don’t know that long dinners and relationships make us happy. It’s just that we kind of forget in our hectic, work-driven lives.

So — if loneliness and hunger play central roles in our well-being, what more do they have in common? Can food be a teacher for finding human connection?

As it turns out, the answer is yes.