... it seems to me that there is only one way to test a breatharian. They are denied food until they give up or die. If they are forced to quit against their will, they always have an excuse as that the test was ended prematurely.
I disagree. I can think of at least one way to test a breatharian which would not involve a fast to the death.
As with all testing JREF does, this testing needs to be tailored to the specific things which a particular claimant claims to be able to do. But there's an essential element to the claim of being able to survive indefinitely without consuming anything but air which it should generally be possible to do testing for in a clearly-specified (rather than open-ended) period of time. A week to 10 days should be sufficient.
The aspect of breatharianism which I think is ideal for testing is
the matter of weight change. Either a breatharian (a) stays at a constant weight, or (b) loses and/or gains weight. My guess is that most breatharians would say their weight fluctuates rather than stays constant -- but we need to know which of these two possibilities our particular breatharian claims is the case for them.
I'd need the answers to 2 questions to work out the protocol.
Question 1: Are they claiming to be able to exist solely on air, or do they also drink water? (While strictly speaking breatharians are supposed to be able to live without taking in any food or water, in practice it seems like a number of breatharians say they do drink water.)
Question 2: Are they claiming their weight stays constant when they are not eating anything? Or do they claim their weight fluctuates?
1. No-water / constant weight. Let's take the no-water case first.* If they claim their weight stays constant, that's a fairly easy claim to test. If they are taking in nothing, then all we need to do is keep them in a controlled setting (room with bed, chair, locked window, radio and tv and computer, reading material, no sink or toilet; a pair of video cameras installed in the room and running constantly; volunteer observers to accompany breatharian any time they leave room) for, say, 10 days, and weigh them twice a day.
Let's suppose the breatharian starts at a weight of exactly 100 pounds. If, at the end of 10 days, all of the recorded weights have been right on the 100-pounds mark -- and there is no evidence they have consumed any substances -- they win.
2. No-water / fluctuating weight. More likely the breatharian will claim their weight fluctuates. But if they only lost weight while going without food, then obviously breatharianism is not sustaining them; a person who constantly loses weight becomes lighter and lighter and eventually fades away. That's not consistent with a claim that a person can live
indefinitely on a breatharian diet;
either they are claiming that at some point their weight loss becomes negligible (which takes us back to the claim they can be on a breatharian diet without losing weight)
or they are claiming to be able to gain weight while consuming nothing. That's the claim I would test.
I have no idea when they think they gain weight, how quickly they think can gain weight, or under what conditions they think they can gain weight. But
for breatharians who say they can live indefinitely on a breatharian diet, and who claim their weight fluctuates, the ability to gain weight on a breatharian diet is an essential element of their claim.
Let them specify under what conditions they can gain weight. Let them pick a time when they feel they are able to gain weight while not eating. Let them say what things would interfere with their ability to gain weight while not eating, so those things can be removed from the test site. And then let them then demonstrate this ability.
If during an agreed length of time, during which they are weighed twice a day, they can demonstrate a steady gain of weight -- not a one-time spike, which could be the result of trickery, but something which graphs into a fairly smooth line going upward which ends up at a higher point than it began -- then they win.
3. Water / fluctuating weight. If they say they need to drink water, that complicates the protocol. A person might think they could gain weight by drinking water and then not urinating it out -- and that would be a very dangerous thing for them to do, so any test needs to be designed in a way that would not encourage them to attempt that.
Here's a suggested protocol for a breatharian who claims they are able to gain weight while not eating (but while drinking water):
The claimant is provided with a measured container of water, from which they may drink as much or little as they want -- and the quantity is recorded, as well as the times that water is consumed. No flush toilet is provided (since flush toilets contain water, which might be surreptitiously consumed), but containers are provided for urinating and for defecating.
(Yes, people on prolonged fasts can and sometimes do defecate.) Any time that waste material is produced, the container into which it was produced is promptly taken away and weighed, and the weight is recorded.
The person is weighed four times a day, and the exact weight is recorded as well as the time of weighing. An adjusted weight is recorded as well: the weight of liquid consumed since the last weighing is
subtracted from the recorded weight, and the weight of waste products is
added to the recorded weight. In order to win, both their actual weight and their adjusted weight must show a steady increase from the weight recorded on the first day to the weight recorded on the last day.
If they start at 100 pounds, drink 10 pounds of water over the course of the test, and wind up weighing 110 pounds, that would count as no weight gain. But if they start at 100 pounds, drink 10 pounds of water, let out 5 pounds of urine, and end up weighing 110 pounds, that would count as a 5 pound gain. (The more urine they produce, the better for them as far as their chances of proving their claim go; that removes the incentive to try to hold in waste products.)
4. Water / constant weight. A suggested protocol for a breatharian who drinks water and claims their weight stays constant is much harder. I'm going to refrain from trying to write down a suggested protocol for that, so as not to make this post overly-long or overly-complicated. (If a breatharian ever comes forward who makes this specific claim, it can be addressed then.)
But my basic point is that there are ways of testing breatharians other than denying them food until they give up or die. The test procedure I've outlined above is one such method; I expect there are others.
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* NOTE: I would have very serious qualms about testing a breatharian who said they did not drink water. Going without food for prolonged periods can be relatively safe; going without water for prolonged periods is not. So I hope any breatharian who applies for the MDC says they actually live on water and air, and sets up a protocol involving the drinking of water. But the no-water case is easier to explain, so I've run through that first in the hope it makes the with-water case easier to follow.
