Anybody else remember a story from the 80s about an Eastern mystic ( the Bhagwan ? ) who achieved worldwide notoriety claiming that he didn’t eat but it was revealed later that his assistants snuck him food?
I don’t know about the Bhagwan...as I recall he settled in Oregon and subsided on many things besides sunlight, including bevies of young women...
But I lived (briefly, thank God) in Boulder, Colorado during the early 80s, as you say, and at that time there was a group calling themselves The Breatharians, who supposedly were trying to live entirely “on the nutrients in the air.”
Even while I was still there the foolishness came to an abrupt end when one of the Bony Leader’s young followers found a secret refrigerator/freezer stashed with Snickers, popsicles and other decidely non-atmospheric foodstuffs...