The demands of continuous existence.

Here's a question for economists out there.

Would economics examples be significantly different if we start off understanding that people have a continuous demand for consumables such as food with no elasticity as we approach starvation?  Do assumptions such as maximization and rationality still work the same way?  What else changes?  Does this cause discontinuities in models?  This is a very important question for the 99% in many countries, and for close to 40% in the USA.

I don't know: I'm not an economist.  If you don't have some sort of formal economics credentials, but insist on answering, please explain why you are qualified to answer.