Yes, the nom is required. If he just goes close without saying nom then he will accidental trigger a chemical reaction and cause whatever he is trying to eat to cause a nuclear explosion. Said nuclear explosion will almost completely destroy wherever he is at the moment and slowly turn the rest of the world into a wasteland. During this 50 time period WWIII will break out as everyone will need to eliminate the competition so they can get supplies and survive. What they don't know though, is that WWIII will also involve tons of nukes thus speeding up the process and making it infinitely worse. The earth won't be able to sustain life any longer and whatever forces are still alive will have to work together and build a spaceship which will allow them to live until they find a new home. Since this is now the future they also now have mechs. While they're constructing this ship a being from another planet will arrive on Earth and warn them of an impending disaster. That's right, not only is the Earth a wasteland but two alien forces who both hate humans are going to war and they're making sure Earth is caught right in the middle. The alien will bring new technology with her which will allow us to finish the spaceships at 100x the rate as before. Since we will need to be able live on other planets we will also start a project that allows a few of said ships to store the conscious of the passengers in a computer and insert it into a robot body whenever needed. The war will finally come and only a few spaceships will actually make it out of the chaos. After years of drifting a certain ship will come across a planet similar to our own but very very different. The creatures will be familiar but unreal at the same time. The aliens will catch up to us but we will fight until the end and start humanity back up on this planet. We shall call this planet Mira.

(headcanons may or may not have been used here.)