The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.

The truth about the mono diet: is it possible to survive by eating one product

'18.10.2020'

Source: with the BBC

We are constantly told about the benefits of dietary diversity. But if we still had to survive, eating only one product, which of them would help us to survive the longest - they say with the BBC.

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Do not live by bread alone - these winged words can be understood literally, because just a month after the beginning of this experiment (to eat only bread) you will certainly scurvy.

The best diet - is one that includes all the different products that you do not have to even think about whether you are getting all the necessary minerals, vitamin C and iron to linoleic acid.

Even the new-fangled diet, suggesting the use of a few products, or complete exclusion from the diet of a particular food is usually quite varied in order to provide the body with all necessary.

However, imagine a situation (completely improbable) in which we would have to survive, eating only one product.

We would probably want to know which food is more nutritious, and whether, for example, it is possible to get all the nutrients only from potatoes, only bananas, or only from avocados. Only one thing is known for sure: meat, as well as most fruits and vegetables, will not work for this role.

The meat is no fiber, no essential vitamins and minerals.

Fruits and vegetables, on the one hand, rich in vitamins, but here's the problem - it contains very little fat and protein, so even if they are in large numbers, we do not get enough of these nutrients.

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In fact, in order to survive, we do not need so much. But this does not mean that we can safely give up all in a row.

Arctic researcher Viljalmur Stefansson wrote that among the peoples of Northern Canada such a phenomenon as "rabbit hunger" is widespread. This means that those who eat only very lean meat, including rabbit meat, “have diarrhea within a week, accompanied by headaches, weakness, and general ill health.”

Stefansson says that to avoid death from malnutrition, these people can only in the event that will include in your diet fatty foods.

In the book Dzhona Krakauera "Towards the wild" (Into the Wild) suggests that the rabbit is a famine could cause the sad fate of the American traveler Chris McCandless, bringing him to death.

It is believed that if a person gets only a protein with a minor amount of fats and carbohydrates, his liver simply can not cope with an excess of protein.

Nutritionist Dzhenni Dzhekson of Glasgow Caledonian University, said that compared with the meat and most other vegetables potatoes in a similar situation - not a bad option as it may seem.

Last year, she wrote an article about Australian Andrew Taylor, who for a year eating only potatoes to lose weight and get used to a healthy lifestyle. His experiment was widely covered in the media.

According to Jackson, many other starchy foods potato is unusually high in protein and, as a consequence, a variety of amino acids.

However, for someone with the same weight as Taylor's, even 3 kg of potatoes a day will not be enough to get the recommended amount of protein. Moreover, potatoes are low in fat. Despite the fact that Taylor also ate sweet potatoes, which are rich in vitamins A and E, iron and calcium, Jackson notes that he still lacked B vitamins, zinc and other trace elements. Nevertheless, Taylor managed to live this year without much loss and even noticeably lose weight.

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It is worth noting that potatoes are often the subject of discussion when it comes to nutrition.

A few years ago a reader of the newspaper Chicago Reader asked the advice of the author headings with the question of whether we can survive eating only milk and potatoes.

He referred to the fact that before the "potato famine" Irish people of this country lived virtually on one potato.

Journalist Cecil Adams, who at the time led this column, said that together with his assistant made the calculations and found that the potatoes and milk in large quantities are able to provide the body with almost all the necessary nutrients, except for molybdenum.

To compensate for the lack of the latter, enough to eat some oatmeal.

Jackson laughs, hearing it. "So in fact it is our diet - the diet of the Scots. That's how we ate about a hundred years ago. Potatoes, milk and oatmeal, plus a little cabbage ", - she says.

However, adhere to a strict mono-diet is harmful not only because of lack of nutrients.

Our bodies are designed to avoid such situations (perhaps because it ultimately leads to malnutrition and wasting). To do this, there is such a mechanism as sensory-specific satiety: the more you eat a certain food, the worse your body perceives it. But at the same time, he will not mind something new.

"I call it the" pudding effect ", - says Jackson. - For example, you tightly dinner and more can not swallow a bite. Then someone brings pudding, and you appetite it pounces. "

There is a danger that, day after day, eating the same product, at some point you will not be able to use it in an amount sufficient to survive.

Just imagine that you have to eat three kilos of avocado per day.

Moreover, the assumption that the stick instead of mono varied diet can be a healthy way - provided intake of all the vitamins and minerals, as well as a sufficient number of calories - only seems logical.

Recall, by what methods developed by modern science of nutrition. At the beginning of the XX century, scientists were excluded from the diet of rats certain nutrients and ensures that, from what they can get sick or die.

For example, this is how we learned about the existence of vitamins. Similar experiments are able to show, without which the rats die, at least in the short term.

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However, Jackson believes that c by such experiments is not possible to identify some of the benefits of a varied diet, which manifest themselves over a long period of time.

In addition, we must not forget that people are still different from the rats.

After analyzing the existing epidemiological data, the researchers concluded that the more different vegetables we eat, the better. But why this is so, it is still unclear.

For example, it is likely that people who do not eat green vegetables, for whatever reason, are more susceptible to cancer diseases.

“We do not know for sure what the consequences of the use of this or that product can lead,” says Jackson. "We can figure out how many essential nutrients we need, but miss out on something important that we don't even know about."

Curtailing their diet to just one ingredient, you can save time and effort, but it is the shortest way to get sick ... or just bored.

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