# Tthe minimum number of foods to remain healthy. Name them. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 18, 2018, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045 "2018-02-18T13:52:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Steven\_Estes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Steven\_Estes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Estes)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/1 "2018-02-18T13:52:43Z")
What is the minimum number of foods that a person could be limited to and remain as healthy as the average American. Name the foods. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/2 "2018-02-18T14:24:03Z")
You can live off of just rice and beans just fine for an indeterminate amount of time. You may have to throw in some fruits and vegetables every now and then to stave off scurvy but the rice and beans will do most of the work. That is the staple dish of Costa Rica for all meals and they have one of the highest life expectancies in the world for the areas that subsist on it. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/3 "2018-02-18T16:45:44Z")
So you’re suggesting the list is rice, beans, and…? Because there has to be that “and”, otherwise over the long term you get vitamin deficiencies and such. Another list would start “potatoes and…” There are probably several short lists that would work. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/4 "2018-02-18T17:03:31Z")
They make Primate Chow biscuits, on which I suspect you could survive for quite a while. So, one food? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/5 "2018-02-18T17:16:33Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > You can live off of just rice and beans just fine for an indeterminate amount of time. Don’t you also need milk for calcium and a bit of meat for vitamin B12? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/6 "2018-02-18T17:17:41Z")
I believe that you can very nearly live on a diet of solely avocados (and water of course). And the missing micronutrients are found in the seeds, although it’s not advisable to eat the seeds for other reasons. This is from memory and not sure if it is right though, trying to find a proper cite. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/7 "2018-02-18T17:22:59Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So you’re suggesting the list is rice, beans, and…? Because there has to be that “and”, otherwise over the long term you get vitamin deficiencies and such. > > Another list would start “potatoes and…” > > There are probably several short lists that would work. Just brown rice and black beans while keep you alive for a very long time even if you eat nothing but that. Throw in an few miscellaneous vegetables and squirt some citrus fruit juice on it from time to time and you are good to go. Americans make nutrition way more complicated than it needs to be. There are various ways of achieving the same result because we can process almost anything edible but it isn’t that hard. Rice and beans plus whatever else you want to throw in there with them will not cause vitamin deficiencies and will lead to a proven higher life expectancy. Seriously, go the areas of Japan or Costa Rica where the life expectancies are abnormally high. They eat completely different types of food but the one thing they have in common is that their food is fresh, unprocessed and really basic. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/8 "2018-02-18T17:26:36Z")
I’ve wondered if you would be missing anything if you only drank smoothies made from the entire bodies of people with a good diet. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/9 "2018-02-18T17:29:07Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I believe that you can very nearly live on a diet of solely avocados (and water of course). And the missing micronutrients are found in the seeds, although it’s not advisable to eat the seeds for other reasons. > > This is from memory and not sure if it is right though, trying to find a proper cite. You can very nearly live on a diet of solely potatoes as well, not to mention a lot of foods if your goal is only to ‘very nearly live’ as opposed to ‘live’. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/10 "2018-02-18T17:29:39Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > I’ve wondered if you would be missing anything if you only drank smoothies made from the entire bodies of people with a good diet. The supply chain is the problem in this case. Some people just don’t aspire to be smoothies. Except that one drug dealer in Maine. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/11 "2018-02-18T17:33:00Z")
> [@Steven\_Estes](#): > > What is the minimum number of foods that a person could be limited to and remain as healthy as the average American. > Name the foods. As suggested, there is no definitive list. Since the possible answers to this are almost infinite, let’s move this to IMHO. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/12 "2018-02-18T17:38:36Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Don’t you also need milk for calcium and a bit of meat for vitamin B12? You don’t have to have meat to get [B12](https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/nutrients/vitamin-b12/what-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12) and you don’t have to consume milk to get [calcium](https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/nutrients/calcium). The latter should be obvious, because there are lots of lactose intolerant people who don’t consume dairy products, yet don’t suffer from lack of calcium. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/13 "2018-02-18T17:38:43Z")
I saw a show a while back about how certain foods allowed some primitive cultures to flourish because they were so nutritious. From memory, one of the foods was corn tortillas, since the limestone they used to grind up the corn interacted with the corn itself to create essential vitamins. Another food was tofu, for a similar reason that the processing of beans into tofu created essential vitamins. So maybe add corn tortillas to the rice and beans. Or tofu. Maybe it needs to be clarified what you consider ‘a food’. There are meal replacement smoothies that could be considered a single food, but it’s made up of lots of other stuff blended together (as are many foods we eat). So do you mean food that is in it’s basic state with a minimum of processing (like beans)? Or something that we see as a single unit, but is actually made by combining a lot of different ingredients (like smoothies)? ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/14 "2018-02-19T02:34:52Z")
Hold on there **filmore** , are you talking about “American” tofu or actual tofu made the way great great gramma made it back in China? Because one I wouldn’t feed to my worst enemy, the other really is healthy food, or so I’ve been told. (hint, the good one isn’t made in a sterile stainless steel vat) Also, have you ever ground any kind of grain with a stone mill and then eaten the results? I for one have and am glad that mills don’t have to be actual stone anymore. Beans, brown rice, some fruits maybe some greens and a tiny bit of meat for flavor (is it really living if you look upon eating as a mere chore, not something to be enjoyed?) ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/15 "2018-02-19T02:54:37Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > You don’t have to have meat to get [B12](https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/nutrients/vitamin-b12/what-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12) and you don’t have to consume milk to get [calcium](https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/nutrients/calcium). The latter should be obvious, because there are lots of lactose intolerant people who don’t consume dairy products, yet don’t suffer from lack of calcium. That 1st link says vegans can get B12 by eating … foods that are artificially supplemented with B12, and/or by consuming separate B12 supplements. Does either process involve a source that doesn’t originate in animal products? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/16 "2018-02-19T03:02:07Z")
Cecil says that milk, potatoes, and oatmeal would suffice: > **[Could I survive on nothing but potatoes and milk?](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2828/could-i-survive-on-nothing-but-potatoes-and-milk/)** ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/17 "2018-02-19T03:06:38Z")
Besides, scotch, what else do you need? ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/18 "2018-02-19T03:34:33Z")
How do the “ **three sisters** ” of the Eastern (Ithink) native Americans do: beans, squash, and corn? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/19 "2018-02-19T03:48:22Z")
> [@MonkeyMensch](#): > > How do the “ **three sisters** ” of the Eastern (Ithink) native Americans do: beans, squash, and corn? Pretty good, but again, they lack B12. But of course, Native Americans were certainly not vegan. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045/20 "2018-02-19T04:14:13Z")
> [@Steven\_Estes](#): > > …remain as healthy as the average American. That’s a pretty low bar… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tthe-minimum-number-of-foods-to-remain-healthy-name-them/809045.md?page=2)