# What single dead plant or animal could you live on exclusively the longest? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114 "2005-03-18T04:28:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/1 "2005-03-18T04:28:42Z")
You have to pick single plant or animal to live off of for the remainder of your life. What would be the best choice in terms of health and longevity? Your selection will be delivered to you fresh but dead every time you need it. You can only eat the tissues that are an integral part of that plant or animal. Stomach contents or parasites living on it do not count. You animal get this and water to live of of. What is the best choice? ---
**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:** [March 18, 2005, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/2 "2005-03-18T04:30:52Z")
Humans. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/3 "2005-03-18T04:36:19Z")
Cannabis? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/4 "2005-03-18T04:43:49Z")
Well, any\*\* one\*\* thing you pick is going to be lacking some vital amino acid. If I was trying to prolong my life as long as possible with one food, I would pick the potato. It has just about everything I would need. I would eventually succumb to malnutrition, but the potato would keep me going the longest. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/5 "2005-03-18T05:19:15Z")
I’d think any **one** thing wouldn’t last very long. A single potato would hardly last a day. I would have to go with something much bigger, like a blue whale. One of those would last a _long_ time. D ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/6 "2005-03-18T05:24:53Z")
> [@Dahnlor](#): > > I’d think any **one** thing wouldn’t last very long. A single potato would hardly last a day. I would have to go with something much bigger, like a blue whale. One of those would last a _long_ time. > D If I understand the OP correctly, you get unlimited quantities of whatever it is, but can only pick one thing. I believe the proper answer is the peanut. It contains the overwhelming majority of the nutrients essential for life, in a very rough approximation of the quantities needed to sustain life. It’s by no means perfect – you will definitely eventually develop a Vitamin C deficiency, and also B-12 – but it comes the closest to being the single ideal foodstuff. (You will, however, have to consume something, perhaps some other part of the peanut plant, for bulk, to assure proper colon function.) ---
**Author:** ![MaceMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@MaceMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaceMan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/7 "2005-03-18T05:27:13Z")
I don’t know what you were trying to say in your sentence above: “You animal get this and water to live of of.” Can I choose a genetically-engineered plant? ---
**Author:** ![picker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/picker/32/13969_2.png) [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/8 "2005-03-18T05:33:39Z")
I think I’d go with soybeans. It has an awful lot of protein, and I’d imagine some other stuff that’s important. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/9 "2005-03-18T06:00:03Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > If I understand the OP correctly, you get unlimited quantities of whatever it is, but can only pick one thing. I should’ve included a smiley, I thought I was making a funny. The thread title seemed to suggest just one of something, though. You see, if you had a “single dead” something, it would only last so long and you’d eventually consume it all and starve, regardless of how healthy it was. I was racking my brain to think of a really, really big dead plant or animal. I’d figure a dead whale would last long enough for me to die of something other than starvation before it’s gone. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gorgonzola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e480ec/32.png) [@Gorgonzola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgonzola)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/10 "2005-03-18T06:02:04Z")
Shramp. Because if you have shramp you can make barbecue shramp, shramp creole, shramp cocktail, shramp gumbo… ---
**Author:** ![Roches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc8723/32.png) [@Roches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roches)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/11 "2005-03-18T06:03:45Z")
Any source of plant protein will be critically deficient in at least one amino acid, so you’ll eventually develop some kind of protein deficiency if you live exclusively off that one plant. Plants will also be almost certainly deficient in at least some vitamins and minerals. The more closely the biochemistry of your food source resembles your own, the more viable that food source is as an exclusive one. (I mean this broadly; let’s exclude primates, including humans, as a possibility because there are medical as well as deep ethical issues with that.) Any mammal should be close enough; you could pick one you know is tasty, like cows, or one that’s really big, like an elephants or blue whales, to reduce the frequency of shipments. You’ll get protein with roughly the same amino acid profile that your proteins require; you’ll get all the vitamins and minerals that mammals need. There are a few ways that primates differ biochemically from other mammals, but they shouldn’t pose a major problem. (An example: most mammals can synthesize vitamin C.) Some human populations have survived for long periods of time with a very limited variety of food sources; the Inuit/Eskimo are probably the most familiar to North Americans. ---
**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:** [March 18, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/12 "2005-03-18T14:35:15Z")
> [@Roches](#): > > The more closely the biochemistry of your food source resembles your own, the more viable that food source is as an exclusive one. Hence my answer above. > [@](#): > > (I mean this broadly; let’s exclude primates, including humans, as a possibility because there are medical as well as deep ethical issues with that.) Heck, if you’re going to drag in ethical considerations, you’ll take all the fun out of it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/13 "2005-03-18T14:40:09Z")
Human breast milk. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-single-dead-plant-or-animal-could-you-live-on-exclusively-the-longest/295114/14 "2005-03-18T15:19:51Z")
> [@Roches](#): > > Some human populations have survived for long periods of time with a very limited variety of food sources; the Inuit/Eskimo are probably the most familiar to North Americans. Yep. Which makes me think raw whale meat may be the way to go in response to the OP. (Yum!) [Support from The Master.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010119.html)