# Wheat bran, soybeans, maize, and dandelion greens **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2018, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018 "2018-02-17T19:38:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/1 "2018-02-17T19:38:05Z")
How long could a healthy person subsist on such a diet? Months? Years? Their whole life? ---
**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 17, 2018, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/2 "2018-02-17T19:49:07Z")
Given that the person starts out healthy, and merely has to subsist, then they’ll do pretty well. Obviously they will subsist for the rest of their life on any diet, but this one is fairly well balanced. I’m not sure how well the lack of animal product and wheat germ will do with some nutrients like the B vitamins. ---
**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 17, 2018, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/3 "2018-02-17T20:57:13Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Given that the person starts out healthy, and merely has to subsist, then they’ll do pretty well. Obviously they will subsist for the rest of their life on any diet, but this one is fairly well balanced. I’m not sure how well the lack of animal product and wheat germ will do with some nutrients like the B vitamins. Actually, you would not do well on such a diet, since plant foods generally lack vitamin B12. (Wheat germ, but not wheat bran, may have some, but not a lot. Vegans normally have to take supplements to get enough B12.) A deficiency in B12 this will eventually lead to anemia and other health problems. However, since the body can store B12 it may take some years for a deficiency to manifest itself. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/4 "2018-02-17T21:42:48Z")
Any person, healthy or not, can subsist their whole life on any diet, or even without eating at all. It’s just a question of how long that life will be. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/5 "2018-02-18T00:15:49Z")
One other problem: A lot of the vitamins you’re getting are going to be coming from the dandelions, but those are seasonal, only at their best for about a month or two each year, and don’t preserve well. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/6 "2018-02-18T00:44:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One other problem: A lot of the vitamins you’re getting are going to be coming from the dandelions, but those are seasonal, only at their best for about a month or two each year, and don’t preserve well. Canned dandelion greens? ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/7 "2018-02-18T00:49:04Z")
Does that diet allow adding salt? As much as we tend to think of sodium as a thing to minimize because of ease of access, it’s an essential nutrient. If you don’t get enough it an kills you. A quick search shows corn and dandelion greens carrying a decent amount. Wheat bran and soybeans have minimal sodium. 58 mg per cup of white corn and 42mg per chopped cup of dandelion greens. Comparing to calorie counts, as long as you make sure you focus on getting enough corn and dandelions, it’s possible to keep enough salt to meet the 500mg daily recommended minimum without overeating. Where does the person eating that diet live? How much time outdoors do they spend? Are they non-white or elderly? Is a tanning bed considered an approved “dietary supplement” under that plan? I noticed something else looking at the information for those foods to find sodium. Not a single of those foods contains dietary vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency increases the rates of heart attacks and can make injuries more severe due to weaker bones. The bright side is that we make our own with exposure to enough UV B radiation. Getting that in northern climates where the winter sun is too low in the sky for effective UV B penetration can be difficult even for those who are as fish-belly white as the stereotype of my Irish ancestry suggests. Someone who’s darker skinned or older has bigger issues since they produce less for the same exposure. The vitamin is at least fat soluble. People can store it up for winter with enough exposure the rest of the year. There’s not really a dietary makeup plan if winter finds someone eating that diet using up their potentially smaller reserves. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/8 "2018-02-18T04:15:22Z")
I suppose in principle you could can dandelion greens, but I’ve no idea where you would find such a thing, unless you’re canning them yourself at home. And there’s often some loss of nutrients in canning. You could also in principle freeze them, but frozen greens of any sort usually end up pretty gross (still edible, but much less palatable). ---
**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, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/9 "2018-02-18T04:54:15Z")
The diet is highly dependent on the dandelion greens, so not really practical without a year round supply. There are other leafy greens that could substitute, but then there’s no obvious point to the restricted set of foods in the OP anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/10 "2018-02-18T13:02:38Z")
Yeah, I’m kind of wondering about the backstory, too. Why those particular foods? They’re all relatively cheap, and the combination of them is fairly close (not quite there, but close) to being nutritionally complete, but then, both could be said of a lot of other foods. Why not, say, rice, beans, cabbage, and milk (which would be both more complete, and easier to find)? ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/11 "2018-02-18T13:15:39Z")
Milk is not natural unless you’re a baby cow. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/12 "2018-02-18T13:25:07Z")
By that standard, no human food is natural. It’s a lot more natural for a cow to give us her milk than it is for a dandelion to give us its leaves: Cows have been bred for that, and it’s now part of their biology, but dandelions haven’t. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/13 "2018-02-18T13:27:47Z")
Don’t cows eat dandelions? 😉 Okay, I’m being obtuse. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/14 "2018-02-18T14:47:46Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The diet is highly dependent on the dandelion greens, so not really practical without a year round supply. There are other leafy greens that could substitute, but then there’s no obvious point to the restricted set of foods in the OP anyway. I feed dandelion greens to our tortoise as a part of his diet. I bought a beautiful bunch a few weeks ago. Indeed, I can buy them year round if I wish. Maybe they’re greenhouse grown? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/15 "2018-02-18T16:20:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I suppose in principle you could can dandelion greens, but I’ve no idea where you would find such a thing, unless you’re canning them yourself at home. And there’s often some loss of nutrients in canning. You could also in principle freeze them, but frozen greens of any sort usually end up pretty gross (still edible, but much less palatable). There actually is or was a brand of canned dandelion greens from Belle of Maine. I can’t tell if they’re still sold anymore, but have been around since the late 1800s. It looks like the last reference I can find to them being sold is from about a decade ago, but I didn’t look too hard. ---
**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, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/16 "2018-02-18T16:38:37Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I feed dandelion greens to our tortoise as a part of his diet. I bought a beautiful bunch a few weeks ago. Indeed, I can buy them year round if I wish. Maybe they’re greenhouse grown? It’s been over 20 years since I had an iguana to feed. We only found the dandelions in the spring time. I suppose they could be grown year round in hot houses or different climates if there’s enough demand. There are plenty of other leafy greens available, the diet in the OP really relies on those for vitamins, wheat bran is pretty empty, corn has limited nutrients and may be difficult to digest for some people, that leaves it up to the greens and soy beans to provide the majority of necessary nutrients. Replace the bran with whole wheat and the corn with some animal products and you’d have a much more well balanced diet. ETA: > [@pulykamell](#): > > There actually is or was a brand of canned dandelion greens from Belle of Maine. I can’t tell if they’re still sold anymore, but have been around since the late 1800s. It looks like the last reference I can find to them being sold is from about a decade ago, but I didn’t look too hard. Ugh, does not sound appetizing. But I suppose if the greens are farmed then they might as well be canned or frozen like other vegetables. ---
**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, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/17 "2018-02-18T16:52:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One other problem: A lot of the vitamins you’re getting are going to be coming from the dandelions, but those are seasonal, only at their best for about a month or two each year, and don’t preserve well. > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > Canned dandelion greens? My store sells fresh dandelion greens all year round. Although at times those “fresh” greens have probably been stored awhile. Myself, I freeze the ones I harvest myself. It preserves nutrients quite well. Given modern preservation methods their seasonality is not an obstacle to this plan. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/18 "2018-02-18T18:56:30Z")
The reason I ask is because I’d like to subsist on this diet for a few months, to train myself to eat simply and for sustenance rather than taste pleasure, and also save time and money on food. I think, as Tripolar said, it would be beneficial to consume whole wheat bread (“lean” whole wheat bread with nothing but flour, water, yeast, and salt) along with wheat bran. I do not consume any animal foods. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/19 "2018-02-18T18:56:52Z")
Huh, whenever I’ve bought dandelion greens (even in season), I’ve had to have them special-ordered. I’m jealous. EDIT: For a few months, that diet should be just fine. But dandelions wouldn’t be part of my “not for taste pleasure” diet. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018/20 "2018-02-18T18:58:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Huh, whenever I’ve bought dandelion greens (even in season), I’ve had to have them special-ordered. I’m jealous. You _buy_ dandelion greens? The damn things are literally everywhere in the spring and summer. I plan to start out doing it for only a few months but eventually permanently make it my diet. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheat-bran-soybeans-maize-and-dandelion-greens/809018.md?page=2)