What was the joke again…
“Humans can survive off a diet consisting of potatoes and butter, as demonstrated by a years long case study commonly known as Ireland”
Something along those lines.
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Think it's important to point out that they didn't do that by choice.
If you could only have one food, potatoes would be a good choice.
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Potato
I've often heard repeated that a human can live on water, potatoes, and salted butter basically indefinitely.
Not sure how true, but seems plausible.
"beriberi" is malnutrition: it means literally "i cannot".
You become .. not very able to do what you need to do, to survive, on this kind of diet, fairly quickly.
Before the 1840s, Irish farmers lived on.potatoes and milk, with the odd herring in winter when milk was harder to come by. Not a pleasant diet, and you're buggered if the potato harvest fails, but definitely doable.
Listen, taco bell has maybe 10-15 ingredients and has an infinite menu item…
- Rice
- Beans
end of list
You're missing a bunch of micro nutrients which would cause problems over time with this. It has all the calories and protein you need though.
Add in some fat from somewhere like cooking oil, and a handful of vegetables like onions, carrots, etc. and you'd last a fairly normal human lifespan.
Vegetables often contain oil, the problem is getting omega-3's, which our bodies can't make.
In the sea, it's algae who're producing it: then krill, then squid/fish/etc eat them..
some plants make it, some don't..
olives are good, olive-oil, etc..
but anybody who's eating squash is getting omega-6's or 9's, even though it seems non-intuitive.
B12?
--Edit--
And on closer look also (at least) fatty acids, calcium and iodine.
Any particular type of beans? Red? Black? Lentils?
Does the type of rice matter?
I’m intrigued by this possibility.
Does the type of rice matter?
Yes; make sure it's whole grain. White rice is essentially junk food, with most of its fiber, vitamins & minerals stripped in the de-hulling process.
Cool - thank you! That makes sense. I know there are so many types of rice, so I’ll do some research too.
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Does Soylent count as 1 item?
god I miss Soylent. Cooking/eating is a huge burden for me (depressed and lazy) so I drank the heck out of Soylent when I was in the US. Now in Japan the only thing close is Calorie Mate and it's not nearly as good/nutritious. :(
Not to be all “The safest way to ski is not to go skiing”, but throwing together a meal can be a way to exercise some agency during low days. Even if the food itself isn’t very healthy, the process can be good for you.
I’ll soak some beans overnight and be forced to boil them the next day. The steps are individually low effort and spaced apart (and you can cook beans with zero onions etc if you want) and at the end you can find yourself sitting in front of a hot bowl of good ass beans and feel hey that was good for me.
Hell, beans out of a can and tomato out of a can over rice out of a pouch can feel like you at least did something, you know? Delivery is relatively cheap where I live and getting into a cycle of being dependent on mass produced food really didn’t help me feel like I had a lot of control over what was happening in my life.
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I know this is Lemmy and all, but, uh, beans.
Egg-bread & scrambled-eggs ( with a multivitamin every other day ) can get you FAR, ultra-cheap ( if you ever need to get through a month on nearly-nothing ).
( obviously this isn't long-term, this is short-term-survival stuff )
add-in carrots, if you can.
A bit of broccoli makes a BIG difference in one's health.
Do what you can to get some omega-3's into you: our bodies can't make them, & if our bodies have to make omega-6's & omega-9's, apparently they just run mitochondria backwards, to do it.
Even a tablespoon of olive-oil / day will help your body keep functioning.
Eggs and potatoes?
For real, steak.
Its the ultimate elimination diet
Beef is very nutrient dense and contains all the nutrients a human needs
The carnivore diet is a thing, and it is just: beef, water and salt.
Most people who do this, do branch out after a while and add eggs, fish, liver etc
I'd be worried about purines. A diet of pure steak would likely lead to an insane case of gout, which is a buildup of uric acid crystals in your joints... which ranks pretty high on the list of excruciatingly painful things you can be diagnosed with.
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As long as you're okay with being the least climate-friendly and probably having cancer by the age of 50. People need fibre.
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I read once that a person could survive indefinitely on potatoes and milk.
I don't have the expertise to answer the question, but I'm sad that so many answers here are jokes, or five word answers that aren't at all helpful :-(
Was really interested in this and hoped there'd be some knowledgeable people out there to educate us on this stuff!
Potatoes, butter, salt, molybdenum.
oatmeal, rice, beans, tomatoes, spices, broccoli. each of those foods is truly non-negotiable for me and without one life is not worth living. thanks.
Alls I know is it isn’t ichiban noodles. I ate those for 3 straight weeks and almost lost my nails and hair.
Nutrition is really important yo. Eat your veggies and balance your fibre and protein.
Gasoline has all the calories you need to survive for the rest of your life.
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With enough body fat, sprinkle in a bit of electrolyte and maybe vitamins and that's all you need.
I remember reading of a supervised case like that, many months of not a year. I couldn't find it with a quick search.
I pretty much live off energy drinks and rice rn.
My dude, do you need some easy recipes? That can't be good for your mental health.
Buy dried legumes to get proper protein. Both cereals and legumes have protein, but not the full set of essential amino acids. However they complement each other in this regard, hence people living their entire life on rice, beans, and some fish.
I'd also advise looking into cheapest vegetables and making a salad out of them. Where I am, it's potato, carrots, and beets — coincidentally the ingredients for a traditional salad. They can be cheaper than rice.
I love food way too much it's probably like 15 to 20.
spoiler
- soya milk
- one type of cereal
- lets count uncooked eggs as 1 food type because i get to process them into any type i want
- dairy free butter
- olive oil
- rapeseed oil
- salt
- pepper
- pork ham
- chicken
- onions
- peas
- spinach
- sweet potatoes
- normal potatoes (i can now fabricate various flavours of crisps, yippee!)
- sultanas
- bananas
- tea OR coffee! Toss-up between the two.
- carrots
- wheat flour
- rice
- tomatoes
- pasta (some limit to what I'm willing to make myself)
- sourdough bread
- soya yoghurt
- apples
- oranges
- strawberries 28... i'm gonna stop listing stuff before I sound like a fat ass
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