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Can You Survive Only On Potatoes
You can survive only on potatoes. White potatoes have all the amino acids and carbs your body needs to perform daily tasks. You need 5 potatoes a day to survive. But if this continues, soon you’ll develop vitamin and minerals deficiency.
Public campaigns and films have repeatedly popularised the idea that the potato could be a universal human livelihood. Still, health experts are divided over the potential impact of “survival” on just one food.
Nutritionists are far from convinced that eating potatoes is a wise lifestyle. The bottom line is that you won’t live long if you rely solely on potatoes for food.
The best way to consume potatoes
For this reason, I would recommend eating potatoes for only a few months and constantly looking for ways to supplement your diet. Also, while you can eat only potatoes for months or years, even in a survival situation, you are unlikely to be forced to eat only potatoes, allowing you to get the remaining nutrients from other sources. You will be deficient in vitamins A, B12, E, calcium, and selenium if you only keep potatoes.
| Type of Potato | Benefits |
| White Potato | Lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease |
| Russet Potato | Rich in nutritional value |
| Purple Potato | Help in lowering blood pressure |
You will have vitamin and mineral deficiencies if you only eat white potatoes. You must consume at least 34 sweet potatoes or 84 white potatoes per day to prevent calcium deficiency. You must eat 25 white potatoes a day to get the recommended amount of protein.
Surprisingly, potatoes can provide a complete protein if you eat enough, more than 10 a day. Since each potato contains about 100 calories, an adult male can get enough calories from about 20 potatoes per day. Eating around 3kg of potatoes daily will provide more than 2,000 calories, a reasonable amount for an Aussie trying to lose weight like Andrew Taylor.
In an effort to lose weight and improve his relationship with food, Andrew Taylor decided to eat only potatoes for a year. Just over a month after he started the same diet, Australian Andrew Taylor posted a photo of half-eaten mashed potatoes on his plate on Facebook. Just 20 potatoes a day to meet Voigt’s calorie needs from October 1st to November 29th.
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Six years after Chris Voigt’s efforts, Australian Andrew Taylor also made headlines when the Aussie announced he had lost 114 pounds after eating about 8 or 9 pounds of potatoes a day after a year of dieting.
Today, Andrew Flinders Taylor is no longer just eating potatoes; his experiments have helped him become healthier, he said. This is the lesson pointed out by Andrew Flinders Taylor in a December 2016 Youtube video where he details how he ate potatoes every day at every meal for nearly a year.
He ate his Chris Voigt wanted to show the world that potatoes are so healthy that you can live with them for a long time without any adverse health effects. Voigt told LiveScience that he first consulted with a doctor and nutritionist to confirm he could go 60 days eating nothing but potatoes.
Following his experiment may not hurt you in the short term, but if you look at the big picture, eating nothing but potatoes means you are consuming very little fat and protein, explains obesity expert Spencer Nadolsky, which can be harmful for long periods of time and may even put you at risk of deficiency.
Also, because potatoes aren’t a great source of protein—only 4 grams per medium-sized potato, according to the USDA—inadequate nutrient intake can aggravate your muscles, says obesity expert Spencer Nadolsky.
Potatoes’ minimal fat will eventually make it difficult to absorb other vitamins such as D, E, and K. Although potatoes contain protein and zinc, they will barely be enough, so recovery from injuries can take longer.
For example, if you are an active male between the ages of 19 and 30, of average height and weight, a gallon of milk and eight pounds of potatoes would provide the RDA for most nutrients while being deficient in iron, folate, and frontal niacin. Moreover, they do not contain large amounts of vitamin E and are entirely free of molybdenum. You also need to supplement the nutrients that potatoes lack, such as vitamin A, for normal vision, or blindly skip this diet. If you include sweet and white potatoes in your diet, your vitamin C and E needs will be met.
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Sweet potatoes also have a much lower glycemic index than white potatoes, meaning that even carb-sensitive people can include them in their diet. Sweet potatoes increase the likelihood that a consumer will receive a daily vitamin A dose.
Potatoes are a decent food for the hungry, and they also contain many micronutrients in moderate amounts without being packed into them. Thanks to Australian Andrew Taylor’s determination to stick to a single-food diet, potatoes may be as good as any other food because they contain more amino acids, vitamins, and minerals than other starchy foods such as pasta or rice. Honestly, potatoes have a lot of health benefits when cooked properly.
Potatoes can completely complement a healthy diet that can help you lose weight, but eating just french fries is unnecessarily restrictive, says obesity specialist Spencer Nadolsky. In conclusion, while the potato oil diet may help you survive, it cannot guarantee optimal health.
Eating only potatoes and butter in sufficient quantities could keep a person alive for an indefinite period of time till people can live indefinitely on a diet of nothing but potatoes and butter. When the Great Famine hit, the peasants ate practically nothing but potatoes, supplemented with salted fish and oatmeal.
What are the side effects of eating too many potatoes?
Eating processed potatoes in excess may lead to weight gain and other side effects such as bloating or stomach cramps. If consumed in recipes such as soup, with other ingredients such as rice, or consumed along with sweet and white potatoes, you can maintain a healthy diet by making up for missing nutrients.
Is it dangerous to eat raw potatoes?
Raw potatoes contain small amounts of toxic enzymes, but these levels in potatoes are not particularly dangerous. Green potatoes or sprouted potatoes have much higher levels of these enzymes and should be avoided. Nutrients in a potato are inactive unless it is cooked. The indigestibility of raw potatoes can also cause abdominal pain.
How many potatoes do you need to survive?
If you consume five potatoes in a day, it will give you all the necessary amino acids you require to repair cells, build proteins, and fight diseases.