What happens if you only eat bread for a day?

Eating only one type of carbohydrate — just bread or pasta, for example — also causes organ failure, due to amino acid deficiency. On top of that, you'd get scurvy, a horrific disease brought on by lack of vitamin C, an essential component of many of the body's chemical reactions.

livescience.com - What If You Ate Only One Type of Food? - Live Science

What happens if you put a sandwich in the air fryer?

The way the air fryer circulates heat will give the bread a crispy finish on the outside, with a gooey, hot filling. This is a great option (in our...

Last updated Aug 26, 2021

What squash is good for weight loss?

Butternut squash Butternut squash is low in calories and packed with fiber — making it a great choice for any healthy weight loss plan. Jan 17, 2019

Last updated Mar 20, 2019

Promotion

In this weekly series, Life's Little Mysteries provides expert answers to challenging questions.

A British teenager collapsed and was rushed to the hospital this week after eating primarily chicken nuggets for the past 15 years. Stacey Irvine, 17, has reportedly survived on her nugget-heavy diet, occasionally supplemented by a bag of chips or piece of toast, since she was a toddler. Doctors have urgerd her to change her ways, but Irvine's case got us wondering: what would actually happen if you ate only one type of food for your entire life?

Depends on the poison you pick, but poison it most likely would be. According to Jo Ann Hattner, a nutrition consultant at Stanford University School of Medicine and former national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, choosing to eat only one fruit, vegetable or grain would lead to organ failure. Consuming only meat would eventually force your body to start munching on your own muscles. And if you stuck solely to almost any one food (besides fruit), you would develop a serious case of scurvy. "I wouldn't recommend this experiment," said Hattner, who also wrote "Gut Insight" (Hattner Nutrition, 2009), a book about digestive health. No single vegetable or legume has all nine essential amino acids humans need to build the proteins that make up our muscles, Hattner said. That's why most human cultures, without knowing anything about food chemistry, have developed diets centered on complementary veggies that, together, provide all nine. At first, without all the right amino acids, your hair starts to lighten in color and your fingernails get soft. Much worse, "your lean body mass suffers. That doesn't just mean your muscles, but also your heart and your organs." Eventually, your heart shrinks so much you die; this happens, on occasion, with extreme cases of anorexia nervosa. Eating only one type of carbohydrate — just bread or pasta, for example — also causes organ failure, due to amino acid deficiency. On top of that, you'd get scurvy, a horrific disease brought on by lack of vitamin C, an essential component of many of the body's chemical reactions. Thanks to highly unethical experiments carried out on prison inmates in Britain and the United States in the 1940s, we know that scurvy hits after one to eight months of vitamin C deprivation (depending on the quantity one's body has stored to begin with). At first, you feel lethargic and your bones ache. Later, strange spots pop up all over your body and develop into suppurating wounds. You get jaundice, fever, tooth loss and, eventually, you die. [Why Don't Fad Diets Work?]

Life as a "meat purist" would also be a dead-end.

Does your nose get smaller when you lose weight?

Does your nose get smaller when you lose weight? It does not. You will not be getting a dramatic change in the appearance of your nose after losing...

Last updated Feb 13, 2019

What does freezing bread do to carbs?

Because just like cooking and cooling, freezing also turns starch into resistant starch. Amazingly, this means that your body gets far fewer...

Last updated Feb 19, 2018

Promotion

In addition to lacking vitamin C, most meats contain very few carbs — the easy-to-access packets of energy your body constantly requires to perform even the smallest tasks. "Without carbohydrates, you're going to start to break down some of your muscle mass to get the energy," Hattner said. Again, "muscle" doesn't just mean your biceps. You'll be eating your own heart, too. However, there is one food that has it all: the one that keeps babies alive. "The only food that provides all the nutrients that humans need is human milk," Hattner said. "Mother's milk is a complete food. We may add some solid foods to an infant's diet in the first year of life to provide more iron and other nutrients, but there is a little bit of everything in human milk." Technically, adults could survive on human milk, too, she said; the sticking point would be finding a woman who is willing to provide it (and enough of it). Lacking that option, the second-best choice would be mammalian milk, especially if it is fermented. "Yogurt, which is fermented milk, has a lot of bacteria that is good for the digestive tract," Hattner said. These hypothetical scenarios aren't just whimsical speculation. In many parts of the world, people have no choice but to eat mostly one food: often, rice. Scientists are developing genetically modified rice that contains more vitamins and nutrients, especially vitamin A, in order to fight malnutrition. Figuring out how to pack everything we need into one food is also useful for space travel, Hattner said. "The impetus of a lot of nutritional science is, 'How do we feed people in space?' Scientists are trying to increase the nutritional concentration of food so you don't have a lot of bulk." Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

livescience.com - What If You Ate Only One Type of Food? - Live Science

Is there energy in cremated ashes?

The truth is, there is an essence of your loved one that lingers with the cremation ashes. While it may not be a consciousness, it is a little of...

Last updated Oct 29, 2021

What is the healthiest salad item?

Here are 13 of the healthiest leafy green vegetables to include in your diet. Kale. Share on Pinterest. ... Microgreens. Microgreens are immature...

Last updated Jan 4, 2022

Promotion

How long can you stay on keto?

While some people have success staying on keto for an extended period of time, “the long-term research is limited,” says Jill Keene, RDN, in White...

Last updated Dec 13, 2019

Promotion

Do you cook shrimp with butter or oil?

Use neutral oil to lightly grease the grill grates. Cook the shrimp for 2 to 3 minutes per side, until opaque. Transfer to a serving dish. Finish...

Last updated Aug 15, 2021