What's the most limited diet a human thrive on

[DogsnKids]

I was chatting to a friend about our ASD DCs rigid diets and started musing about how few foods you could have and thrive. By which I mean get the necessary vitamins and minerals and protein.

I think you could do it on lentils. Am I wrong?

Any of these...
Eggs + orange juice
milk + ham
bangers & mash

Whats the difference between butter milk and full fat milk?

I have a close friend who never eats real food (or very rarely, maybe a meal out for a special occasion)
She only has this meal replacement shake, it’s called huel, it’s a bit like a protein shake, but it’s nutritionally complete, so has all of your recommended daily vitamins, minerals, carbs, fats fiber, etc.
she just has that for breakfast, lunch and dinner and never eats anything else.
She said she hates the hassle of thinking about what to eat, shopping, cooking and prepping meals, so she prefers to just have huel instead.
she’s been having in for a few years now (it was a good year or two pre pandemic when she started only having it so definitely a few years now.)

i have it for lunch sometime, it’s quite nice because there are lots of different flavour sachets that you can add to make it a bit different each time.

I’ve read onions. Probably wouldn’t have many friends, though.

jacket potato with baked beans, and a glass of milk to drink.

Because of my body I live on the same food everyday. Same for breakfast lunch and dinner. And it’s not mostly healthly food either. I know that this is. Or good for me but there is literally nothing I can do about it. I expect to die young of a heart attack I would imagine

It's fish and coconut milk I believe?

My nephew lived on sausages and Marmite sandwiches all his life until he was about 25. He is very healthy and I've never known him to be ill.

My sister went through a phase as a kid where the only thing she would eat was cheese and coleslaw sandwiches on white bread. Lasted months and the doctor said it wouldn’t do her any harm in the long run.

This is fascinating.

If you lived on potatoes and beans then you'd be doing the old green days of slimming world wouldn't you? Exdh and friends have done SW. I probably should try it.

I always thought you need a varied diet for good gut flora?

This thread has made me feel so much better about my DS with ASD's diet. He's pretty restricted in what he eats and it goes through phases (currently bagel with peanut butter or chicken for most meals). Most MN posts on kid's food make me feel incredibly guilty and like the most neglectful mother on earth!

There was a guy a couple of years ago who would only eat crisps and he went blind from vitamin deficiency

Guiness, milk and oranges?

Oen if my DC has arfid and weaning was a nightmare as he hated food from the get-go. By the time he was 18mo all he was eating was Ready Brek with milk, bananas, and cucumbers. GP and dietician said this was nutritionally fine, he was healthy, growing, and not deficient in anything. By the time was 2-3 we'd managed to expand things to include chicken dippers (safe food of choice ever since he first tried one but it must be Birds Eye, no subs) and around a dozen other foods.

I once read that potatoes are very nearly a perfect food - all that’s missing is some protein, which can be added with milk or cheese.

IIRC the same article said that mashed potato with milk was used to feed malnourished children in areas hit by famine or other catastrophes.

I love onions, I'd happily add them to the list, sauted in olive oil. That'd be a 5th food.

I will have
Avocados
Walnuts
Onions
Eggs
Olive Oil.

Feel like I could live on about ten things. If I added red pepper, salmon, courgette, potato and almond milk to that list, I could keep going for a long while without going too crazy.

When I break out.. it's because of wine or chocolate and you can't put them on your list.

10 healthy foods is not a limited diet though, not compared to the child who ate only chips!

I read that medics have to be incredibly careful with diet with people recovering from starvation - I'm thinking of the liberators at Dachau. I presume a very thin sweetened porridge?

catface don't feel guilty, I think if a child looks OK, they're very likely OK.

A friend of mine said to the gp in frustration look at my son, not the chart! He's not fat!

Any carb like rice, potatoes, pasta, bread with any protein like lentils, cheese beans, fish or meat plus any veg.

Many cultures have a rice and bean combination as the 2 form a complete protein

Quinoa, chia seeds, amaranth have all 9 amino acids so are a complete protein in themselves.

Nutritionally dense foods are nuts, seeds, red berries, dark leafy veg, seaweed, olive oil , garlic, coconuts, avocados, eggs, oily fish, pig fat bone broth.

Processed foods are not good for the gut biome and lead to adipose fat which can concentrate around the middle.

Miso, sauerkraut, natto, buttermilk, kefir and Greek yogurt are good for the gut biome as a poor gut biome has been linked to depression, anxiety, adhd and a whole host of disorders.

I'm not sure lentils would work on their own, because I don't think they have much if any vitamin C, so you'd get scurvy, but I think they're otherwise very healthy.

The need for fat and protein, especially obvious protein sources like meat and fish is probably vastly overstated, especially on Mumsnet, and like many PPs have said, potatoes are nutritionally very good for you.

There's a man in the US, who's eaten nothing but Big Macs for decades and he's not overweight and appears to be in better health than most US citizens.

This thread is reassuring, my ADHD DS with sensory issues only eats milk, lentils (only black), chips (only curly), meat (thin cut beef only) and un-toasted toast

Really interesting. A lot of people saying cereal, milk, potatoes. What about vitamins, green veg? Does that mean we don't need to eat our '5 a day', as they recommend?

Some say the 5 a day was a marketing thing.

Avocado, broccoli, leeks courgettes, onions, strawberries and berries would be all id eat veg fruit wise and maybe 2-4 a day. I dont know if im deficient in anything tho. Would l9ve to know

"Five a day" is a way of getting as wide a spread of vitamins, minerals, fibre, etc as possible so it can be a handy tool however there is more than one way to skin a cat, there is more than one way to get enough vitamins, mineral, and fibre.

As a low carber i may be low in b vitamins but whenever i try to research what to eat it gives me suggestions like oysters or iodine or something bizarre so i forget about it again.

At times though, i know i have been run down. Before i was low carb, so eating lots of bread and cereal but little else perhaps, i was gerring sores in the edg3s of my lips. No amount of blistex was helping. I got a steroid cream from gp. At the same time i was craving mushrooms 🍄 like never before.i did fry up a load of mushrooms every day for a week and finally my lips healed.
Of course it might have been that summer was coming.

I like the idea that our bodies are smart enough to crave what they need.