The whole package, baby.

Hi! Out of boredom and curiosity, I'm wondering what the most complete food in the world is? A quick search indicates hemp seed. Now, I know no one food can possibly be "complete" or all encompassing, but if there was one that came close would this be it?

Any experts in the house?

The food that makes my heart complete is bean and cheese burritos.

I know that's not what you were asking.. I just really love burritos =/ addiction anyone?

I reckon peas... like the frozen petits pois, are pretty complete! They have starch, fibre, protein, although not much fat actually, but they have loads of vit C, iron and calcium. I reckon you could live off em for a while without suffering much!

Lentils and Chickpeas, imo.

Both so much can be done with as far as seasonings, chickpeas especially.

On a processed note, cereal now have so many vitamin and minerals added, and you can find them with high fiber, low sugar, low/no fat.

Lentils and nuts.  They're the whole package, baby.

And the fat in nuts is the good kind.

I suppose hemp seeds have pretty much the same composition.

Oatmeal would have to be up there too, no?

There's a great passage in Michael Pollan's 'In Defence of Food' book (which is getting some good reviews here) that you might find interesting.

"A few years ago, Rozin (University of Pennsylvania) presented a group of Americans with the following scenario: "Assume you are alone on a desert island for one year and you can have water and one other food.  Pick the food that you think would be best for your heath"

The choices were corn, alfalfa sprouts, hot dogs, spinach, peaches, bananas and milk chocolate.  The most popular choice was bananas (42%), followed by spinach (27%), corn (12%), alfalfa sprouts (7%), peaches (5%), hot dogs (4%) and milk chocolate (3%).

Only 7% of the participants chose one of the two foods that would in fact best support survival: hot dogs and milk chocolate

LOL!

gi-jane:

 

Only 7% of the participants chose one of the two foods that would in fact best support survival: hot dogs and milk chocolate

LOL!

 Did they say why hot dogs and milk chocolate would be best? I mean I suppose the hot dogs have protein and fat and if they have a bun, carbs. And if you were deserted on a desert island you would more than likely need to build up some weight for survival, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of nutrients. I'm just curious as to why? 

I guess it's because a healthy person would die of starvation long before they died of malnutrition so to survive as long as possible the energy and fat are important, not a lot of that in alfalfa sprouts!

Milk is the nearest to a complete meal. All it lacks is iron (according to the tutor I had when I was studying for a dietetics degree).

Original Post by meganwilliams2:

 Did they say why hot dogs and milk chocolate would be best? I mean I suppose the hot dogs have protein and fat and if they have a bun, carbs. And if you were deserted on a desert island you would more than likely need to build up some weight for survival, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of nutrients. I'm just curious as to why? 

Vwiggins is right.  The chocolate and hot-dogs provided plenty of calories chiefly because of the fat content.  And that's what's would keep you alive for longest even if you looked a bit peaky by the end of the year.  The other foods were either low in fat or low in energy ... you'd need to eat several hundredweight of alfalfa sprouts to get enough cals to survive. The point of experiment was to show how irrationally 'fat averse' American society has become....

And, in a conversation about 'complete' foods I think there should be a tacit warning that were someone to eat a diet exclusively comprised of hemp seeds or whatever, that wouldn't necessarily make it a 'complete' diet.

Original Post by gi-jane:

There's a great passage in Michael Pollan's 'In Defence of Food' book (which is getting some good reviews here) that you might find interesting.

"A few years ago, Rozin (University of Pennsylvania) presented a group of Americans with the following scenario: "Assume you are alone on a desert island for one year and you can have water and one other food.  Pick the food that you think would be best for your heath"

The choices were corn, alfalfa sprouts, hot dogs, spinach, peaches, bananas and milk chocolate.  The most popular choice was bananas (42%), followed by spinach (27%), corn (12%), alfalfa sprouts (7%), peaches (5%), hot dogs (4%) and milk chocolate (3%).

Only 7% of the participants chose one of the two foods that would in fact best support survival: hot dogs and milk chocolate

LOL!

 

Haha wow, it sounds surprising at first, but when I really think about it it does make sense. My first instinct would also be to chose bananas or spinach. But really, thats just a fruit and a vegetable, and since the optimum diet should be around 50% carbohydrates, and 25% protein and fats, the hot dog is as close as you can get to that. Those who live off very limited fruits and vegetables aren't always so healthy (I'd guess that many with eating disorders would resort to eating only fruits or vegetables...although I dont know this for sure), and there are plenty of people who live off convinience foods such as hot dogs, and although that's not necessarily very healthy, they usually seem to be doing alright.

There's a condition called 'orthorexia' where people do exactly that... get so hung up on only eating foods that they regard as 'healthy' that they create an imbalanced/inadequate diet to the point of making themselves extremely ill.  There's a problem in some parts of (often affluent) society where parents with similar neuroses about healthy eating feed their growing children diets so high in fibre and low in fat & calories that the poor little things end up with malnutrition.  

So we probably don't want to live exclusively on hot-dogs but we shouldn't live exclusively on spinach, hemp seeds or bananas either....  And, most important from that little passage, we shouldn't automatically regard anything containing 'fat', 'carbs', 'sugar', 'gluten' or whatever the current nutritional bogeyman happens to be as 'unhealthy'... there are no bad foods, only bad diets etc.

I have read somewhere, that NASA would consider producing Quinoa on a spaceflight, because it has all the essential proteins. But it doesn't have much fat, does it.

That question about the hot dogs always bothered me. I mean, sure there are more calories in them, but there is not enough information. Do you have a limited number of peaches? If you had to choose between like, three peaches and three hotdogs on the island, sure, hot dogs, obviously.

... But you're going to get scurvy.

You should check out http://whfoods.org/ (World's Healthiest Foods) - its a great resource with a focus on foods that are common to North America.  Each of the selected foods has a nutritional profile and some studies done on how it improves health.  There is also a "healing with foods" section that spotlights different conditions.

Original Post by penkwin:

That question about the hot dogs always bothered me. I mean, sure there are more calories in them, but there is not enough information. Do you have a limited number of peaches? If you had to choose between like, three peaches and three hotdogs on the island, sure, hot dogs, obviously.

... But you're going to get scurvy.

Healthy and alive are very different. You might have scurvy but a diet containing too little fat or carboydrate will kill you. An interesting phenomenon along these lines is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvatio n

Well, really, if you were stranded on an island, you could assume you could get or possibly had additional access to fish and island fruits. I mean unless this is the kind of island with contaminated water and no vegetation... which is possible, I guess.

My question is, if you get hot dogs and milk chocolate--how do you heat the hotdogs (I know you can eat them cold but ew)? Or the reverse--do you have a fridge--I mean, these things go bad just sitting there. You wouldn't have good food for long if the climate is hot and you have food that has to be cool. The chocolate would melt. It just doesn't seem a realistic predicament, ya know? You're more likely to have bananas or coconuts than hot dogs. And then get your protein from fish.

But all these ideas are probably all from movies. I'm sure I'd just keel over if I was stranded on an island. lol

And doesn't scurvy take a long time to kick in? Several months of eating poorly? And then easily preventable by eating citrus fruit (I mean, obviously, you'd have to have access to some fruit, but you know)

Original Post by gi-jane:

There's a condition called 'orthorexia' where people do exactly that... get so hung up on only eating foods that they regard as 'healthy' that they create an imbalanced/inadequate diet to the point of making themselves extremely ill. 

Huh, that's what I had! Learn something new everyday!

My vote goes to whole eggs.

Original Post by annkatcom:

 It just doesn't seem a realistic predicament, ya know?

 Ya don't say....   It wasn't realistic because it was a purely hypothetical question designed to test people's fundamental attitudes to various foodstuffs.  To examine how far received wisdom on nutrition would affect the answers in a hypothetical life or death situation.  Not an episode of 'Lost'  

Original Post by annkatcom:

Well, really, if you were stranded on an island, you could assume you could get or possibly had additional access to fish and island fruits. I mean unless this is the kind of island with contaminated water and no vegetation... which is possible, I guess.

My question is, if you get hot dogs and milk chocolate--how do you heat the hotdogs (I know you can eat them cold but ew)? Or the reverse--do you have a fridge--I mean, these things go bad just sitting there. You wouldn't have good food for long if the climate is hot and you have food that has to be cool. The chocolate would melt. It just doesn't seem a realistic predicament, ya know? You're more likely to have bananas or coconuts than hot dogs. And then get your protein from fish.

But all these ideas are probably all from movies. I'm sure I'd just keel over if I was stranded on an island. lol

And doesn't scurvy take a long time to kick in? Several months of eating poorly? And then easily preventable by eating citrus fruit (I mean, obviously, you'd have to have access to some fruit, but you know)

Following those same assumptions, you would end up back at something like bananas as you reason that "I'll have other things on the island that I can find/grow/kill/etc".  Heck, you even made a joke about eating hot dogs "cold".  I doubt there's electricity or a solar-powered fridge there, either, so we're talking food of the Miltary MRE design which have 3-5 year expiration dates.

The spirit of the question was that you are on a rock with nothing but water.  No fishing poles, no orchards, no multi-vitamins growing on bushes.  What foods give you the best chance of survival.  If you are going to build a shelter, try to get rescued or escape, you will need energy. 

Now, if you want to nitpick further, I'll answer your question about scurvy - it takes about  3 months and is fatal.  Since hotdogs don't have vitamin C, your best bet would be the chocolate milk like this one:

http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-milk-c hocolate-fluid-commercial-lowfat-i1104?size=2

Hope you aren't lactose intolerant...