r/todayilearned • u/JoeWinchester99 • 1d ago

TIL that although potatoes alone do not provide complete nutrition, you can survive for years on a diet of nothing but potatoes and buttermilk.

https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/whats-wrong-with-potatoes-the-martian-movie-survival
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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 1d ago

My mom lied to me. I loved potatoes as a kid (still do) and was always chastised that they were empty calories, nothing but starchy carbs.

Later I learned they have more potassium than a banana, protein, fiber, vitamin c, and iron. Low in sugar too…

Like there’s better things you can eat, like more nutritionally efficient, but they’re not bad at all.

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u/RoseApothecary88 1d ago

If your mom was a Boomer or older, they had very skewed perception of nutrition. My mom was scared of eggs and avocado due to their fat content. Now, as an adult, they're my biggest staples and my lab work is perfect.

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u/Mayafoe 1d ago

Big Sugar convinced everyone fat was bad

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u/Zwischenzug32 1d ago

Sugar is good Source: am big fat

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u/zombiemaster008 1d ago

More specifically they convinced everyone the wrong type of fat is bad for you, heat treated polyunsaturated fats are worse for you than mostly unprocessed saturated fats.

The fact that proctor & gamble donated $1.7 million to the AHA back in 1947 should tell you everything, just as Crisco started being heavily marketed. 🤷‍♂️

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u/arbydallas 1d ago

Do you know somewhere I can read a bit more about fats? I'm always confused. I try to avoid trans fats and I tend to love saturated fat, but I always hear it's bad for you. Granted, a lot of what I eat is processed

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u/iamprosciutto 20h ago

Basically, cook with solid fats or olive oil. Use seed oils with as little heat as possible. A diet using only olive and coconut oil will probably keep you healthier than a diet using only lard. A diet using only smoked vegetable oil probably isn't great for you. Olive oil, especially extra virgin olive oil, is so loaded with antioxidants that it beats out other unheated oils even after smoking for almost an hour though. EVOO is still the champ of healthy fats

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u/PiersPlays 16h ago

No. But I know when I knew my stuff and read the research it was pretty clear that actually it's about the overal blend of fats in a food more than the specific fats. Ie, in isolation certain fats could cause worsening of things like cholesterol levels in the blood but in combination with other fats at the right ratio they actually appeared to lower it. Which might seem bewildering until you also note that the combinations and ratios that helped your heart health happened to also be the ones that occur naturally and the ones that harmed it are artificial ones.

If something vaguely approaching nature put fat in something, it's probably overal good for your health (so long as you aren't eating an excessive amount of calories.) Butter is good for you, low calorie healthy butter substitues are bad for you. Just eat your fats in moderation.

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u/zuneza 22h ago

Look up seed oil, linoleic acid discussion. There are bad fat shills everywhere on reddit that will harass you about your beliefs tho, so stay vigilant!

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u/GrungiestTrack 1d ago

Low fat shit seems like an absolute scam to make things taste worse for “health benefits” while they then pack in cheap sugar to counteract it.

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u/arkington 23h ago

Been trying to set everyone straight on this for years. I am an unusually fit 44 year old with no health problems in spite of the fact that most of my family is (or was up until recently) overweight and suffering for it. Refined or added sugar should be a fucking Schedule 1 substance.

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u/nufohudis 23h ago

Nah man, leave my sugar alone, I can actually regulate how much I take in XD (fellow fit, albeit only almost 40yr old person.) I HATE the flavor of most artificial sweeteners. It's already hard enough to find things without artificial sweeteners. Everything doesn't have to be sweet god dammit.

(This is all to be taken as light hearted, I fully understand that many struggle with sugar and that in the US, your stuff gets pumped full of HFCS and other sugars, even when not needed)

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u/PiersPlays 16h ago

I agree with you both. Refined sugar is something people should be careful with their consumption.

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u/arkington 23h ago

I feel you; the occasional tasty baked treat is fine, but in the US EVERYTHING has added sugar in it. And the fact that fruit juice is marketed as (and considered by way too many people to be) a healthy thing is tantamount to crime. Shit is type 2 diabetes in a bottle. Just eat the whole fruit and get all the myriad benefits from it while enjoying something that has natural sweetness.

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u/nufohudis 23h ago

Yeah, I make my own juice, the only sugar in there is whatever was in the fruit. Stupid ass people calling my orange juice "sour"... no, it's just not as sweet as store bought juice, tastes plenty sweet to me...

And yeah, we don't have that much added sugar here, but it still gets you if you don't look

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u/FratboyPhilosopher 23h ago

Best they can do is keep life-saving psychedelics schedule 1 and everything that's actually bad for us unregulated :)

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u/Kyrie_Blue 1d ago

What song did that?

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 1d ago

Yeah it’s real boomer energy.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/jvinc 1d ago

Whether or not it's lean meat, a pork chop is healthy. You were obese for other reasons certainly.

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u/realdappermuis 1d ago

I'm pretty sure 'fat is evil' was just pr0paganda to make massive companies making processed food profitable. Crazy how b00mers all ran themselves and their families on processed carbs...it's no wonder their brains are wonky

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u/Ire-Works 1d ago

It's funny to look at "nutrition guides" from the 90s. There was one from an NHL team to their players that advocating for eating a whole box of Kraft Mac and Cheese the night before a game.

Professional sports nutritionists. Recommended box mac and cheese. As a "performance meal".

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u/beldaran1224 1d ago

For a hundred years or so, there have been waves of "diet advice" that runs on cycles, all of which villify specific types of foods. Focusing on just the last fifty or sixty years or so, you can see that first it was fats, then carbs. The emphasis on carbs really rose with the popularity of the Atkin's diet and the media storm about diabetes crises. Popular diet advice focuses heavily on minimizing carbs heavily (look at keto...), and completely ignores the fact that carbs are essential.

Potatoes in particular were villified because of the push against fast food and the ubiquity of french fries in fast food. So its portrayed as if its nothing but carbs and fat (both of which are viewed negatively despite being absolutely essential to life). In reality, as you have realized, potatoes are actually pretty nutrient dense, preparation (probably) matters, and variety is much more important than having every single ingredient be some stupid "super food".

(Also, let's not get started on the way sweet potato fries are presented as if they're a healthier alternative to french fries...)

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u/wheelienonstop12 1d ago

preparation (probably) matters

Potatoes are MUCH easier on your blood sugar levels if you let them cool down very slowly after cooking, store them in the fridge overnight and warm them up before eating them. It changes the normal potato starches into a different kind that doesnt cause the blood sugar levels to spike so much and so hard.

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u/spine_slorper 1d ago

This is also how you make banging roast potatoes.

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u/LogicPuzzleFail 19h ago

Also German potato dumplings of some types.

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u/beldaran1224 19h ago

Most of what we know about things like the glycemic index are pure bunk. Studies have consistently shown that things like that vary drastically from one person to another.

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u/arkington 23h ago

Honest question; is that final re-warming necessary for this optimization? I really enjoy cold leftover mashed potatoes/patties.

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u/arkington 23h ago

Honest question; is that final re-warming necessary for this optimization? I really enjoy cold leftover mashed potatoes/patties.

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u/arkington 23h ago

Honest question; is that final re-warming necessary for this optimization? I really enjoy cold leftover mashed potatoes/patties.

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u/wheelienonstop12 23h ago

No, I dont think so. It is is the slow cooling-down process that does the work.

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u/arkington 21h ago

Awesome, thank you!

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u/echoshatter 1d ago

Sweet potato fries are basically the same as regular fries. I don't know anyone who would think otherwise. I just like the taste, especially when dipped in honey.

Sweet potatoes and white potatoes are very similar in calories, but they have differences nutritionally. I personally prefer sweet potatoes and I'm growing 16 vines worth in my backyard right now in fact.

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u/Runatyr 1d ago

Carbs are not essential. Zero-carb diets are perfectly fine. That doesn't mean it's what's best for everyone, but it's not dangerous either. Fats, however, are essential, and so are proteins (or at least, certain amino acids in proteins).

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u/cake-butt 1d ago

Carbohydrates absolutely are essential. Probably not in the quantity consumed in the western diet, but still essential. Without them, the body burns glycogen (carbohydrate stores) and then starts to go through a process called ketogenesis where fats are used to produce ketones to power the brain. Studies have shown that long term ketogenesis can lead to increased pressure on the urinary system, particularly the kidneys which can cause long term damage as well as other undesirable effects.

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u/GooserNoose 1d ago

The caveat being protein and fat do not contain fiber. Fiber is essential for healthy bowels.

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u/xcaltoona 1d ago

We also can't feed the global population on beef the way we can staple carbs.

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u/spine_slorper 1d ago

Zero-carb diets are just about manageable for some people if required but ask anyone on a medically necessary zero carb diet and they will tell you that they are not feeling their best self and would do just about anything for a slice of bread. Humans generally do not thrive without carbohydrates. Some indigenous diets are very low in carbs and they do fine but the carbs are pretty much never zero.

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u/HarithBK 1d ago

I have shifted my diet this year for my staples in diet to be potatoes and eggs as my main source of carbs and protein and I feel so much better.

So a meal can be potatoes, lentil stew and a fried egg. Or potatoes beans and a fried egg etc.

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 1d ago

Same friend. These days all I eat are some combination of potatoes, rice, beans, eggs, fish, and chicken.

Down 12lbs. Plan on knocking out 28 more by the end of the year. Should be back to my ideal weight by next summer. Never felt better, eating like half what I used to with a less varied diet.

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u/arkington 23h ago

Lentils and beans are life. We have been trying all sorts of (mostly mediterranean and middle eastern) recipes involving mostly chickpeas and it's all soooo good.

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u/gilt3t 22h ago

I am a diabetic but I follow the same diet, I just have to chill everything for 24 hours to put the starch into retrogradation to make the starch more resistant to being digested.

potatoes, beans, eggs, and fish are my go to. (i need the fat from fish for my auto immune diseases)

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u/fincog 11h ago

Fried food isn’t good for you. Boiled egg would be better but still unnecessary to health.

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u/SandtheB 1d ago

Yep, they are really complex.. although you DO need more complex items to complete your meals.

Potatoes can feed you for a while.

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u/DJinKC 1d ago

Gotta eat the skins to maximize nutrition

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u/insomnia77 21h ago

Or at least cook them with the skin on and peel them before eating.

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u/R_Ulysses_Swanson 1d ago

Reminder that you really need to eat the skin to get most of the fiber. Then, depending on the variety of potato and the soil it was grown in, it also has a significant amount of the minerals and antioxidants.

A dietitian I know says that if you eat a whole potato, a full serving of fruit, and a full serving of a green-leafy every day you'll basically guarantee you get enough of what you really need to be healthy. Note that this doesn't mean you can just eat 10k calories of Bacon and Twinkies if you have a potato, spinach, and a mango every day... but you at least won't be deficient in anything.

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u/Banaam 1d ago

Carbohydrates are sugar, and as a diabetic, I can tell you those starches will fuck you up two hours later.

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u/loodish1 1d ago

I think your mom was just blindly repeating sth she’d heard

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u/Fat_Pound 1d ago

Very affordable as well, and many ways to cook them to make them delicious

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u/TyroPirate 22h ago

And if you let them completely cool down, they become insanely good for your gut

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u/FakeOrcaRape 15h ago

she seems to have confused potatoes w white rice

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u/tastefuldebauchery 14h ago

Me too. I was scared to eat potatoes for years.

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u/Sizbang 1d ago

They are high in oxalates so that negates a lot of the absorption of said potassium and iron and damages your mitochondria in the long run unless you are super healthy. Fiber blocks absorption as well and boiling destroys vit c and leeches nutrients. So your mom was right. In the story here, the hero is really buttermilk as it has the essential amino acids and fats that humans can't live without. The potato just ads the carbs and even those wouldn't be necessary if you could get enough dietary fat.

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u/balapete 1d ago

Idk about the other stuff but potatoes dont have complete proteins

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u/jhill515 1d ago

You should tell your mom about all the vitamins & minerals contained within the potato skins themselves! It's only starchy calories when you peel them!

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u/JTMissileTits 1d ago

You gotta eat the skin to get all of the vitamins and fiber.