“If You could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?”
The question “If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?”, only has one logical and defensible answer in my opinion: potatoes. I love potatoes.
However, if loving a food was the only constraint on that question, this would be much less interesting. Of course you have to take into consideration the attainability, versatility, affordability, and the potential health risk from only eating one food for the rest of your life. But potatoes check all of these boxes!
Attainability: Potatoes are super attainable. Obviously they are readily available at almost any grocery store, but even if you don’t live near one, they can easily be grown in a home-garden. In fact, Potatoes can even be grown inside of your kitchen. With a couple toothpicks, a cup, and some water, a potato can be grown with very little effort.
Versatility: This category is one that I don’t even feel like I must argue, but for the sake of being thorough…You can mash them, roast them, bake them, steam them, boil them, grill them, braise them, deep fry them, pan fry them. You can make twice baked potatoes, make them into a hash, make tater tots, cut them thin and make chips. There are russet, yukon gold, sweet, red, and purple potatoes. Yes, there are purple potatoes—here’s a picture, they have a lot of antioxidants 😀. Nonetheless, Whichever way you choose to cook them though, they always taste great.
Affordability: There are a lot of different ways you can measure a food’s cost. You may look at the unit price or the actual price per pound, for instance. However, for potatoes I think cost per edible cup equivalent is the easiest way to calculate vegetable prices. Per this measurement and according to MyMoneyBlog, potatoes cost around 20 cents per edible cup. This is cheaper than cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and many other popular foods since the potato is not only completely edible but, as shown before, very easy to grow. The average potato is 2 edible cups; say you ate a generous 8 potatoes a day, that would mean the monthly cost for your meal plan would be around $95. Compare this to the average cost of food per month for the typical American which is about $220. This means that potatoes are more than two times cheaper than a regular diet.
Health Risks: A common concern when 
it comes to eating one food for the rest of your life are the potential essential nutrients you are missing out on, and while I agree that there are probably healthier alternatives to eating only potatoes for the rest of your life, potatoes are still very satiating. In fact, a man named Andrew Taylor proved this. Andrew Taylor ate potatoes for all of 2016 with a few exceptions: he ate both white and sweet potatoes and occasionally combined them with soy milk, tomato sauce, salt or spices. He also took B12 supplements. But, overall, for breakfast, lunch , and dinner, all Andrew Taylor ate were potatoes. During the year, he took four blood samples, which all came back with normal results. He was even said to have lost weight and felt more energized. And this makes sense, if you visit the blog The World’s Healthiest Foods, Potatoes are a very good source for vitamin B6, as well as potassium, zinc , vitamin C, manganese, arsenic, niacin , pantothenic acid and dietary fiber—All very important to healthy digestive and immune systems. Furthermore, potatoes actually include a number of phytonutrients that have antioxidant properties which protect cells which many studies say are beneficial for reducing risk of cancer.
When I started writing this I hadn’t done too much research about the specifics of potatoes. All I really knew was that I liked a lot of foods that have potatoes in them and they are sorta of a vegetable. But, the more I looked into the many benefits of potatoes the more I realized how right my answer was. In almost every category, potatoes dominate. Not only are they well rounded but they are simply better than many other
foods in all categories. Hopefully after reading this you too will appreciate the many absolute benefits that potatoes have given us whether or not it would be the only thing we ate for the rest of our lives. However, I implore you to challenge this and try to find another food that can dethrone potatoes as the number one food. For now, though, potatoes remain on top.
Ethan, this was entertaining from start to finish. There’s no doubt that potatoes come out on top based on versatility alone, but I think it was really cool that you included the experiment with Taylor only eating parents. Not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve definitely been told before potatoes are not healthy, so it was cool to see that there are nutritional benefits to them too. I can’t say they’re something I’d want to eat for the rest of my life, but they’re still definitely good from time to time.
Hi Ethan,
Usually, whenever I come across questions like those, I go with my gut instinct and leave it at a one-worded reply. However, I enjoyed reading all the details you put into your post analyzing the reasons why you would pick potatoes to be the food you would eat for the rest of your life. Not only is it easily attainable and grown, it is also very versatile and healthy as well. I don’t think anyone will live very long surviving off on such a limited option of foods, but potatoes, as you pointed out, can probably last people much longer than other food alternatives. This post was a very interesting exploration of an answer for a hypothetical question.
Hi Ethan, I’ve always answered potatoes to this question as well! But like you, now I am even more sure of my answer. I had no idea that potatoes were that healthy for you, especially since potatoes can be served pretty unhealthily (ex. chips), but this just proves how versatile potatoes are. If one day you feel like eating junk food, you can settle with chips and fries, but other days you could just steam them for a healthy and filling meal. I also didn’t consider sweet potatoes being included within the equation, but I think that just makes the answer better.
Wow, Ethan, this was an incredible breakdown of potatoes. If I am ever in a bind for cash, I’ll consider turning to potatoes. I appreciate you offering many different ways to cook potatoes – you demonstrated that there truly is a potato based dish for everyone. The only food that I could offer to knock the potato off the number one spot is rice, but you are correct that it does not have the same versatility as the potato. The only thing I disagreed with was that Andrew Taylor’s diet was healthy. I’m sure that it worked for him, but I have reason to believe it wouldn’t work for everyone. Taylor is a last name with roots to Ireland, so he and his ancestors have survived on potatoes for years. I doubt that someone like you or me would have the same success, we just aren’t built for it. Other than that, great job.
You’ve really thought out this question. This was very insightful, learning about the various benefits that a purple potato diet can have. I like your attention towards cost and nutrition, as if I ever did have to only eat one food for the rest of my life, I can’t be spending it on pricey foods that have zero beneficial nutrients. I definitely love purple potatoes, but I wouldn’t go as far to choose them as that one food, despite all of the benefits you mention.