Comment by tzury
16 hours ago
Setting aside the DIY and hacking spirit of the project, let's remember that, with the commonly accepted figure of 2,500 kcal/day for an adult male, a whole iceberg lettuce (~600g) provides about ~87 kcal which is roughly 3.5% of what one's need.
So what though? I can get all the calories I need from $0.50 of rice but I still need crunchy things and protein.
Getting all the calories you need from (plain white) rice just about meet minimum protein needs for a sedentary lifestyle (around 50g protein). For every 100 calories of rice there are about 2.1g of protein, so for a 2000 calorie diet of just rice that would be 42g protein. But eating 10 cups of rice is a lot.
Protein-wise, an all cabbage diet would give you more if you’re meeting calorie needs - 5.1g protein per 100 calories, or 102g protein for 2000 calories worth of cabbage.. but that is a heck of a lot of cabbage (17ish lbs)!
Let’s be real though, people should be eating a varied diet and not just a single food. And perhaps not a junk food only diet.
Any issues about amino acid deficiencies from that? (as opposed to protein more generally?)
When I was growing up, there was a vogue among my fellow vegetarians for the book Diet for a Small Planet which suggested that we needed to eat a diversity of amino acids in each meal, hence "complementary" proteins at the same time. This concept then seemed to fade away completely because it appears that the body can actually successfully make use of amino acids even when consumed at different times. But they have to be consumed eventually!