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Asked by SMG_SM_SCIENTIST to Andy, Chris, Harriet, Nikki on 17 Mar 2016.
Question: Could eating salad all the time lower or higher life expectancy?
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andy chapman answered on 17 Mar 2016:
Well if it meant you ate less high cholesterol foods like butter, cheese and so on then it would maybe help but you don’t want to only eat one thing. We are ‘generalists’ – we have a digestive system that has evolved especially to deal with all kinds of food. We like balance. Not too much of any food group.
Koalas, pandas, cows, sheep…they have very very specialist digestive systems only built to deal with one type of food. They are specialists.
Overall I would say it would be very hard to survive on just salad (if you mean just ‘leaves’) but if it had loads of other stuff in it, seeds (vital protein), tomatoes (sugars, trace nutrients)…whatever, then i think it would be a very healthy diet. You may not want to have an extended life expectancy though if it meant eating salad forever. Chips are great. Check out soylent…the meal replacement beverage:
supposed to be everything you need in one milkshake. Not for me at all. I love eating and cooking.
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Christopher Blanford answered on 17 Mar 2016:
Hey SMG_SM_SCIENTIST
I think that’s not great for you. You’ve got to have a mix of foods in your diet. It’s really hard to get enough nutrition from just leafy greens. Animals like sheep and cows, which have special stomachs to handle that much plant material, still have to eat all day!
So, I’d say all salad = shorter life. (And a much more boring life.)
A balanced vegetarian diet, on the other hand, could help you live longer. Some researchers have also found that a very low-cal diet makes mice live a lot longer.
Chris
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Harriet Reid answered on 17 Mar 2016:
In general eating salad will make you more likely to live a longer and healthier life. Just not if you don’t ever eat anything else…
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