Is there a single vegan recipe that can be nutritionally sufficient for a long period of time?

Question

I have gone on a diet where I only ate white grapes for 2 weeks. It was an interesting experience. In the first 2-3 days I was feeling low energy and afterwards I started to feel better and very good actually. What stands out for me from that experience is the clarity of mind that I had during that period. Now all of that said, I will not go through that again as I'm sure it wasn't nutritionally sufficient.

Now I'm wondering if there's a single recipe for a smoothie (or something similar) that someone can live on for a longer period of time? (3-6 month for example) I'm curious about this for a couple of reasons:

• Gaining clarity of mind as mentioned before
• Losing excess fat and becoming healthier overall
• And last but definitely not least, for me there's something mentally rewarding about not having to decide what to eat everyday, living on lowest amount of calories that body needs and cutting myself off from all the different flavors and their temptations for a while.

I'm looking for something that is nutritionally sufficient and I'm not sure where to start. And I believe if I take this question to a nutritionist I will get a resounding "NO".

Answer 1

This is pretty much the same goal that Rob Rhinehart (the founder of Soylent) set out to accomplish.

He created a highly engineered recipe of soy protein isolate, maltodextrin, isomaltulose, soy lecithin, soluble corn fibre, gellan gum, cellulose salt, sucralose, and a vitamin/mineral premix. The recipe is specified to be a nutritionally complete meal replacement, but is widely regarded as unappetizing and sometimes disruptive to normal digestion. But even the careful engineering couldn't prevent the product from being banned in some countries.

But if you don't like engineered foods and would rather hear about whole foods, there are people like Andrew Taylor who ate only potatoes for a whole year. He lived too, though he did lose a lot of weight so this recipe probably can't be considered nutritionally complete.

All of this to say: it may be possible, but it is probably a bad idea. I would encourage you to maintain diversity in your diet. So would any nutritionist or dietitian, and so should anyone on this website.

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P.S. Back in 2013 I ate nothing but Soylent for 14 days in a row. I'm still alive and nothing bad happened to me, but overall I would describe it as an unpleasant experience, and wouldn't recommend it.

Answer 2

Simple and Less Tempting

For the purposes mentioned in the question (clarity of mind, weight loss, mental reward by not worrying too much about food), it is enough to have some sort of simple, but nutritionally sufficient, diet, not necessary limited to a single recipe.

Vegan or vegetarian diets are already simpler than omnivore diets. To make it even simpler and less tempting (without any nutritional sacrifice and with very little discipline needed), you can eliminate or limit the intake of:

• sugars and other sweeteners
• certain spices
• coffee
• alcohol

It may be easy to have a "single recipe" everyday, but this may become boring and unpleasant. Food is still a part of life and I personally do not suggest to "ignore" it. It can be also more rewarding to eat than just drink something.

Clarity of Mind

Clarity of mind is a known effect of fasting or even just switching to vegetarian/vegan diet:

They say that, from a mental and psychological point of view, the vegetarian diet helps clarity of mind, memory, the ability to concentrate. (European Journal of Physiology, 2017)

I wouldn't suggest any specific food; it's just that you stop worrying about too many things...

Weight Loss

To lose weight you need to consume less calories than you spend. You can achieve this by having normal, tasty meals. For many people, the critical point is how to decrease appetite. Avoiding certain foods can greatly decrease the temptation for food:

• sugary foods (especially sugary beverages and chocolate)
• fast foods (burgers, pizza, French fries, ice cream)

Having a Goal

You can concentrate on some mentally/emotionally rewarding activity/work and then introduce/eliminate foods according to what helps you achieve better results with your work. The key point is to stick with what helps you maintain pleasant, peaceful emotions to have an energy to keep going.

Nutritionally Sufficient Diet

According to Institute of Medicine in the U.S., the recommended dietary allowances (RDAs) for nutrients (the amounts sufficient for ~98% of population) for adults are:

• Minerals
• Vitamins
• Macronutrients:
  • Carbohydate: 130 g/day, from this 30-38 g fiber/day (recommended, but not essential)
  • Protein: 56 g/day (list of foods)
  • Essential fatty acids:
    • Linoleic acid: 14 g/day (list of foods)
    • α-Linolenic acid: 1.6 g/day (list of foods)

Answer 3

I would guess rainbow soup (all coloured vegetables fruit grain and nuts cooked in vegetable stock) with added fortified breakfast cereal or rice for b12 would contain all vitamins minerals and micronutrients a body needs.

Answer 4

2 suggestions with proven results:

Dr John MacDougall

Daily, I am asked to justify my recommendations for a starch- (corn-, potato-, rice-) based diet over other diets that offer contrary advice. (Below is a concise review of the McDougall Plan). The effects of different diets are far too complex to make meaningful such side-by-side comparisons. I would like to, however, share with you some of my past professional educational opportunities in order for you to better understand how my views developed over 40 years ago. Using the "Search" feature on my website (www.drmcdougall.com) will also help you find many articles about the specific concerns I have for other popular diets you may have been considering. (Enter terms such as: low-carb diet, low-fat diet, Grain Brain, Wheat Belly, Atkins, lectin-free, nutrient dense diet, vegan diet, and vegetarian diet.)

I understand if you are frustrated and unsure about who is telling the truth. We in the United States, and many other parts of the world, live under what is called freedom—freedom of speech, choice, and trade. Unfortunately, this luxury often translates into unregulated business practices by the food (and all other) industries.

Consuming animal flesh does add more protein to your body, however this excess is unnecessary because protein deficiency is unknown, and in today's world, diseases of protein excess (like osteoporosis, kidney stones, kidney and liver damage) are universal among my patients. And yes, consuming mammalian milk does add more calcium to the diet, but this is also superfluous because calcium deficiency is unknown and milk is a leading cause of heart disease, obesity, and inflammatory arthritis.

From: https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2017nl/jul/simple.htm

Dr Michael Gregor Dr Gregor's book, How Not To Die

The truth is that adhering to just four simple healthy lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases: not smoking, not being obese, getting a half hour of exercise a day, and eating healthier-- defined as consuming more fruits, veggies, and whole grains and less meat. Those four factors alone were found found to account for 78 percent of chronic disease risk. If you start from scratch and manage to tick off all four, you may be able to wipe out more than 90 percent of your risk for developing diabetes, more than 80 percent of your risk of having a heart attack, cut by half your risk of having a stroke, and reduce your overall cancer risk by more than one-third. For some cancers, like our number-two cancer killer, colon cancer, up to 70 percent of cases appear to be preventable through a similar portfolio of simple diet and lifestyle changes.

Maybe it is time we stop blaming genetics and focus on the more than 70 percent that is directly under our control.

From: How Not To Die pp 6-7