Can you survive on a potato diet?

TAMPA (FOX 13) - Potatoes could be the key to survival.

That’s according to a recent study where one man named Andrew Taylor apparently ate only potatoes for all of 2016, according to Australian Popular Science. But it also mentions the good and bad of the potato diet.

To survive, we need 20 amino acids, nine of which are essential. We can’t make them ourselves.

Hence, food. Or just potatoes.

FOX 13’s meteorologist Dave Osterberg discussed the study during his “Dave O The Science Pro” segment during Good Day Tampa Bay on Tuesday.

“It is not a good idea to eat only one kind of food,” he said.

And it’s not just plain white potatoes that you should consume, but also sweet potatoes as well. If you try to sustain on white potatoes alone, you will eventually face vitamin and mineral deficiencies. That’s where sweet potatoes come in.

“They belong to a different family of white potatoes,” Osterberg said.

Taylor did eat both types, but sometimes mixed in soymilk, tomato sauce, salt and herbs. He also took B12 supplements. He took four blood tests over the year and claimed they all came back normal, according to the article.

Sweet potatoes increases the likelihood that the consumer will get their daily dose of Vitamin A. However, there is one other issue you would have to deal with. Unless you ate 34 sweet potatoes a day, or 84 white potatoes, you will eventually run into a calcium deficiency.

In order to get the recommended amount of protein, you will also need to eat 25 white potatoes a day.

However, the Australian Popular Science article also spells out the health disadvantages.

“While it can be done,” Osterberg said, “eventually you are going to run into a deficiency down the road.”

Also, he said, it would be “incredibly boring” just eating potatoes. “I was hoping it would Twinkies.”