Choose Only 10 Foods
Something of a fun exercise among friends, imagine you have to limit yourself such that for the rest of your life, only 10 foods may cross your lips. The definition of food here has to be clearly defined otherwise you will probably die or try to take significant advantage of the situation in choosing some foods over others.
- All solids, liquids, and gases are included in food (in other words, choose at least water as one of the 10, but, read on)
- For these 10 foods, there will be a seemingly infinite supply of each, the cost is irrelevant, so go ahead and pick some exotic caviar if you like
- Construction (or rather, the variability in construction and the chemistry of destruction) plays a large role so you cannot game the system - you cannot choose coffee as the drink and get milk, cream, sugar, and water along with your coffee beans - in fact, you cannot say coffee, because that is really water and coffee beans. If you can separate parts of things, or they normally come separated, that also precludes their selection - you cannot ask for a grilled cheese - that is bread and cheese
- Things that can be prepared many ways are fine, you are not limited in how the food must be used - so if you pick eggs, you can have them fried, over easy, sunnyside up, scrambled, poached, whatever
- Remember you have to live on this, so don't just choose 10 kinds of cheese, you would certainly die on such a diet within a few months
- A thing that is commonly sold as a finished product need not be broken down into parts - it is ok to say a kind of bread (but not just "bread", that is too vague, allows for things like Irish Soda bread or the like) and you do not need to say flour, yeast, salt, and water
- Meat is far too vague, but forcing you to say "sausage" or "bacon" vs "ham" seems limiting, so you can choose an entire animal, but you cannot abuse the byproduct of the animal while it is alive - you cannot say cow or goat and get their milk for free
- Similarly, cheese is also too vague - you have to pick a particular kind of cheese
So what did I pick?
- French baguette - without bread, I think just kill me
- Walnuts - the healthiest of the nuts
- Blueberries - my favorite berry, by far, and a good antioxidant
- Grapes - high water content, can make jam, along with the blueberries
- Emmental/Swiss cheese - I would also consider brie or gouda or even some cheddars
- Coffee beans - some kind of caffeine has been shown to help prolong life
- Oat milk - tough to say no water, but now I have better coffee, and milk is 90% water anyway
- Avocado - high in good fats and fiber
- Eggs - so many ways to prepare, it might not be so boring after all
- Turkey - at least one animal had to make the cut, and turkey is incredibly healthy
When I look at the list, I think about the things I eat today that I would no longer enjoy - lots of meats, berries, cheeses, breads, fruits, and vegetables. But I also think about how this very small discrete list of foods would probably keep me alive for the rest of my life, and I won't get too bored. Just think about what you eat in a given month today. How many foods are just repeats over and over again. Same breads, potatoes (fries!), beef and chicken, candy and other sweets.