Monotrophic diet

A monotrophic diet (also known as mono diet or single-food diet) is a type of human diet that involves eating only one food item (such as potatoes or apples) or one type of food (such as fruits or meats). Monotrophic diets may be followed for food faddism motives, as a form of crash dieting, to initiate an elimination diet or to practice an extreme form of alternative medicine.

Examples There are examples throughout history of eccentrics living on monotrophic diets. For example, George Sitwell ate only roasted chicken. Howard Hughes would sometimes spend weeks eating nothing but canned soup and at other times only steak sandwiches.

Monotrophic diets

Beef

A stricter type of carnivore diet known as the lion diet or all-meat diet that has been promoted by Jordan Peterson involves only consuming beef with salt and water."My carnivore diet: what I learned from eating only beef, salt and water". theguardian.com. Retrieved 29 January 2023.

Eggs Piero di Cosimo, an Italian painter, ate only boiled eggs.Blow, Douglas. (2009). In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Stanford University Press. p. 97. "The Tuscan painter Piero di Cosimo (1461–1521), for instance, ate only boiled eggs, cooking them by the bucketload and then consuming them one by one as he worked." Antonio Magliabechi's diet was commonly three hard-boiled eggs.Newman, Jeremiah Whitaker. (1838). The Lounger's Common-Place Book, Volume 2. London. p. 5Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. (1880). The Reader's Handbook of Allusions, References, Plots and Stories: With Two Appendices. Lippincott. p. 592

In 2008, it was reported that Charles Saatchi lost four stone (56 pounds) from an egg-only diet for nine months.Jamieson, Alastair. (2008). "Charles Saatchi ends nine-eggs-a-day diet, says wife Nigella Lawson". The Telegraph. Retrieved 30 December 2019.Brooks, Richard; Woods, Richard. (2008). "Cracked! The Saatchi diet". The Times. Retrieved 30 December 2019.Nigella reveals husband's 'mad' egg diet . RTÉ.ie. Retrieved 30 December 2019. However, the claim that he ate only eggs for this period of time was disputed.

Milk In the 1920s, the milk-diet fad was popularized by physical culturist Bernarr Macfadden.Toon, Elizabeth; Golden, Janet. (2002). "Live Clean, Think Clean, and Don't Go to Burlesque Shows’: Charles Atlas as Health Advisor". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 57 (1): 39–60. He advertised the diet as a remedy for diverse ailments such as eczema, hay fever and impotence. Macfadden's milk-only regime recommended 28 cups of milk a day.Smith, Jen Rose. (2019). "America's Weirdest Historical Fad Diets". HuffPost. Retrieved 30 December 2019.

Potatoes In 2010, Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, ate twenty potatoes a day for two months.Collier, Roger. (2010). This spud’s for you: a two-month, tuber-only diet. Canadian Medical Association Journal 182 (17): E781–E782."Is a potato-only diet good for you?". BBC News. Retrieved 30 December 2019.Collins, Nick. (2010). "Man eats nothing but potatoes for two months". The Telegraph. Retrieved 30 December 2019. He accepted that the diet is not sustainable in the long term but said his experiment had revealed how "truly healthy" potatoes are.Allen, Nick. (2010). "American loses over a stone on 'potato diet'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 30 December 2019.

In 2016, comedian and magician Penn Jillette began his weight-loss regimen with a mono diet, eating only potatoes for two weeks, then adding in other healthy foods to change his eating habits.Pawlowski, A. (2016). "Penn Jillette started weight loss with a mono diet — here's why you shouldn't". Today. Retrieved 30 December 2019.

Health concerns

Long-term negative effects of a single-food diet may include anaemia, osteoporosis, malnutrition, nutrient toxicities, muscle catabolism and more serious health conditions. Possible side effects are constipation, diarrhea, fatigue and exacerbated mood issues. Some experts have noted that pursuing any kind of mono diet may be a sign of an eating disorder developing.

Monotrophic diet

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