Q & A Thursday: what happens if you live on pasta?
Posted by kathryn in Grains
Antti-Juhani asked a question that made me smile:
In computer science, there is a thought experiment (due to the late Edsger W. Dijkstra, one of the CS intellectual giants) called “the dining philosophers”: there are five philosophers who spend their whole time thinking – except when they’re eating. Their diet consists of spaghetti, I kid you not, all they eat is spaghetti. My question is, if one were to emulate the philosophers and eat spaghetti only, what would result, health-wise?
While this scenario may seem far-fetched, it reminded me of a report I heard last week. University doctors have to be aware of the signs and symptoms of scurvy as it is occurs in small numbers in student populations.
Scurvy arises from a vitamin C deficiency. In Western societies we think of it as a problem of the past, however it occurs here in Australia, primarily among new students who have just left home. Unused to fending for themselves, some students live on a diet of toast, 2-minute noodles and pasta – all cheap foods that are easy to cook, but lacking in vitamin C – hence the scurvy.
However, on to the question. A diet consisting solely of pasta, with no other foods, would leave you severely malnourished and would most probably lead to death.
Pasta is primarily a carbohydrate food . While it does contain small amounts of other nutrients, they are at low levels, nowhere near what you need to function and stay healthy.
A diet comprised solely of pasta would leave you protein,vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, iron, B vitamin and zinc deficient. Your health problems would be many and they would affect all body systems. Given we haven’t actually done the experiment in real life, here are my thoughts on just some of the problems caused by a diet of pasta alone:
- scurvy
- anaemia (from the lack of
iron, B9 and B12) - muscle wasting
decreased immune function, given the lack of protein required to make immune factors- tiredness and lethargy
grossly enlarged liver and the development of fatty liver, due to a lack of apolipoproteinsa swollen abdomen due to the lack of proteindiarrhoea due to low digestive enzyme levels (they’re made of protein)- mental disorientation, hallucinations and impaired motor control (from the lack of fat, B1 and B2)
- vision problems, leading to blindness (lack of vitamin A)
- heart problems (lack of vitamin E, calcium and magnesium)
- breakdown in wound, muscle and tissue healing and re-generation (deficiencies in A and C)
- poor clot formation and increased bleeding (lack of C and K)
- muscle weakness and spasming (calcium deficiency)
- kidney problems (lack of calcium and magnesium)
The effects would be similar to kwashiorker, the childhood malnutrition often seen in famine-affected countries. This condition occurs when children are weaned from breastmilk onto a diet that is largely carbohydrate based and protein deficient, similar to a pasta only diet.
Update: I’ve made errors in this post, hence the ugly revisions. Following a reader comment I’ve posted a revised version here.
28 June, 2007
Comments
Thank you for an enlightening answer. Now I have a story to tell my students when I finish telling them about the philosophers :)
I note that mental disorientation and hallucinations would be a particularly nasty thing to happen to a philosopher! (Or would they be a blessing?)
[…] Reading a masters thesis draft that mentions the dining philosophers problem a parable about process synchronization very well known in computer science, it occurred to me that it must not be a very good idea to eat just spaghetti (or just pasta). I asked a nutritionist about it, and here is her answer. Even if they manage to avoid deadlock or livelock, dying of malnutrition is not going to be their first problem, go read the full story! […]
[…] Philosophers: Dining and dying […]
What if there was sauce on the spaghetti? While I have made a meal or two out of just the pasta, normally I have some sort of sauce (generally tomato based, but with lots of random spices, some other vegetables, and meat), often I have cheese on it as well.
This analysis does not address the question of pasta sauce. If the philosophers are using a tomato-based sauce (say, 1/2 cup to 1 cup) with beef, they would certainly not get scurvy (tomatoes are high in vitamin c) or anemia.
Hi there Henry and Adam: Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not against pasta, as you’ll see from recipes and other blog posts. It’s a common meal in our house. On Q & A Thursday I answer the questions asked and this one was specifically about just eating pasta.
By adding meat or cheese you’re including fat and protein, spices have antioxidants, as do vegetables. You’re also bumping up the mineral, fibre and vitamin content. The addition of these foods changes the nutritional content entirely and gets rid of most of the problems I raise above.
While tomatoes are full of vitamin C, it’s quite a sensitive nutrient. Cooking tomatoes at a high temperature, over a period of time, will cause some of the vitamin C to decompose. However, it does make the antioxidant lycopene much more bioavailable.
However, I would still suggest that a diet based on pasta is not a well-balanced diet, even with the addition of meat and vegetables!
I think you’re wrong about the protein. According to NutritionData.com:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21VD.html
100g of spaghetti has 371kcal, 13g of protein. If you were getting all your 2500 kcal per day from there, you’d be eating 674g of it, which would give you 87.6g of protein. About 63g is recommended for an average male, so you’re fine for that.
The vitamin deficiency would get you in the end though, unless you took a daily multivitamin pill.
[…] I stuffed up during this week’s Q & A Thursday. I was asked what would happen if you lived on pasta – no sauce, no cheese, just pasta alone. In my answer I stated, this diet would leave you malnourished and would ultimately lead to death. I also said that, along with vitamin and mineral deficiencies, the individual would suffer from a protein deficiency. […]
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