What are the fewest separate foods you could eat and still have a healthy, balanced diet? Nancy Bamber, Ottawa

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Readers reply

Pulses. You could probably live quite healthily for many months on any one or two of them. Ditto fish. eamonmcc

Quite so. One would be dead without a pulse. LlamaInPyjamas

Pot Noodle and Angel Delight, washed down with copious pints of ice-cold weissbeer. moynihan16

I have heard that Guinness and sardines in tomato sauce contains the whole shooting match of vitamins and nutrients, but it would be a lonely and unfortunately aromatic life. HarrytheHawk

Definitely artichokes. Protein, vitamins, fibre, minerals. Add butter with lemon for vitamin C and umami. Kira Mango

In the 80s, when I was a young mother of four under-fives, I read in Penelope Leach’s excellent book that beans on toast, an apple and a glass of milk were a perfectly balanced diet. On Friday, I looked after four grandchildren aged five and under and that is what they had for tea. DoraMarr

Fish and potatoes. Ask the coastal British, the Portuguese, the north Germans, the French Normans, the Dutch etc. Of course, that’s if you really had to, which is the object of the exercise, isn’t it? Potatoes for nearly everything, fish for the rest. You’d probably have to scrunch the fish bones a bit, otherwise you may get a bit low on calcium. Still, at least the poo wouldn’t go white in the sun – or would it? bricklayersoption

Potatoes and milk, with an iron supplement. Karen Whaley

One egg a day should get you through. All you need is l’oeuf and un oeuf is as good as a feast (although if you fancy something plant-based, don’t let a pomme de terre you). Mobilepope

Scotch egg – a “substantial meal”, remember? TowellingWolf

Irish coffee. It has the four major food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat. Abigailgem

As a healthcare professional, I was once worried by a patient I saw who would only eat Weetabix with whole milk. A dietitian friend reassured me they could manage on this diet for quite some time: the cereal gives you carbohydrates and fibre, plus is fortified with vitamins, and the milk gives you fats and protein. eecherry

My friend Mike claimed to have lived on oranges and Mars bars in his bachelor days. galrita

Which is why he was a bachelor. RHConnon

Rice and beans. All essential amino acids; plenty of fibre; vitamins; carbs for energy. Many people worldwide have this as the basis of their diet. meansardine

Of course, what counts as a healthy diet will depend on the individual’s physiology, genetics, psychology and socio-cultural context and needs, but if we were going to create the minimalist diet to suit most people – a diet with very little variety would be suboptimal for the microbiome, so perhaps impossible to call it completely healthy – then one would prioritise fats and protein over carbohydrates, as they are necessary in the synthesis of all tissue types, hormones and almost all biological molecules, and they provide sufficient energy.

Next would be getting the best micronutrients in the densest sources possible, including things such as choline in egg yolks, which is often overlooked.

I think it would look something like this: eggs with yolks, wild salmon, liver, kale and blueberries. That pretty much covers all micro and macronutrient needs.

All the “just eat this pulse” brigade are missing out on vitamin B12, fat and a complete set of amino acids, to say the least. I think they’re conflating “healthy and balanced” with “cheap and vegan”. BenjiFM

Plain yoghurt! Or other sources of probiotics – sauerkraut, kimchi. Synthesises B vitamins and vitamin K. Probably the most important single food one can eat. G

Three foods: oatmeal, blueberries and sweet potatoes. Rebecca Willis

Corn. Squash. Beans. That’s it. Barred0wl

Dark bread, tomatoes, milk. Christine Hricovsky

The only single foodstuff that is completely nutritionally balanced for humans is human milk. CaressOfSteel

It’s only nutritionally balanced for babies. ShadyAsh