Complete Diet Garden

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by jmygann, Aug 3, 2009.

  1. Salkeela

    Salkeela Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    I'm well impressed!

    Perhaps your climate is more clement than here.... but no matter, I'm still very impressed!

    What were your main calories from? I calculated the calories in all those jars of toms I did & it's not alot - flavour only really!
    Home produced eggs were high though (again imported foodstuff for hens).
    Jams & chutneys are high (sugar bought in).
    I'm growing more pumpkins and marrows this year that can be stored whole - but they are of limited calorie value I fear.
    Spuds, jerusalam artichokes and oca have some calories, but I don't grow enough. & I haven't had huge success with turnips. (Or swede as the English call them - rutabaga in US I think!)

    Unfortunately beans and corn don't grow well outside here. (Toms etc are in a polytunnel. I tried beans in it too this year and for the first time have a crop - a glut even! :) )

    Do tell us more jmygann about your set-up and circumstances. How did youngsters in the family take to eating differently from their peers? (I'm lucky my kids like home produce and home cooking, but they don't get that exclusively.) Did you grow wheat for bread? What about oils &/or butter? Animals?
     
  2. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    As stated earlier ...

    "organic

    for over 12 years

    all calories came from garden

    each year ..we each raised dry yellow corn ... dry beans , squash , seasonal vegetables

    Trees ... olive , almond, apples , apricots , and grapes

    no importing ... no fertilizer .. fallow and crop rotation

    approx 2.5 acres / adult for calories

    some tree crops were sold

    Northern California"
    ***************************************************************************************
    3 adults

    Corn Masa ... Daily Bread


    To get more specific ...on what worked the most efficiently ..

    365 dry yellow corn plants/person .. daily bread

    365 dry bean plants/person ... legume

    10 of each tree-vine/ person ...... olive , fig , almond , apple, apricot, grape

    seasonal vegetables, including squash,herbs etc.

    no animals
     
  3. Salkeela

    Salkeela Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Thanks.
    Socially how did you manage, or were you living in a community of like minded people?

    Sal
     
  4. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Previously , I was an Agriculture teacher at the local High school so I knew a lot of people and they knew I was into alternatives and we got along okay.

    Actually I started the garden-nutrition project as a result of being asked to teach a unit on crops and soils and started a school garden.
    Went looking for someone who had more actual experience than me and met a man who was also interested and had some land. Got a grant from the state for a program called "small farm methods" and when the grant gave out I quit teaching and went into personal food production full time.

    I had been involved in agriculture since high school and had done some research in college..

    Maybe we became the token Hippies ??

    It was a small community and they didn't seem threatened.
     
  5. Salkeela

    Salkeela Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Brilliant story. I'm a teacher too (Biology mostly) and have the space here to grow more. I've asked for a reduction in hours to 2-4 days instead of 5 but I don't think I will be granted it. Basically I want to grow more and do more of the permaculture style stuff. Yet I'm not ready to quit college entirely yet.

    Do you have kids? How did they cope with the fact that their diets were so different from other children? I'm lucky my kids love home produce but they also like breakfast cereals, milk etc.

    Wish I could grow beans outside. Peas are good, but not beans. Runners have done great in the polytunnel this year though.
     
  6. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Maybe you being teachers make the calorie thing make more sense. I find it a bit reductionist. We need more than calories. Tomatoes have all those other nutrients in them ;-)

    I assume you talk in calories simply as a way of calculating how much to grow?

    What did you do for salt?


    I still find the concept strange, kind of like a science project that's not totally applicable to real life (biosphere was like that totally).

    Interesting project though, I'm sure you have data that would be useful to people.
     
  7. Salkeela

    Salkeela Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    I agree calories are a crude measure. Food energy content though, is a way of measuring amount. As in - could you grow enough food energy to keep you and yours alive? Too few calories and no matter what the vitamin etc. content of the food and you loose weight and eventually starve. So as a base marker calories are useful.

    As a thought exercise, I did various calculations about the area of potatoes I'd need to grow to supply my family's calorific needs. It was quite an area (for 6). Of course in reality no-one expects to eat only potatoes and that would not be very healthy at all. I have no intentions of planting up the X acres of potatoes that would feed my family.

    We all like variety and eating a varied diet will tend to ensure that other dietry needs are met. It is also more resilient as when one crop does poorly there are others too. Certainly a selection of annual veg & toms etc. will be providing the other needs. Yet toms as a staple would not yield as much food (in terms of energy/calories) as a field of potatoes and I'd like eating that volume of toms even less than spuds!

    The days are only so long. I see that right now I'm learning "how" even if I can't do the "how much"!
     
  8. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    calories aren't everything ... I agree but they are necessary

    Our diet was quite varied with the fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables which added to the needed vitamins, minerals,micro nutrients etc.

    We did make some good wine also.
     
  9. Salkeela

    Salkeela Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Now you're talking!

    My best have been nettle and peapod.
    The rasberry is still maturing from last year.

    My dad used to make wicked elderberry. I want to try some of it this year & so have kept a couple of demi-johns free. :)

    I take it you imported the sugar - or could you substitute apple or grape juice for the sugar?
     
  10. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    no importation of sugar ...

    Cabernet Sauvignon , Muscat of Alexandria, Sauvignon Blanc , Ruby Cabernet, French Colombard
     
  11. Brown grnthumb

    Brown grnthumb Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Are you in the Bay Area or the Sacramento region?

    I'm right in the middle so I get some of the heat from sac and protection from most frosts since I'm affected by the bay. Though I couldn't do what you did out of choice (I love variety and would be willing to trade with others in the more unique tempratured Bay Area for avacados, macadamia nuts, seaweed also go to some local dairiers for milk and butter); its good to know our climate will allow us to
     
  12. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Northern Sacramento Valley ....... Mediterranean climate
     
  13. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Keeping the calories up is only one part of a good diet. How did you do with protein?

    The main problem with a vegetarian diet is that you have to plan for COMPLETE protein, which is protein that contains all nine essential amino acids. There aren't an awful lot of plants that contain it (those that contain complete proteins in themselves are soybeans, amaranth and quinoa, hemp, spirulina), but you can make up the complete total by eating certain plant foods at the same meal (or within a few hours of each other) that DO make up a complete protein.

    Eating a combination of legumes + seeds, or legumes + grains, or legumes + nuts will provide complete protein.

    Vegetarian diets tend to be very deficient in fat soluble vitamins A, D and K because of the low fat content of vegetarian foods normally eaten, and also short of calcium, B-12 and iron. The vitamin E content is marginal, even with grains included. Vegetarian women often suffer worse deficiencies because they may eat only half as much.

    Long-time vegetarians may also start showing signs similar to Alzheimer's due to B-12 deficiencies.

    Maybe you should have a nutritionist look over your all-year diet, so you can make changes before you have serious health problems.
     
  14. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    germinated corn , cooked beans,olive oil , fresh vegetables (fresh chlorophyll),fresh and dried fruits, nuts,apple cider vinegar.

    Come on ... most people on the planet don't eat that healthy

    12 plus years ... no health problems at all.

    what would suggest for a complete diet garden ?
     
  15. bernado soares

    bernado soares Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Total self support is a myth you get sufficentcy through community,of course you could go the hermit road rags, caves weeds but thats a little bit like being a breatharian or a Vegan how fortunate those souls are to be able to look down at us all with their pointy gaunt faces and tell us our wrongs,what a joy it is to be able to choose what you won't eat.Stop looking for utopian gardens,and avoid dogmatic ethical stances and engage with a community then you have sufficentcy.
    Best wishes
    BS :axe:
     
  16. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    The problem is the complete bit. A lot of long term vegetarians don't start experiencing health problems until 20yrs in. Or they have health problems they don't associate with diet before then. Are you saying that everyone on that land was in perfect health for 12 years? I don't think there is perfect health any more than there is a complete diet garden.

    I do agree that lots of people don't eat healthily, and there is something in health circles in the west that ignores the huge privilege that we have to think we can have a prefect diet.

    Being long term vege can be good for some people, bad for others. A complete diet has to include more than plants for the people that need them.

    And I agree completely about the community bit. Isolation is not sustainable. A complete diet garden for me is one that exists within the wider ecosystems that are also being cared for and respected.



    There's some older gardening texts that tell you how many veges you need to put in each year to feed x number of people. A nice counterpoint to the calorie counting method.
     
  17. jmygann

    jmygann Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Which permaculture community or communities in the USA would you suggest I visit ??
     
  18. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Your local ones.
     
  19. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    I would add that some pc in the US seems to be focussed on gardening rather than sustainability, so it really depends on what you want.

    Check out food forests, and the aforementioned work by Bill Mollison.
     
  20. IntensiveGardener

    IntensiveGardener Junior Member

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    Re: Complete Diet Garden

    Of course it is possible to grow all your own food but is it really desireable?
    I enjoy trading home grown produce with my neighbours and friends. Its an oppertunity to show off and to try other peoples harvests.


    Jeavons did a huge amount of research into the amount of land required for a complete diet garden. While he did not acheive food self sufficientcy at any time but this was not his intention.
    He did attempt to grow a years supply of some things on the smallest possible space. He then compares his results (on a crop by crop basis) with averages of normal US agriculture and is able to coclude that it would be possible to grow a "complete diet garden" on as little as 4000 square feet sustainably.
    Of course this depends on your climate, soil and diet.
    Jeavons' book isn't really about self sufficiency but about growing food the most resource and energy efficient way possible in order to feed as many people as possible on small amounts of land.

    ig
     

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