permaculture

[Linda Shewan <linda.shewan@bryn.com.au>]

I think that a lot of the self-sufficiency potential comes down to our 
diet... 

What about for raw vegans - we should be able to produce all our own raw 
vegan food shouldn't we. I don't have the land so can't test it and admit it 
will take years to achieve self-reliance in nuts and fruits so you cannot 
achieve it in the short term. If you just go raw without the vegan then with 
chickens for eggs, perhaps milking a sheep for milk, cheese etc - you could 
do it with that couldn't you? You would need to bring in salt but not much 
else... and some raw foodists say salt is not necessary if you have adequate 
sodium from celery and other veges.

Obviously our diets are radically different than raw vegan in most cases but 
the fact is that people that we would consider eat extremely healthily - 
people in the permaculture and organic movement - still suffer from serious 
diseases so perhaps we should be looking at it more closely - an example is 
the newish video "raw for 30 days" where they cured Type 2 and even Type 1 
Diabetes in only 1 month with a raw vegan diet. There is a lot of information 
about what people have achieved with a raw food diet.

I know it is a very controversial subject so perhaps it is best not to debate 
the virtues of the diet but just whether if you followed that diet then you 
could be self sufficient. 

Thanks, Linda



-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Toby Hemenway
Sent: Thursday, 13 May 2010 2:19 AM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] How Much Land Does It Take To Become Food 
Self-Reliant

I did a little thinking along these lines in a piece called "The Myth of Self 
Reliance"

http://www.patternliteracy.com/selfreliancemyth.html

I don't know anyone who is growing all their own food. Or even most of it. 
Veggies, yes, but that's only about 20% of your calories. So I think the "how 
much land" question for an individual is mostly fantasy, or an academic 
exercise. Interesting, but not put into practice. It's not how we're going to 
solve food security.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com