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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] How Much Land Does It Take To Become Food Self-Reliant

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  • From: jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] How Much Land Does It Take To Become Food Self-Reliant
  • Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 16:06:27 -0700


While I lived in Alaska I conducted a lot of research on growing a sufficient
variety of foods to feed vegans, even though I include wild meats and fish in
my diet. The farther north one goes the less possible it is to grow all of a
balanced vegan diet. It is more suited to tropic and subtropic climates.
Also, I can't think of any gathering societies (within recorded history) off
hand that don't include at least some bird, fish or small mammal in their
diets. Even those remote amazonian gatherers who are far from western
influences seem to use fish, birds and small mammals.

> From: linda.shewan@bryn.com.au
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 06:32:19 +1000
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] How Much Land Does It Take To Become Food
> Self-Reliant
>
> 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
>
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