permaculture

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

I don't appear to have written much Lawrence :) but I seem to understand 
that you want my input concerning a vegetarian diet?

First of all and very generally speaking, there is almost no place in the 
world where one can get enough vitamin B12 from a vegetarian diet. To stay 
healthy there is more involved than just balanced amino acids.
And it is true that some crops are severely deficient in some essential 
amino acids. I can think immediately of lysine that is very scarce in most 
all grain crops but present in pulses (beans) and nuts and green vegetables 
like cruciferes (cabbage and kale to name but two).
Cruciferes are very important for our sulfur intake but have a severely 
negative effect on our thyroid glands. And the pulses often contain 
unhealthy concentrations of phytates that prevent uptake of essential 
mineral elements.
So yes it is important that if you want to stay with a vegetarian diet that 
you have a wide variety from as many different plant groups as possible.

That said, I am absolutely certain that it is impossible to survive here in 
SW Ireland on a vegetarian diet without importing a considerable proportion 
of your food from milder climate zones. (not just hatcho miso paste) Much 
the same as you can not expect an Inuit society to go vegetarian. They would 
not last a week under their conditions.
For a start, we can't grow rice and almonds neither. Too cold. We saw the 
temperature here rize over 20 C only once this summer.
Further, I would not like to brave our rains and our lazy wind (cuts 
straight through you instead of going around) on a diet of rice and beans. 
That may be a suitable diet when you can sit all day in front of an oil 
fired heater (imported) but not if you have to go out in the rain and 
collect soaking wet fire wood in a howling wind.

Unfortunately many of the plants that grow best here and are the most 
nutritious have fantastic means of self defence. Thinking of nettles and 
thistles. Nettle soup is good and I like it but a pig will eat 50 kilos of 
raw nettles and thistles with gusto and trive on it.
What is easiest to grow here is grass and that is not at all suitable for a 
human diet but it is what ruminants are best adapted for.
As for real human crops, it is not just a matter of growing them but even 
more important of saving them. We lost half or more of our quinoa crop 
because of non stop rains at harvest time to name but one thing and many big 
farmers saw their complete wheat or barley crop end in the mud without any 
way of harvesting with big machines for they would have bogged down in the 
first ten yards.
Our sheep and cattle are in great condition though.

I'm sorry but I can not give pointers to online resources even when I know 
they exist and I have seen some of them on occasion. I read so much that I 
can not keep track of where I saw it.

John
> On 11/6/2011 4:27 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
> <...>
>
> John:
>
> Frances Moore Lappe in her book Diet For A Small Planet proposes
> increasing one's protein intake from vegetarian meals through food
> combining-for-maximum-protein, i.e. combining several vegetarian sources
> of protein instead of eating just one or two. This could involve
> combining grains, beans and nuts at a meal: rice with beans is well
> known. Tonight I combined rice with black beans and added almond butter
> and turnip greens with hatcho miso paste. This worked out well.
>
> I would assume that different vegetarian protein sources have varying
> amino acid profiles such that when you combine several of them you end
> up with more complete protein, i.e. better and more nutritious. Is this
> true? How would you calculate the best food combinations for each meal
> using typical amino acid analysis of all the different protein
> containing vegetarian foods? Are there charts or books available to make
> this easier, ones that describe the amino acid makeup of the most ideal
> vegetable protein? How much of each amino acid is needed for human
> nutrition and how are they balanced, i.e. what are proper ratios,
> if any?
>
> Do you have answers to this or pointers to online resources?
>
> Thanks,
>
> LL
>
>
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