Complete Nutrition on a Homestead Grown No-Mammal Diet

I recently researched and wrote a blog post about what a minimal list of foods that would offer complete nutrition might look like.

That blog has a few assumptions I made, and lessons I learned, but if you want to just see the list, here it is:



What do you think? Anything you would suggest adding/removing/changing?

I love your article

very nice!
in my experience, broccoli (raab or otherwise) is enough of a PITA that I would grow something else. I wonder if the nutrient profile for collards or kale (or some other veg that practically grows itself and is adapted to your zone) would be close enough. Collards have been a strong calcium and protein source for me for quite a while, plus they`re just yummy.

I have to point out that you, yourself, are a mammal. Your thread title might be edited to acknowledge that.

Otherwise, quite comprehensive. I like the narrowness of the focus as it matches what many city dwellers with backyards might be able to do.

Is this still theoretical, or has it been put into practice?

-CK

Edit: No-mammal diet, I think, is more accurate than your earlier title. Good choice.

I would like to see the breakdown of which foods the various vitamins came from.  Specifically, where did the B12 figure come from?

The B12 came from the catfish 100% and another 22% from the eggs.

For a title: No-mammal (No red-meat) diet for a city homesteader.

The catfish could very easily require fish feed import, the same for the layer chickens. If mushroom were grown, woodchip/straw import also possible. With only fish and chickens (+bee hive) it is infinitely easier to go on a 7day vacation. But if someone had goats/sheep/cow. It would be 1000x harder.

I think that most of us here grow some vegetables and herbs. But I wonder how many of us permies actually grow our own beef/beacon/milk/cheese (mammal-based food). I think the percentage is very low, but still higher than the amount of us that grow our own flour+rice bulk grains.

I did a little more research and it looks like the B12 is based on the catfish?

Catfish is high in B12, so it's good to see it in there.  I tried a minimal diet for a period of time when we had a very low income and I ended up with a B12 deficiency.  This is more common among some people as they age, even if they feel like they are eating enough animal products.  Turns out I wasn't (dead animal once a week wasn't enough) so I now take a supplement.

A varied diet from as many different plants and animals as possible has the highest chance of not causing any deficiencies, in my opinion.

I've also had trouble growing broccoli but kale and collards grow well for me, especially Red Russian Kale.  I eat some every day.

Very interesting list, I suspect it can be used as a good base to make ones own. The calorie count won't be high enough, as growing it will take plenty of energy as well, but that's not a hard change. things I personally do not like about it (but others may)

320g of cabbage a day is quickly going to get repetitive, I wonder if one of the three cabbages can be replaced with something from another family.
What's the stevia doing, there's nothing on that list that needs sweetening so isn't that a bit redundant? and 45g dried  a day works out to 28kg of fresh stevia.. not sure how practical that will be to grow. (assuming watercontent drops from 80-5%)

In general a very interesting exercise to complete, not sure I want to eat like that but if needs must I could.

I've seen some people work through a RDA list for things like home made soylent (soylent.com) and something that gets overlooked is that the recommended daily allowances are what is determined to be minimums to "prevent disease", which seems could be significantly different than "for optimal health". There's certainly going to be limitations for city dwellers that don't have enough space to grow significant portions of their own food.

I meant to mention a reference folks might find useful for developing a home-grown diet, the book One Circle by Dave Duhon.  It provides some good information although the diets presented are not complete, lacking in B12 (they are vegan diets) and iodine.  A good jumping off point, though.

I have started making my own moringa bread.     Moringa has nutrition and nutrition and nutrition.

I add 2 tablespoons full to my 4 cup bread recipe, and I don't even taste it,

https://moringatreeoflife.com/​nutritional-info

Most people only eat
flour, corn, soy
lettuce, kale
egg, milk, oil
chicken, beef.
orange, banana, strawberry

Which is actually less than what is listed on this minimal diet. I find that to be so sad. What we do however is 100 ways to process corn and wheat flour but at the end of the day it is only 2 ingredients. I hope that someday we get to the point where the avg person is eating form dozens of different plant families per day.

Thanks for all the comments, everyone!

Here are some follow-up thoughts:

I wonder if the nutrient profile for collards or kale would be close enough?

In the blog post, I link to the actual "calculator" lists:

https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes/nomammal-homestead-minimal
https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes/nomammal-homestead


You can use my (or other) experiments as a starting point, copy them, and try substituting in other foods as your own experiment. If you do, I would love to see your list!

Is this still theoretical, or has it been put into practice?

Parts have been put into practice, but not the whole experiment: I've grown catfish and other fish in my aquaponics system, as well as various fruits and veggies in the food forest, aquaponics beds, and regular raised beds. (Here's a blog post about the various food systems in my backyard.) Our family enjoys eating an omelette with various veggies (spinach, onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms), salads, and nuts and seeds.

The catfish could very easily require fish feed import, the same for the layer chickens. If mushroom were grown, woodchip/straw import also possible.

.

This is true, but the goal wasn't to completely be self-sufficient. You would need to mine salt, and extract iodine for that. However, the fish and chicken feed can be supplemented by compost, which closes the nutrient loop somewhat.

The calorie count won't be high enough

320g of cabbage a day is quickly going to get repetitive

Yes, the idea was to put together a diet that would prevent starvation, and not necessarily be exciting or completely filling.

Besides trying out various recipes, I want to put together a few variations of the list, and try to get an idea of the space needed to grow all the food... then actually do it.

Also, I've seen several mentions of city living. I actually live in a suburban area that is pretty close to the city, and think a suburban homestead is an easier starting point than an urban homestead.

As an aside... can anyone tell me how to remove the "vegan" tag/category? I believe that was added by a moderator, and isn't accurate.

If you live in an area with snails large enough to eat and plentiful, you might consider adding them to your diet plan.  Snails may be a good source of B12, protein, and iron.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091119101207.htm

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Things that have a vegan-ish feel to them end up getting added to the vegan forum, because the search engines love it, potentially creating more traffic to your web site.

Oh I see. As long as other forum participants are not offended that it is not actually vegan. 😊

If there must be a sweetener, I'd swap out the Stevia for a good organic honey - healthier and more Permie.

Crayfish could also be added - grown in ponds or tanks.

F Agricola wrote:
If there must be a sweetener, I'd swap out the Stevia for a good organic honey - healthier and more Permie.

Crayfish could also be added - grown in ponds or tanks.

Honey is a good idea.

Crayfish would also be great in aquaponics... except that catfish *love* crayfish and in short order, there won't be any crayfish (unless it's really easy for them to hide). In general, I want to experiment with building a natural aquatic ecosystem as part of aquaponics, when I have time.

I'd be worried about the omega 6:3 ratio.  Flaxseed?

I think that the ratio of omega fatty acids would be fine, as long as the catfish are getting all the building blocks. The standard american diet is overbalanced in the other direction, where we seriously lack the fish-derived one, and are oversupplied with the one readily available in whole grains.

-CK

Andrew Shindyapin wrote:

F Agricola wrote:
If there must be a sweetener, I'd swap out the Stevia for a good organic honey - healthier and more Permie.

Crayfish could also be added - grown in ponds or tanks.

Honey is a good idea.

Crayfish would also be great in aquaponics... except that catfish *love* crayfish and in short order, there won't be any crayfish (unless it's really easy for them to hide). In general, I want to experiment with building a natural aquatic ecosystem as part of aquaponics, when I have time.

Eel love Crayfish too. There's real instances where farmers have stocked isolated dams with Crays, only to find they were wiped out by eels who, after rain or a heavy dew, wriggled across open paddocks for long distances just to get to the water.

Freshwater eel is okay, but I'd rather eat crays!

Andrew Shindyapin wrote:
Crayfish would also be great in aquaponics... except that catfish *love* crayfish and in short order, there won't be any crayfish (unless it's really easy for them to hide).

I would put vulnerable/small species in a separate tank/pond.

Andrew Shindyapin wrote:However, the fish and chicken feed can be supplemented by compost, which closes the nutrient loop somewhat.

Unless you're sourcing your feed carefully, raising critters on commercial feed is likely to make their products less nutritious, and more like store-bought animal products, in my opinion.  Both catfish and chickens prefer to eat live food, which can be raised at home.  I'm raising Black Soldier Fly Larvae and Red Wigglers in anticipation of future fish and chickens on my place.