Has anyone made a low carb food forest?

I love the idea of a food forest, and I'd like to make one some day, but I try to avoid eating carbohydrates for health reasons.  My issue is that just about every perennial plant I've heard of that has edible parts makes some kind of sugary or starchy berry or fruit. Subtract all those and I'm left eating nuts and leaves. Which I guess isn't that bad but it's pretty limiting.

Has anyone here seen a list of low/no carb perennial plants that would play nice in a food forest? Bonus points for being hardy to -20F so I can grow them!

Hey,

You will find Geoff lawton has great detail and information on this from his work in Vanuatu, to help students maintain nutrition to focus in class!

Thanks! I'll go look that up.

Where are you getting your daily nutritional calories from if not carbs?  There are broadly three sources of calories for humans: carbohydrates (sugars, starches), fats and oils, and protein. If you cut out one source of calories you need to increase the proportion of energy you get from the others.

Short of finding a tree that grows steak, plants are going to be comparatively high in carbohydrates regardless of what varieties you are looking at.  If you do find plants that are low in carbohydrates (lettuce?), then you  will find that a diet based on them will be unsatisfying and likely nutritionally deficient.

I too am on a restricted carbs diet, but I'm focussing on avoiding "fast" carbs (potato, rice, pasta, bread), but not limiting other sources. The objective is to reduce blood sugar peaks, not restricts total daily calories consumed.

You're quite right, most forest gardens are top heavy in sugary fruits, many of which then have more fruit added to preserve them! It really needn't be this way, since the edible part of most perennials is the young shoot, which is usually more palatable and nutritious than the mature leaves.

The big problem with carbs is not the carbohydrates themselves but the ratio of easily digested carbohydrates to soluble fibre. The fibre is needed to feed our gut biome and it has been systematically removed from modern diets. In a forest garden diet it comes built in.

If your post wins my book you'll get a list of hundreds of perennial vegetables suitable for a cool climate, but if not you can get the same information in a less systematic format on my website at www.foodforest.garden.

To me, a food forest or a forest garden is not all about perennials.

It is a way to make plants work with trees.

Why not have things like cabbage, romaine lettuce, carrols in the sunny spots of the garden?

Then why not incorporate the leaves and flowers from the perennials into your diet?

broccolis: Sea Kale
Perennial alliums: Elephant garlic, Egyptian walking onions, potato onions, welsch onions, ramps, garlic chives
Shoots: Edible hostas, asparagus, bamboo, milkweed, ostrich fern, poke weed, cattail
leaves: turkish rocket, Tea- Camellia sinensis, good king henry, caucasian spinach, chicory, mulberry, grape, watercres, sorrel, linden, dandelion,
Leaf stalks: Fuki, lovage
Flowers: tiger lilly, apios Americana

https://permies.com/t/62260/Carb-Temperate-Climate-Perennials-keto

That is a nice list that has some tasty alternatives.

For some pretty plants:

https://permies.com/t/143914/Edible-Yard-Visited

I've been planting lots of apple trees for this very reason. Apples? Aren't they full of carbs and sugar? Yes. But deer love to eat them and I love to eat deer so my long term plan is that in 5-10 years deer will cruise through my yard everyday in the fall eating fallen apples. That is one way I'm going protein in the food forest.

Marc Dube wrote:I've been planting lots of apple trees for this very reason. Apples? Aren't they full of carbs and sugar? Yes. But deer love to eat them and I love to eat deer so my long term plan is that in 5-10 years deer will cruise through my yard everyday in the fall eating fallen apples. That is one way I'm going protein in the food forest.

This is roughly what I was going to recommend.  That, or adding a slow growing grazer pig like IPPs or Kune Kunes to eat fruit produced, which will become meat.

N Stephanson wrote:nuts and leaves

Mmmmm two of my favorite foods!

Alan Carter wrote:If your post wins my book you'll get a list of hundreds of perennial vegetables suitable for a cool climate, but if not you can get the same information in a less systematic format on my website at www.foodforest.garden.

I've just been browsing your website and have already learned of some new and exciting plants. If I don't win the free book I'm definitely going to buy one. Thank you for all the knowledge that you share!

Marc Dube wrote:deer will cruise through my yard everyday in the fall eating fallen apples. That is one way I'm going protein in the food forest.

That is actually a great idea! I don't have many deer because our ani-coyote dogs also chase off the deer, but I will consider ways to incorporate domestic critters like pigs and chickens.

The first thing that comes to mind is Jerusalem Artichokes, which are both keto and full of the low glycemic sweetener inulin. Beware, they’re nicknamed Jerusalem Fartichokes.

Don’t forget radishes in your keto garden! You can even grow daikon.

Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peppers and tomatoes are also great keto crops.

On the fruit front, berries have always been included. Strawberries are obvious, but my favorite is black raspberries. There are lots of berry choices. You can even can your own sugar-free preserves.

Don’t forget the herbs and spices!

I always recommend sochan when this comes up!   It's a super early really delicious green that makes lovely sunflower like flowers later in the year.   Establishes quickly to a large patch, self seeds.   It tastes to me like a spinach-like green with a bit of parsley flavor.  Yum.   I'll be canning a load next spring.

I also grow french sorrel as a perennial, and loads of perrennial herbs.    I do have some berries around too;  strawberries as a groundcover and raspberries in another bed.

I have asparagus seeding itself all around my property too,  another low carb perennial.    Rhubarb is another that is yummy and only moderate carbs with decent fiber.   I have all of this in my gardens,  in addition to annual plants/greens and wild volunteers like purslane and lamb's quarter.  

I'm growing moringa as an annual and maybe will bring some inside to try indoors over winter.  Still getting the hang of that plant.  

I'm growing sesame seeds for the first time this year and I'm super pleased so far with the growth and seed pods.   Not quite harvest time yet.  Will be a bit before I can dry and thresh them and see what the yield is like.

Working on getting some nut trees going.  

Low carb for 30 years,  keto for the last 10.    

Possible harvest from a food savannah/food prairie/food forest:
- FIsh: catfish, bluegrill, tilapia, etc
- Dairy: cheese, eggs, milk kefir, etc
- Poultry: duck, chicken, quails, pheasant, etc
- Meat: dwarf sheep, dwarf goat, dwarf cow, etc
- Mushroom: Wine Cap, Oyster, etc
- Beans: soy, peanut, kidney beans, etc
- Nuts: almond, hazelnut, etc
- Vegetables: cabbage family, spinach family, lettuce family, etc
- Herbs: onion family, mint/thyme family, celery family, etc
- Low Carb Fruits Juice: Water Kefir Juices
- Low Carb Flours: Fruit pulp, nut-oil pulp, etc
- and lastly high carb honey, grains, vine-fruits, tree-fruit, shrub-fruit, vegetable-fruits.

Lots of my friends live in the city and all they can grow is herbs in their window, is that permaculture/food forest? Other have a little raised bed, is that permaculture/food forest, some folks might have enough space for 20 fruit tree along the fence line of there 4,000sqft city lot but is that a food forest/permaculture? I think it is fine to have different/personalized versions of permaculture and it is okay to take a closer look on the low-carb items listed above.

I kept my husband tumour free for 7yrs 8.5 months before he was killed in an accident. He had stage 4 melanoma. We started a permaculture project in the Azores. Low/med low carb food forest is monk fruit, Jacuma, Citrus like lemons, grapefruit, limes, oranges, tree tomato, pomegranates, Berries, mulberry, blueberry, etc. watermelon, kiwi, Jacon, and Chayotte. hope that helps.  

I also think that it is good to distinguish the difference between carrot cake(or donuts) and just plain carrot.
It is effort-less for me to eat 1,500 calories in donuts, but it is a workout for my jaws to eat that much carrot, even though they are both "high carb"


Alot of folks who have diabetes and such can still eat 1500 calories per day from starch, the only problem is that they can't eat all at once in the form of highly process cake, but it would be perfectly fine to have it as 1 apple/fruit per hour over 15 or 16hrs.

Remember that excess Proteins are turned into Carbs inside the body. The solution so is eating plant fibers. Things seemingly poor in nutrients. Basically what you think it can not be is the solution except the nuts (a nut from time to time should be OK after restoring your Microbiom in your colon). So green leaves as main food. Through fasting, detox programs enema with living clay (not sterilized) and eating clay and fresh green leaves it should be possible to re-establish a functioning microbiom. It will then produce fats as your main energy source and the dead microbes are transported back to the small intestins where they provide you with the proteins you need. Just think about your Microbiom if you eat meat and Nuts, containing oil and proteins. Your Microbiom is unemployed. So what happens with your muscles if you don't use them? And you don't feed your Microbiom. So what if you don't eat what you supposed to eat? You get sick and die early. Same with your Microbiom.
Human Nutrition is a science with still many question marks. It also needs to take into consideration how humans evolved? Were they made by the Anunaki, which hybridized us from some kind of primates or do we come from Gorilla and/or Bonobos. However, there is not much difference in the two ways. We can compare anatomy of those apes with ours and then learn from them what they eat. I think closest to the reality is Dr. med Joachim Mutter. He refers us to the Mountain Gorillas, which eat mostly green leaves and young Bamboo, Elephant grass and few fruits. Anastasia (books from Vladimir Megre) told us that Adam mostly got nourished by the pollen and other nutrients in the air and alive water and had to care about eating leaves and herbs. I think this has something. It makes some sense to me as we humans have other tasks than to search and eat food. Anastasia gives thoughts I want to take into consideration.
At least one Book from Dr. med Joachim Mutter is available in english "Eat Green". Also speeches are available on YouTume etc. Realy interesting. And from there you can start your Foodforest design. I also work on that but on the Philippines. Currently I make "Wanted Posters" for the Organisms I want to integrate in my Ecosystems as a planning tool. And I bought some seeds for planting for my basic needs and improving the soil.
living Clay you can get by making a loam slurry and pour it in a hole inside the soil. The light clay particles settle on top of the sediments and the water drains away. Then you harvest the top 1/2" which is chocolate fine and tastes much better than the ventillated one you can buy (proposed you have a clean source of loam).