Calorie totals

Jack frost has visited me, kissed my apples, and wilted my sunflowers. He left me with much harvesting to do! Finally, I have weighed the crops from my little GAMCOD garden and totaled the calories.

Sunchokes: 31 lbs. = 10,230 calories
Corn 1155g dry kernel weight = 2444 calories
Potatoes (reds) 11.6 lbs. = 4106 calories
Parsnips 38 lbs. = 12540 calories
Beans (dry) 2 cups =  491 calories
Sunflowers 284 g. = 1704 calories
Flaxseeds 1794 calories
2 pumpkins + seeds = 375 calories
Peas 441 pods = 639 calories

GRAND TOTAL OF 34,323 calories in 200 square feet!

Bravo!!

That is awesome, well done!

Hmm. I seem to have a discrepancy on my bean calorie count. Not that it's a big total, but it's odd that in one picture I based the calorie count off of cups of dried beans, and in the other, on ounces. We'll, anyway, US Dry Bean Council say there are 126 calories per oz. Of dry beans. That makes my calorie count for the beans 491 calorie, not 2400. So that reduces my total by 1909.
Making my grand total a little less: 47, 501. Still impressive tho!

Well done Rebekah!
I'm still to dig the few crops that made it through our poor summer on my not-really-GAMCOD garden (a few parsnip and sunroots). I think anyone that gets a crop, and weighs it deserves a reward just for doing that!
Did you work out an equivalent calories per acre?

No, Nancy, I haven't done that yet. I am not sure how, since the garden I grew in didn't have any paths. It was 40x5, so I didn't have to step into it much, just reach in from both sides. I'm not sure how to translate that to an acre, since in an acre, there would definitely need to be pathways

I don't know if we came up with a formula for an acre - I don't remember the subject of paths coming up. I think no-one would quibble if you just scaled it up.
An acre is 43560 square feet.
Your area is 200 square feet
200 into 43560 is about 217 so multiply your total (47, 501) by 217 gives 10,307,717 - over 10 million calories! Even if you deduct 10% for paths that's still way more than 1 million calories!

Tell me about the dirt you started with!

Didjya get heaps of video?

Potatoes (reds) 11.6 lbs. = 17,284 calories

google says

There are 354 calories in 1 pound of Potatoes (Skin, Without Salt, Boiled).

11.6 * 354 = 4106.4

??

paul wheaton wrote:
google says

There are 354 calories in 1 pound of Potatoes (Skin, Without Salt, Boiled).

11.6 * 354 = 4106.4

??

Holy Smokes.... welp. While I might be a fair gardener, and a good enough cook to make a crowd of people smile, I cannot be trusted to crunch numbers. Sheeeeeesh, I'm embarrassed. I should have just posted weights and suggested someone else determine calories and add it all up! *sigh* well, 30-something thousand Kcal is a lot less impressive, huh?

paul wheaton wrote:Tell me about the dirt you started with!

Didjya get heaps of video?

I do have quite a bit of footage and showed multiple ways my soil sucked:
1. It started as lawn
2. I had to remove quite a bit of gravel that gets pushed there by the snow plow each year. So it's a rocky area.
3. The life in the soil was next to nothing. I detailed on film very few worms and bugs. I showed a comparison with my garden bed soil, making a big contrast, especially in color.

I also had plenty of other troubles, including a June 20th frost and overwhelming earwigs and grasshoppers.

I've turned in about half of the season's worth of videos. It takes me a significant amount of time to put them together and upload them. I've been in the thick of harvest and preservation season, as well as fall sports season (and football has 3 more weeks left as we climb the State Ladder. Go team!!)

Not making excuses. Explaining that I've got priorities that have delayed dealing with garden footage.

I kept pictures and taking video all season because I hoped it would become part of the GAMCOD project. But in the latest podcast, it was hinted the project is if-y right now.

Do you still want my footage turned in?

First:  the GAMCOD project is massively important to me.  I get the impression that 90%+ of people are certain that they cannot grow enough food to make any difference.  They are certain that it will cost more than buying it from the store.  And that it will take so much time that they would be dollars ahead working at mcdonalds and buying the food.  And "everybody knows" that you cannot grow a garden from xxxxxxxxxx but only from an existing garden patch.

Second:  I get the impression that there are thousands of people that are part of permies that are craving this exact information.  To see five different people pull this off easily and on the cheap.   So if we can make a movie, they will jump in.

Third:  I had hopes that we would have more than a hundred people doing GAMCOD stuff this year - and more than 20 would have glorious results at the end.  And we would then be able to make a movie out of the best five (or maybe the best dozen?)  But that didn't happen.  Andres and I are thinking that we might take the footage that we have so far and make a bit of a video to inspire a few hundred people to try next year.

All this means:  yes, please send in your video and we will see if we can do something with it to get this project on rails.  And next year, you will have TWO submissions!

Rebekah,

Can you edit your first post to have the right numbers?

paul wheaton wrote:Rebekah,

Can you edit your first post to have the right numbers?

Yes. Thanks for explaining all the things. I was worried I was too little and too late. Can someone help me double check the numbers? I don't wanna make another mistake...

Rebekah Harmon wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:Rebekah,

Can you edit your first post to have the right numbers?

Yes. Thanks for explaining all the things. I was worried I was too little and too late. Can someone help me double check the numbers? I don't wanna make another mistake...

Hello Rebekah!  

You are right on time!   This is so great you are doing this.   What numbers were we going to check?

Samantha Lewis wrote:

Hello Rebekah!  

You are right on time!   This is so great you are doing this.   What numbers were we going to check?

Hi, Samantha!

I was just hoping someone would look over my math in the first post of this thread. Adding up all the calorie totals. So I don't make another very public mistake.... *sigh* I can sometimes add things up on a calculator 3 times and get three different totals. Is it my fat fingers...? It's better for me to stick to longhand.

I've taken the weights/measures from your first post and various calorific values from the internet. I have had to guess a bit, so consider this a first stab.

Sunchokes: 31 lbs. 330 calories per pound (https://permies.com/t/241168/GAMCOD-square-feet-degrees-colder#2657242) = 10230

Corn 1155g  I found a range of values for this:
eg.dry kernel weight 364 calories per 100g (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/790276/nutrients) gives 4204.2
or 119 cal for 1 Oz (https://www.yazio.com/en/foods/corn-dried.html) 1 Oz=28.3g gives 40.8 Oz so 4856.7
take an average: 4530

Potatoes (reds) 11.6 lbs. 73 calories/100g (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2346402/nutrients without skin) 1 Oz=28.3g 1 lb=16 Oz so 11.6 x 16 x 28.3 = 5252.5g so 3834 calories; slightly less than Paul calculated but in same ball park.

Parsnips 38 lbs. 75calories/100g (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/170417/nutrients) 38 x 16 x 28.3 = 17206.4g /100 x 75 =12904.8

Beans (dry) 2 cups 230 calories per cup (https://beaninstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Nutritional-value-of-dry-beans_handout.pdf) gives 460

Sunflowers 284 g these are with shells so the edible part will be less: 1 Oz gives 86 calories (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/generic/sunflower-seeds-hulled-unroasted?portionid=14530&portionamount=1.000) 284/28.3 x 86 = 863

Flaxseeds 1794 calories  3 tbl sp (31g) =170cal (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/bobs-red-mill/flax-seed) or 897 cal in 1 cup (https://foodstruct.com/food/seeds-flaxseed)
Your picture shows a half full preserving jar assuming a quart jar = 64 table spoons half that = 32 tablespoons so 32/3 x 170 = 1813 cal

2 pumpkins
26calories / 100g (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/168448/nutrients) assuming a pumpkin weight of 6 lb or 2.721kg gives (2 x 27.21) x 26 = 1414.9 say 90% of this due to skin still gives 1273 cal
Your calculation was quite different here so there must be a difference somewhere.

2 pumpkin's seeds I'm going to asume 1 cup total: 747 cal (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/dried-pumpkin-and-squash-seed-kernels?portionid=35267&portionamount=1.000)

Peas 441 pods .
Hmm, lets assume 8 peas a pod and each pea weighs 0.2g so that's 8 x 0.2 = 1.6g per pod x 441 = 705.6g peas 42 cal per 100g (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/170010/nutrients) gives (705.6/100) x 42 = 296 cal

alternatively 14 calories in 10 pods (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/generic/snowpeas-(pea-pod)-raw?portionid=24136&portionamount=1.000) gives 441/10 x 14 = 617.4 cal

total: 37272 on 200sq ft

x 217
gives 8088067 calories an acre - still over 8 million!

(now check my math!)

Thank you, Nancy!! That much math makes me want to hide in my bed 🤷‍♀️ I really appreciate you taking the time.

I had only assumed there were about 3 c. Of cooked pumpkin from those two little guys. I wish I could test that theory... but my kids made jack-o-lanterns out of them!

I had only assumed there were about 3 c. Of cooked pumpkin from those two little guys.

That'll be the difference then - I used an average weight off a random site. If yours were on the small side then the same site for calories gives 1 cup (1" cubes) to be 116g say 10 % more for puree (?) gives 1.1 x 116 =  127.6g per cap : 3 x 127.6 = 382.8g total

redoing that caluclation:

2 pumpkins
26calories / 100g (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/168448/nutrients) 382g gives 3.828 x 26 = 99.5  cal


that makes the revised totals

sunchokes: 10230
corn: 4330
potatoes: 3834
parsnip: 12904.8
beans: 460
sunflower seeds: 863
flax seeds: 1813
pumpkins: 99.5
pumpkin seeds: 747
peas: 617.4

total: 35898 calories for 200 sq ft

x 217
gives 7790017 calories an acre - still pretty good!

I'm impressed by your range of crops too. Many of mine failed almost completely I think - I've yet to dig them out, although I am not really taking part since my climate is too mild (!) Interesting how calorie rich the seeds are. I wonder about grains? Barley 367 calories per 100g, oats 381 calories per 100g, hmm, they do take up a lot of space though, maybe intercropped with legumes?

You can see how much a little variation on the figures for weight or calorific content makes a difference. Converting from the way the produce is measured to the way the calories are presented is a bit of a faff too. The ones I used were often raw figures, but that is the way the produce is weighed so that seemed logical to me. I think that maybe we need to use a common value for the figures so as to avoid people picking the best looking one that can be found....not that anyone here would do that, but it makes it fairer perhaps.

Hey Nancy! One more crop I had, which I totally forgot about! I just remembered it as I was going back over my videos, that I had a volunteer zucchini, which produced 6 medium-large zucchinis! If one zucchini is 55 calories, that's 330 more calories.... sorry I forgot.

Time and cost totals for the entire year:

16 hours on site prep and garden setup,
3 hours fencing or fixing the fence,
6 hours mulching or spreading compost,
2 hours tending to poop macheine (rabbit) and feeding him,
5 hours planting or re-planting,
5 hours total weeding,
2 hours building a bean trellis from willows,
8 hours harvesting,
2 hours making and watering in homemade fertilizers,
Total hours are: 49 hours!

Is this one separate? 7 hours weighing, totaling, and filming and editing for this project. If we include these hours, I spent 56 hours
I did not have watering hours calculated, because I made sure to plant my garden where there was already overhead irrigation. (in my lawn!)

Costs for the entire project:
$28 in fencing,
$13 in seed
$41 total monies spent.