Is it possible to survive long-term on just the three sisters?

I suspect that if you had an unlimited supply of the three sisters for your calorie needs, it would be trivially easy in almost any environment to forage for the gaps. The more I read about nutrition, the more I realize just how adaptable the human body is. And processes like nixtamalization and fermentation would help not just with preservation but also widening the nutrients made available.

As to Roy's warning about all-vegetable diet, I think there was some other problem going on. My kids are 19 and 27 and have been vegan-leaning vegetarians for their whole lives and I know a dozen or so happy, healthy young adults who were raised with strictly vegan diets.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I suspect that if you had an unlimited supply of the three sisters for your calorie needs, it would be trivially easy in almost any environment to forage for the gaps. The more I read about nutrition, the more I realize just how adaptable the human body is. And processes like nixtamalization and fermentation would help not just with preservation but also widening the nutrients made available.

As to Roy's warning about all-vegetable diet, I think there was some other problem going on. My kids are 19 and 27 and have been vegan-leaning vegetarians for their whole lives and I know a dozen or so happy, healthy young adults who were raised with strictly vegan diets.

I'm one of the people that believes it is nearly, if not completely, impossible to live on a fully vegan diet without supplementation.  There also seems to be a growing trend to feed pets a vegan diet, and I think people that feed dogs and cats vegan diets are doing them a great disservice.  It is in no way controversial that humans and dogs are omnivores, and cats are obligate carnivores.  Trying to change that seems unnatural  to me, and permaculture in my mind is a decision to work with nature, rather than against it.  I don't see producing my own food as an exception to that.  Indeed, in my mind, food production is one of the most important aspects of permaculture.  My preference is to do it in as natural a way possible, and part of that is producing food that humans and animals have evolved to eat.

I just ran a nutritional analysis. If you ate 5 cups each per day of corn mush, cooked pinto beans, and butternut squash, you'd meet your caloric needs, and most vitamin and mineral needs.

However, you would be completely deficient in B12 (from animals), D (which the body can make), and K (from green leafy things). You'd be severely deficient in omega 3/6 oils, and choline.

I know I'm late to the party but I have some input regarding B12 and K.

B12 is available from bacteria present in healthy soil in a very limited amount. As long as there is some soil "contamination" in the harvested food (as well as during planting and tending the crops) then you'd get some B12. Probably not enough to be healthy however.

Squash shoots (a palm-sized section nipped off the growing tips) are perfectly edible and delicious, particularly when fried with potatoes. This would help the vitamin K requirement. Pea shoots are also often edible, although I can't vouch for pinto.

As another poster said, the addition of some chickens and some more greenery would really help!

I am vegan, and I want to grow all the food for my needs and those of any with me. Being this way I know that there is nutritional needs met with having a really good variety, which is from the important food groups, that doesn't include animal products, with being sure vitamins needed are there, including B12, which is all produced from certain soil bacteria. So I would have that variety growing. The three sisters vegetables would be included but that won't be all the vegetables, and grains. And I would have fruits, nuts, and seeds.

I think that a three sisters garden is a good thing to use for staples, but if you have a food forest and some chickens as well, your system will be far more stable, fertile and nutritious.

I've got a bunch of threads open to look through -- I'm searching for any yield information on three sisters patches.  Has anyone done this and kept records -- yields per 100 s.f. or per 1,000 s.f.?  Trying to figure out how big a patch to plant to produce a good chunk of our calorie needs for a year.  The three sisters would not be our sole source of food -- we've got plenty of green stuff, and chickens, and dairy goats.  And potatoes and sweet potatoes are in there, too.  But I'd like to know what kind of yields we can expect from doing three sisters v.s. planting everything in separate patches.

Scott Foster wrote:

Anita Martin wrote:I guess for Northamericans this is a known fact (as opposed to Europeans), but for higher nutrition you should look into nixtamalization of the corn:
Nixtamalization
Quote:
Adoption of the nixtamalization process did not accompany the grain to Europe and beyond, perhaps because the Europeans already had more efficient milling processes for hulling grain mechanically. Without alkaline processing, maize is a much less beneficial foodstuff, and malnutrition struck many areas where it became a dominant food crop. In the nineteenth century, pellagra epidemics were recorded in France, Italy, and Egypt, and kwashiorkor hit parts of Africa where maize had become a dietary staple.

..............
Hi Anita, Thanks for the information.  I did a little bit of reading last week about hominy, dent soaked in wood ash, in Mexico, to make Masa for tortillas. I thought this was a modern process.

 I read an article yesterday that said Native Americans ate corn, but it was much more nutritious than the way we eat it today because:

1. They husked the corn (which was said to be an arduous process, but they didn't say how it was husked)
2. They tended to harvest the three sisters at the same time (winter storage) and then eat them together in Succotash. Eating the sisters this way leads to better vitamin and mineral absorption than eating each on its own.

You made me think, how did the Natives husk their corn?  I know it was an arduous process, whatever they did.  So I looked into it. They were making hominy from dent corn by soaking it in wood ash. (haha nixtamalization.)  

This idea is an offshoot, but last week I was researching ways of processing foods for an emergency, and I came across sprouting.  Sprouting seeds is fantastic, how else can you get fresh produce, in the middle of winter, with little water, and no light.  

Here is another weird leap.  One of the safety warnings that pop up about sprouts is salmonella and other food born illnesses that come on the tainted seed.   (lIt seems like they try to scare you off) Now they are bleaching sprouting seeds, which kills a lot of the nutritional value.

Your response got this little chain reaction going in my head. It's like we are so afraid of food born illness that we kill our food.  I wonder if abandoning processes like nixtamalization, and embracing pasteurization, etc., are why modern man has so many issues with gut health.  Maybe it's why so many have auto-immune issues.  If your gut can't use nutrients, what use are they? Very interesting.  Thanks for your input.

Here is a helpful video, one of many on this and other traditional knowledge:
https://youtu.be/7PJv1PyuaoE

The bottom line is that the three sisters are an excellent basic nutrition with the corn and beans providing a complete protein and squash providing most vitamins. However, Native Americans needed to round off this diet with some hunting and fishing and leafy greens, berries, nuts, etc..

Welcome to the forum, David.

I feel you are correct that the Native Americans supplemented their diet with other foodstuffs.

I also feel that the purpose of the three sister gardening was give grow food that could be dried and stored for the lean winter months,

The original question was:

Scott said, "Does anyone know what deficiencies you would have if you ate nothing but Dent Corn, Winter Squash, and Dry Beans?

I feel the big deficiency would be fat which could be obtained from drying fish and other meats that were hunted.

It's a fairly common misconception among outsiders that the milpa system is just three crops that get planted in the field. It's not.  Milpa is corn, beans, squash and quelites. Quelites are wild edible greens that grow in the milpa.  There are lots of different plants fall under the name quelites, which is not a family of plants as they can be very varied. The word just means wild edible greens, that are usually grown in conjunction with domesticated crops like corn. For example, purslane (verdolarga in Spanish) is a quelite, others are more leaf-like, and huazontle is like a really skinny broccoli (wikipedia says its a kind of amaranth)

Anne Miller wrote:

I feel the big deficiency would be fat which could be obtained from drying fish and other meats that were hunted.

And of course AVOCADOS!

Here's a quote of a post I made last October responding to a question from Paul in the "Feasibility of food self reliance" thread:

Dc Stewart wrote:A three sisters nutrient analysis:

Food Yields and Nutrient Analyses of the Three Sisters: A Haudenosaunee Cropping System

The Three Sisters provides energy for 13.42 people/ha and protein for 15.86 people/ha

A review of three sisters publications:

Historical Indigenous Food Preparation Using Produce of the Three Sisters Intercropping System

Estimates of crop acreage for the Wendat (Huron), who like other Haudenosaunee (Iroquoian) were farmers who supplemented their diet with hunting and fishing, suggest that a third of an acre per person provided for sustenance.
(...)
Heidenreich estimated the Wendat diet was 65% corn, 15% beans, squash and pumpkins, 10–15% fish, and 5% meat.

Melissa Ferrin wrote:[And of course AVOCADOS!

Unfortunately, only certain places can grow avocados.  Where I live pecans might be native so pecan would add some fat and store easily.

Avocados are native to the Western Hemisphere from Mexico south to the Andean regions and are widely grown in warm climates.

https://www.britannica.com/plant/avocado

Other than avocados and pecan what are some fat sources from native plants?

Here's one nutritional breakdown of corn, squash, and beans. Of course it would vary depending on how much of each food a person chose to eat.

Anne Miller wrote:

Other than avocados and pecan what are some fat sources from native plants?

Where there is not enough water for avocados, mesquite pods are a traditional food source, I do not have the nutritional information but there's an organization in Tucsan called Desert Harvesters that would. Then too far north for Mesquite, I understand acorn was a major food source. Again I don't have the nutritional information but have heard of organizations promoting the preservation of acorn culinary, traditions.  Black walnut is also an option in some regions.

Melissa Ferrin wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:

Other than avocados and pecan what are some fat sources from native plants?

Where there is not enough water for avocados, mesquite pods are a traditional food source, I do not have the nutritional information but there's an organization in Tucsan called Desert Harvesters that would. Then too far north for Mesquite, I understand acorn was a major food source. Again I don't have the nutritional information but have heard of organizations promoting the preservation of acorn culinary, traditions.  Black walnut is also an option in some regions.

Black walnut grows over most of the contiguous 48 states.  But north of the black walnut range you'd still have beech and butternuts for a while.  North of their range, you'll have to go to animal fats, which, to be honest, are healthier for most people anyway.  Hazelnuts also have a fairly wide range, and regular walnuts will grow in a lot of states.  They aren't quite as hardy as the black walnuts.  

Anne Miller wrote:

Melissa Ferrin wrote:[And of course AVOCADOS!

Unfortunately, only certain places can grow avocados.  Where I live pecans might be native so pecan would add some fat and store easily.

Avocados are native to the Western Hemisphere from Mexico south to the Andean regions and are widely grown in warm climates.

https://www.britannica.com/plant/avocado

Other than avocados and pecan what are some fat sources from native plants?

Squash seeds and sunflower seeds are good vegetable sources of fat and protein. Some evidence suggests people first domesticated squash for the seeds, not the flesh.

Mk Neal wrote:
Squash seeds and sunflower seeds are good vegetable sources of fat and protein. Some evidence suggests people first domesticated squash for the seeds, not the flesh.

Definitely. In our village people rarely eat pumpkins or other winter squash. They cut them open, take out the seeds to process, then toss the squash flesh to the cows.

Branching off of the potato idea, I would highly recommend looking into the American Ground Nut. It’s a legume native to most of the North Eastern/ Mid Eastern U.S. The shoots, leaves, flowers, pods, and “nuts” are all edible as it grows; and better yet it yields shallot sized tubers that have 3x higher protein than potatoes with a bunch of other additional micronutrients and minerals. The tubers are harvestable after 1 year, so it takes a little patience. But if you plant one large patch each month up until late fall-mid winter(depending on climate- if your in a wamrer climate like North Carolina you very well might be able to plant one patch for every month of the year), you’ll be set for the following growing season and have a staggered monthly abundance. When you harvest a patch, plant the largest tubers (or seeds saved from the pods) in a different spot, and chop up the remnants of the plants; placing said chopped pieces on top of the now disturbed soil. Since you’re preferably growing these patches in wilder areas, this covering will protect the soil from becoming sun baked/fry, and cycle nutrients back into the top soil as the matter decomposes.
Keep this repetition up and you’ll have a series of protein rich, abundant plots that literally thrive best in the understory of a forest. And, if following the mulch advice, might even help add a little topsoil to your surrounding wilderness. Happy planting, and happy eating 🍽😋🍽

The Hopi blue corn is higher in lysine, as are most native heritage corns.  The ability to produce lysine was bred out from hybridization and other factors favoring faster growth or higher productivity.  Nixtamilization, not sure that is spelled right, also increases protein content by improving the amino acid profile.  It involves soaking in water with wood ash.  

In most Three Sisters patches, various weeds come up, such as lamb’s quarters, or amaranth, both of which are a great way to round out the nutrient content of our diets.  So, with that added, it certainly helps.  Still deficient in niacin, so what to do about that?   Peanuts maybe?  

Forgot to add.  Purslane is a great source of Omega 3 in its seeds, and corn oil is made from corn kernels, so getting some oil that way too.  Even the green leafy veggies have some.  

Sweet potatoes here in the south (FL for me)  have been a major go-to for survival food as well as a tasty crop for a long, long time.

They're a set 'em and forget 'em until time to harvest if you have semi-fertile soil and enough hot weather.

I had a classic example of that last season.
I caught COVID and was unable to do much for many months.
Sweet potatoes will come back from what's left underground to the point people joke about not being able to get rid of them.
The ones I had planted a year before did just that, and they made a crop of smaller but equal number of sweet potatoes.
This was with zero inputs.
I should add that the ones I grow the most of are one localized to here, a purple one called Purple Martian from Mark Biernat over in St. Augustine FL.
These are the ones that came back big time, whereas smaller patches of white and other sweet potatoes did not do quite as well.

If you're reading up on food self sufficiency this is a good one for tactics:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/james-c-scott-the-art-of-not-being-governed

And a classic low tech guide to sweet potatoes from none other than George Washington Carver. Anything he wrote is still very valuable today if you're growing in the south:

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/vegetable/additional-resources/carver-Sweetpotatoes/