Most Calorie Dense Plants to Stock Up on for Food Shortages
Food Shortages have already begun in many areas of the world and it is going to get worse unfortunately. So why not be prepared and grow foods that are calorie dense to stock up on? Here are some good options for the most bang for your buck;
Top Choices:
By many measures, the two best crops to create storable calories in most climates would be sweet potatoes and winter squash. These plants are easy to grow, are mostly carefree during the growing season and easy to store. They are also easy to grow from what you grew the previous season and stored throughout the winter.
Sweet potatoes are nutrient and calorie dense, easy to store, and unlike regular potatoes, have edible greens as well. A pumpkin is a type winter squash, as well as butternut squash. These store easily, have quite a bit of calories, and you can replant some of the seeds from the ones you eat.
In colder climates where sweet potatoes don’t grow as well, consider growing regular potatoes, preferably a storage variety. In warmer climates, you might want to replace the winter squash with cassava.
2nd Choices:
Cowpeas and corn
These 2 crops create lots of storable calories as well and have a bit more protein. They are however a bit more difficult to grow and harvest.
In this case corn means growing dent/flour/flint corn, not sweet “corn on the cob” corn. You need a bit more space with corn to produce enough to be worthwhile — and the same with cowpeas. Cowpeas are often referred to as “black eyed peas.” This, in the opinion of the author, are far more effective than standard beans such a pinto or black, because cowpeas have edible leaves as well! Cowpeas can also be eaten whole by chickens whereas pinto and black (regular beans) are poisonous to chickens. Cowpeas also mature quicker and in some climates you can easily get 2 crops in per season!
If your climate is much colder, you can consider growing wheat instead of corn and field peas (like Austrian snow peas) instead of corn and cowpeas.
3rd Choices:
Cabbage and carrots
Neither of these plants are particularly calorie dense, but they do provide valuable and storable nutrition. Both plants store easily and can grow in most climates if planted at the correct time. There are varieties of carrots that can stored in the ground (and eaten as needed) even through harsh winters. Cabbage can be turned into probiotic sauerkraut. They both are a bit trickier to grow than the plants mentioned above.
4th Choices:
Sunflowers and beets
Sunflowers are extremely easy to grow and provide a highly valuable nutrient for survival — fat! It takes a lot of sunflowers to produce what you would need, and they are much more difficult to process and store than the above plants.
Beets don’t store that well, and don’t have that many calories, but provide very valuable nutrition. Their greens can also be eaten. They are easy to grow quick to produce.
All plants here are in different families and are great to rotate in your beds for good healthy crop rotation strategies!
Dec 28th, 2022
Written by Kevin Feinstein from Food Forest Abundance
www.foodforestabundance.com
