"Richard A. Lewis" wrote in message

It was once a common topic on the misc.survivalism group....how many
acres would it take to grow a year's food and all that. The bottom
line was that if you plan *nothing but a veggan diet*, you pretty much
have resigned yourself to a slow death.

Most of our folks had heard or believed that it was possible to grow
enough food on an acre, but it never stood up to scrutiny.

I have a feeling I just started the argument again on these
cross-posted groups as well. You gardening folks have fun

Oh for Heavens sake! You are being patronising and heading off the track
into pure fantasy. Bucket asked about a self sufficient lifestyle. Bucket
did NOT ask about a vegan lifestyle or what the many froot loops at
misc.survivalism go on about when they congregate for a fantasy session.

The "gardening folks" understand very well what work is involved in food
production. Instead of simply chewing the fat and weaving the odd dream
about how they might get or produce food when it comes to a survival
situation, they actually do it (REGULARLY!!).

We on ms had gone so far as to plan out and critique pretty much every
possible diet and analized the requirements vs the benefits etc and we
came out with, at most, two possible ones (nothing but grains and
beans etc) and dozens of proven impossible ones.

That is it precisely - planning and critiquing but not doing anything about
producing food at all.

I remember once asking how many gardeners there were in misc.survivalism and
there were about 3 who admitted to it and a couple more who had had a garden
in the past but not now. AND if one reads the posts in misc.survivalism it
is clear that many have never been nearer to a food producing garden than a
Municipal Park. As for how many who have ever been on a farm or to an
abattoir or killed a hen then I think the mix of all those experiences would
drop the numbers to perhaps one or two at the most. And if one adds in
cooking or preserving...............

3 vegetable growers is an appalling figure for any group which aspires to
survive anything worse than a mosquito bite.

I stopped reading misc.survivalism some time back. Instead of finding a ng
which SHOULD be an interesting group (since "survival" involves so many
basic "homesteading skills"), it was a group dominated by a bunch of
deranged nutters of limited life experieinces but a huge dose of paranoia
and with a weapon fixation who tended to drown out the few who were worth
reading and who had some relevant experience.

One person, using a minimum 3,000 cal a day diet (necessary to produce
those taters after all....gasoline engines don't last long in a
survival situation) would have to eat between 12-15 pounds of taters
per day depending on the type to get the necessary cals.

Of course, as that one fellow pointed out above, you won't be trying
to live on potatoes alone. We added spinach, onions, apples, corn,
beans, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, peas, squash etc etc etc in equal
amounts and in pretty much every case, the required poundage simply
went up. (We tried that menu above and it came out to approx
seventeen pounds a day if I recall correctly.)

Given that small list of edibles there are clearly still very few gardeners
and no permaculturists who post to misc.survivalism even now!

Right about now, someone on the gardening groups will be typing out an
irate "but my family did it during the Depression and I grew up just
fine". Problem is that their families, just like the Irish, the
Europeans, and the Russians (all limited diets) all survived by eating
massive amounts of fat. Why do you reckon fried foods were and are so
popular in the US? Why do you think the Russian moms will stand in
line for four hours to buy a pound of lard sold as "sausage"? Linda
H. hit that nail on the head.

Bucket's original question said "I am willing to eat anything that is
healthy, preferably remaining vegetarian (although I am quite willing to
have chickens for eggs, and perhaps a goat for milk" and "I realise that the
yearly food yield will have to be spread out via preserving, canning, etc."

No mention of eating only spuds or even adding the odd cauliflower or bit of
corn. Fantasy can be fun at times but all you are doing is restricting the
topic to one hobby horse involving a restricted set of annual vegetables.

Bucket asked a much more broadly based question. He/she states PREFERABLY
vegetarian but since eggs and milk are included and it is only a
"preference" then why restrict it to only annual veg and exclude a wider
range of animals and perennial veg and tree crops?