Friday, August 25, 2006

2000 Calories per day possible on whole grains without sugar?

I thought that 2000 calories was too high eating the minimalist way, and I doubted my diet was much different. Here is what I ate today:
260Cal Quaker Apples and Cinnamon Oatmeal (130)x2
75Cal Nori Seaweed (10)x2, Miso soup (40), Shittake Mushrooms (5), Spirulina (10)
1065Cal 1/4 cup wheat berries (160)x4, 1/2 stick butter (405)
220Cal 1 stalk Broccoli (78) and 1/2 chicken breast (142)
0Cal 1 pot of green tea from China: zhen zhu wang (0)
1620Cal Daily Total

Variations
Sometimes I alternate wheat berries with long grain brown rice, quinoa, or soba (japanese buckwheat) noodles. In place of butter I will use cheese (similar calories) or soy sauce (almost no calories). An alternative to the flavored oatmeal is Kashi cereal, hot variety or cold crunch variety. 3 Eggs with butter (fried) or ketchup (scrambled) is also something I eat. Dessert I have 2-3 times per week, I prepare tapioca from scratch with 2 cups milk, tapioca pearls, teaspoon of imitation vanilla and my zero calorie splenda. I would estimate that at 160 calories, since some of the milk sugar cooks off. Each serving would be 40 calories. I average 1 gallon of milk (1400 calories) per week, or I start to feel uncommonly weak (I think it is the biotin I need). Other vegetables I eat a lot of are asparagus, spinach, etc.

Deviations
Every 3-7 days I do binge and eat a lot, but it messes up my insulin intake and there is a very good chance I won't be able to function. In those circumstances I eat a 20" pizza by myself, or 2 Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburgers from Jack in the Box with 4 tacos.

Validation
Without the butter on the wheat berries, my calorie intake would match what I projected as reasonable in the previous post. I'm also 6' tall and have an enormous appetite for my weight (160 pounds). It is good to see that when I use soy sauce instead of milk, my calorie intake matches my previous estimates. I'm interested in trying wheat berries and spirulina exclusively for a week the way I documented it. I honestly don't think that a 2000 calorie per day diet is possible eating whole grains, no sugar and no dairy.

Footprint/Sustainability
I probably consume 4 gallons milk worth of milk products per week, mostly cheese. Measurements show milk production at 12000 L per hectare. I probably consume around 5500 liters annually making a diet with similar dairy consumption added to the minimal estimate require an additional 5000 sq meters. If goats were used instead of cattle, and spirulina instead of hay, alfalfa, grass, etc the number would be much much smaller, ballpark 10-30 sq m.

Sustainable business
Here is an incrementally sustainable business idea: raise cattle or goats on spirulina, and grow more spirulina using manure as fertilizer. It won't be a completely closed loop because you need to supply the nutrients not metabolized each loop (unknown what they are) and the nutrients lost by exporting milk. On the other hand, the chemicals to add might be very inexpensive versus feed.
Another option is raising milking goats on kudzu, offering kudzu removal services in the American southeast. Goats are one of the few known methods to kill kudzu, based on overgrazing.

These minimalist numbers are based on 0 transportation overhead. Food in the US is typically shipped 1900 miles, and we sometimes spend a gallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk (13 mile round trip, buying 2-4 things at a weekly shop). I walk 2 doors down to a convenience store and buy at $3/gallon. I won't pay $4/gallon and $2.60/gallon is common for a 1km walk, sometimes $2/gallon on sale. Our energy consumption is much higher, soon I will write about the different existing systems for measuring sustainability and what they mean.

Are these entries too long? I spend 2-4 hours on each.

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