Fruits

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Fruits

Post by brimstoneSalad »

DarlBundren wrote:
t's also not very environmentally sustainable. Fruit has a pretty intense footprint compared to beans and grains.


Have you got any references? If I google 'fruit footprint' the first result is ' bananas are strong candidates for the ultimate low-carbon food'.
Banana yields are all over the place, so it's hard to find average yield per hectare.
http://www.philstar.com/agriculture/356 ... g-industry
https://www.fintrac.com/sites/default/f ... 202014.pdf

Around 20 tons per hectare seems to be considered good (there are higher reports, but most seem to be lower), while you might see three tons of yield for soybeans as a commercial average (may be wet weight). Superficially (if you completely ignore nutritional content) bananas look good.

But a kilogram of banana (without skin) has 890 calories and 11 grams of protein.
With inedible skin, more like 593 and 7 grams of protein.
A kilogram of dry soybeans have 4,460 calories and 360 grams of protein.
Green soybeans have 1,470 calories and 130 grams of protein.

It's very important to also get the details of what that yield means. About 1/3rd of a banana's weight is the inedible skin, but I think soybean yields are quoted without the pod, which makes a big difference in the calories and nutrition in yield reporting.

Wiki also has a page discussion protein yield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_pr ... ea_of_land
(that agrees better with the green value, but I haven't followed their methodology)

Bananas might be better in terms of calories per acre than beans (at a bit over twice the amount), but they lose in terms of true limiting factors in human nutrition like protein by an enormous margin.
Bananas are also more difficult to store and ship, and have a shorter shelf life than beans which creates food security issues.

If you're looking for the best sources of calories per hectare, you're looking at mainly root vegetables:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0207e/T0207E04.htm
Sweet potato for example has a tremendous capacity for producing high yields, up to 85 t/ha have been recorded on experimental plots, though most plantation yields do not exceed 20 t/ha.
Sweet potatoes beat out bananas in pretty much every way, with the highest yields surpassing those of bananas, and having more protein and huge amounts of vitamin A. They're also not 1/3rd inedible skin.

There are still storage issues with potatoes, with respect to energy use during climate control, but that's another issue which has to be weighed against the same in bananas.

It takes a lot of time and research to properly compare these things, but fruit: no, not generally good for the environment relative to other plant foods. Bananas may be one of the best yielding fruits (which is reflected in their price), but the nutrient density is still so low that in terms of where you're getting your nutrition as a human being with real dietary needs, they're an environmental menace.
One or two a day for potassium and vitamin C are reasonable, but not as a major calorie or even a minor protein source like the HCLFers use them for.

In terms of good yield coupled with efficient storage and distribution, your best bet is probably going to be dry grain products, corn (maize) one of the best among those if you're after calories. Beans for your protein. Wheat is more of a balance between the two nutritionally, but I'm not as familiar with yield there.
If you want to feed the world on pure sugar, your best bet may be sugarcane.
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DarlBundren
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Re: Fruits

Post by DarlBundren »

Thanks. Very infomative post.
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