The issue of proteins is not really an issue. Food combinations have complete proteins. Look at the nutritiondata site and you can find that, say, oats have a similar aminoacid quality to filet mignon, and collard has the same index, and rice and beans a better one. Animal foods intake serves many purposes, but proteins is a very minor concern. In survival mode, calories per square foot are also of concern. It turns out that, in a warm enough climate, sweet potatoes provide the same calories per sqft as grains, though my guess is that the potato can not compete. The other advantages of sweet potatoes are that the leaves are quality fodder. Surely, in a survival mode, I would have a rabbit buck and three or four does, and those can be fed solely with sweet potato leaves (or grass). It is also a plant that is typically easy to grow, and stores well. Finally, there is the issue of nutrients, which you can check on nutritiondata.com. Sweet potato has significant amounts of just about any micronutrient. There is also the Kitava study that showed complete lack of degenerative diseases in a population eating 90% of their calories from sweet potatoes. The highest life expectancy in the world is in Okinawa, where the average daily intake of sweet potatoes is just short of 2lb/day. In a survival mode, presumably, you have to keep yourself healthy.

Hi saopk, Welcome to Garden Web! Please see the link below for getting your email link enabled so that you can easily be reached for trading. hth. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: sticky: please read before posting! **required**

Amaranth can get really tall, like 8 feet or so, almost as big as many sunflowers, and more bulk. The yield can be impressive, up to a lb of seed from the biggest kinds. And yes, it can be weedy in its reseeding habits. Quinoa is more diminuative, about 3 feet tall in my garden, yielding probably an ounce per healthy plant. I'll save you the trouble with garbanzos/chickpeas. Yield is VERY low, almost everyone, including myself, who's tried it at home says its not worth it, except to see the plant grow (it's actually very pretty, quite at home in the flower garden as an accent). Corn has all of the usual pest problems, but it varies from place to place. I was going to buy a grain mill, but I just bought a Black and Decker coffee mill with adjustable grind on sale last year at Target, $15, and it's been great. It grinds everything from hard, hard flint corn to wheat, rice, you name it. At the finest setting, it produces flour comparable to commercial flour, coarse setting gives cornmeal texture. Hard corn needs to go through twice to make fine flour. It has a 2 cup capacity, and takes between 20 seconds to 2 minutes to grind that much, depending upon how hard the item being ground is. I use it probably on average twice a week, and its been going for about 14 months now with no trouble. Every once in a while, something, usually corn, gets stuck in the mill, and I have to take the thing apart to clear the jam (it unscrews, easy to do).

I also have not received any seeds. I've seen no effort on Olivia's part to contact me. For what it is worth, I have participated in quite a few swaps within this community before and have always found them worth taking the chance...sometimes fantastically so. However, I walked into the swaps recognizing that it IS taking a chance, especially if someone is a first-timer at facilitating a swap, as in this case apparently. I don't plan to stop participating in swaps in the future, but find it wise to gamble no more than I can afford to lose.