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Right now, most of us live in a world where the fewer calories a food has, the better. Should the day ever come when food is in short supply, though, that trend will reverse.
When preparing to grow a survival garden, the number of calories a crop offers is an important consideration. Although veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers are nutritious and easy to grow, they won't keep you very full during a long-term disaster.
That's why when planning your survival garden, you also want to include lots of high-calorie crops. To help you with this, I made a list of 11 of the highest calorie crops I could think of. Plant these foods, and you can help ensure that you and your family stay full when food is in short supply.
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Avocado
Avocados are rich in protein, healthy fats, and calories, offering about 370 calories per cup. Of course, your ability to grow avocados may be limited based on your location, as they prefer warmer climates.
One way to get around this, though, is to plant your avocados in pots and bring them inside when the weather turns cold. However you manage to grow them, avocados are a tasty crop full of calories, making them an efficient way to add some variety to your garden.
Butternut Squash
Butternut squash is a hearty, high-calorie crop offering approximately 63 calories per cup of cooked flesh. While it doesn’t boast the highest calorie count per serving, its long shelf life makes it a practical survival food.
A mature butternut squash can last for months in cool, dry storage conditions, providing a sweet, nutrient-rich option during the off-season.
Cassava
Cassava, also known as yuca, is a calorie powerhouse, offering around 330 calories per cup of cooked roots. It's a hardy, drought-resistant crop that thrives in tropical and subtropical climates.
Cassava must be properly processed to remove natural toxins, but it rewards your efforts with a starchy, versatile food that can be boiled, fried, or turned into flour for baking. Its ability to grow in poor soils makes it a valuable addition to any survival garden.
Corn
Another dinnertime staple, corn is high in calories, with one cup of corn kernels providing about 354 calories. While corn takes a little more space to grow than many vegetables and grains, it’s still a popular choice for survivalists given its versatility as a food and its high number of calories.
To make your corn last, you can either dry it, can it, or freeze it, though drying and canning will likely be the more efficient options in a survival scenario.
Jerusalem Artichokes
One cup of Jerusalem artichokes yields about 76 calories, making them a good choice for adding variety to your garden while at the same time ensuring everything you plant is still relatively high in calories. Best of all, Jerusalem artichokes are hearty and require very little care to grow.
Lima Beans
Another high calorie bean, lima beans provide about 217 calories per cup. Like pinto beans, they can be dried, canned, frozen, or eaten fresh. Any way you prepare them, though, lima beans will have quite a different flavor than pinto beans, providing you with a little more variety while at the same time still offering plenty in way of calories.
Peanuts
Peanuts are an excellent choice for a high-calorie survival crop, packing about 828 calories per cup of raw nuts. They are relatively easy to grow in warmer climates and offer a double benefit: the nuts themselves are calorie-dense, and peanut plants help fix nitrogen in the soil, improving its fertility for future crops.
Whether roasted, boiled, or ground into peanut butter, they provide an essential mix of protein, fats, and calories for long-term survival.
Pinto Beans
Pinto beans are a survivalist classic. Most often, people will buy bulk bags of dried pinto beans and put them in storage, but you can easily grow your own pinto beans. One cup of pinto beans offers about 670 calories, making them a very filling food.
Combine this with the fact that they are relatively easy to grow and have an indefinite shelf life when you dry them, and you’ve got a crop that is well worth planting.
Potatoes
Potatoes are one of the most versatile foods in the world–baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, French fries, hash browns, tater tots, potato chips, and about a million different casseroles. In addition to their versatility, potatoes also offer a lot of calories, with a medium-sized baked potato providing about 225 calories.
As an added bonus, potatoes store well, giving you access to a food supply during the non-growing months, and they yield a large amount of foot per square foot of garden space.
Quinoa
Quinoa is often considered a superfood, and for good reason—it provides 222 calories per cooked cup. This ancient grain is not only a great source of calories but also a complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids.
Quinoa grows well in cooler climates and high altitudes, making it suitable for a variety of environments. It also stores well, ensuring you have a long-lasting food source on hand.
Soy
One of the factors that make soy a great choice for a survival garden is the fact that it's a good replacement for meat, providing you with a way to keep getting protein in your diet, even if your access to fresh meat is diminished. Soy is also high in calories, though, offering about 376 calories per cup.
Sunflowers
Nuts of all kinds are very high in calories and nutrients. However, the time it takes for a pecan or walnut tree to grow to maturity limits their viability as a survival food option unless you already have a few planted. One crop that can be planted in your garden and grown in a reasonable time frame, though, is sunflowers.
One cup of sunflower seeds offers 270 calories as well as a good dose of healthy fats, making them a great snack to have available.
Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes offer all of the same benefits as russet potatoes, except they grow in the hot summer months, making them a good crop to rotate in when the temperature rises. On average, a sweet potato will provide about 112 calories.
While this is less than a russet potato, the different growing season and different flavor combined make them a crop worth considering.
Turnips
Turnips are somewhat of an acquired taste. However, if you enjoy them, then the good news is that they are relatively high in calories. Offering 36 calories per cup, turnips may not be quite as high in calories as the other crops on our list, but they earn their spot largely due to the fact that the entire plant can be eaten.
In addition to eating the tuber, you can also eat the leaves of the plant (turnip greens), which are loaded with nutrients. Thanks to this, planting turnips is a great way to have access to fresh greens while at the same time providing you with a tuber that is relatively high in calories.
Wheat
Wheat is often left unconsidered as a survival crop due to the perception that you need a lot of space to grow it. However, there are ways around this, especially since wheat requires very little care and can thus be planted anywhere the soil is good (think backyards, small fields, and so on).
If you do manage to grow a crop of wheat, you can look forward to quite a few calories, as one cup of wheat berries offers 651 calories. Wheat berries also store very well, and given that flour is an important part of so many dishes, it’s a great crop to have available.
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