Some kind of grain.
A green vegetable (broccoli)
Chickens (for eggs and meat, and they can eat the grain too).
Any food will leave someone out. Most grains are a problem for diabetics, but we’re building a hypothetical best-fit.
Beef, potatoes, and apples.
I’m not too well versed in immunology, but wouldn’t the constant exposure at an early age to the only available staple foods eliminate most allergies to it?
For peanut allergies, for example, most people who were allergic to peanuts were not exposed to them at an early age. Ironically, the fear of peanut allergies keeps people from letting their kids be near peanuts, which then leads to peanut allergies.
Milk, potatoes and oatmeal
The Three Sisters: Corn, beans, and squash. The Indians knew how to grow them together for mutual benefit. The cornstalks provided uprights for the bean vines to climb up and grow a better yield. The bean vines helped stabilize the cornstalks in the soil to keep from getting blown over by wind. The squash leaves covered the ground to hold in moisture and the prickly squash stems helped repel predators.
Three Sisters agricultural methods are only really possible if you’re hand-cultivating and -harvesting. It doesn’t really scale up to industrial farming to feed a whole NewEarth. So I don’t see the relevance.
Who said anything about scaling up industrial farming?
Beans, rice, onions. They keep well in storage ,too. But rice requires a lot more growing and processing skill than potatoes, as well as climatic restrictions…
It’s how I read the OP’s “a new earth” - that you’d have to feed a whole planet’s worth of people with these staples.
Quinoa, lentils, and sunflowers.
Sunflower seeds for “nuts” and oil, petals and roots for tea, and leaves can do anything kale can do.
Lentils are high in protein, fiber, and minerals. They can also be eaten as sprouts for more vitamin C.
Quinoa provides a lower (more human friendly) amount of starch than rice or potatoes, but provides the same combinations for total protein with lentils as rice does. Also works as sprouts.
All are currently grown in hotter, dryer areas of the Earth, so without thoroughly researching it, I am thinking they will be a good bet for a wide climate tolerance.
To test this combination I entered them into cronometer.com, which is optimized for a fairly detailed nutrition breakdown. Sunflower leaves were not available, so I substituted 1/2 cup of kale to get an approximation.
The amounts I entered and calories for each (1523 Cal. total):
Lentils, Boiled, 1 cup, whole pieces, 229.68
Kale, Raw, .5 cup, chopped 3.68
Sunflower Oil 2 tbsp, 240.9
Lentil Sprouts, Raw 1 cup, whole pieces 81.61
Quinoa, Cooked 1 cup 222
Sunflower Seeds, Dry Roasted, Unsalted 1 cup, whole pieces 744.98
Serious deficits and the FDA RDA achieved:
Choline 50%
Omega 3 37%
Vitamin C 36%
Vitamin A 24%
Calcium 17%
Sodium 2%
Vitamin D 0%
1523 calories leaves plenty of room to increase portions to fix any level over 50%.
The protein profile was even better than I expected. Lysine 71% and Tyrosine 78% were the only two below 80%. Out of 11 protein types only 5 were below 95%. Again, that’s with calories to spare in a 2000 cal diet.
Since the OP didn’t specify anything about the economic or demographic conditions being envisioned, I guess I read my pro-American Indian biases into it and you read your assumptions into it too. Depending on the conditions, my idea could turn out to be more relevant. Neither of us is fighting the hypothetical, but rather stretching it in various directions.
Concur. The American Triad. Staples must be storable in bulk, so squash must be dried. With that caveat, I might replace squash with dried peppers for Vit.C. Consider potatoes mostly because they require little infrastructure to produce and consume.
I feel it needs restating that staples are not expected to provide *every *nutritional need.
This is very cool info that I did not know. Sunflower leaves are edible? How do they taste? Are their any cuisines that have dishes using them?
No, you’re still thinking much too broadly. I’d go with the classic 26/6 for standard paper binding, a 13/14 for heavier duty applications, and some surgical staples for any medical procedures.
One or two people mentioned this, but if we’ve only got three staples, should we also consider (I suspect there’s a term for this) but the ability for a crop to grow across the widest range of climates, soil types, etc?
It seems to me that rice is a poor choice because it needs such vast amounts of water (I think?) that many places would not be able to grow it.
Corn, as much as we love to hate it, can also produce a sweetener, so that should be something worthwhile once NewEarth gets a certain level of technology
I’m thinking Corn (grains, versatility); Beans (nutrition, fiber); Potatoes (ease of production, calories). Kind of a boring world, maybe.
You could make a sweetener out of any starch, though.
Not sure about the other two, but #1 is peanuts. Because I can’t imagine life without peanut butter.
Bourbon, single malt, and rye.