I think there is a book that discusses this, and those who have read it will hopefully chime in. It's by Carol Deppe and I think it is the Resiliant Gardener. I think your list closely matches hers, but I think she would say beans instead of only soybeans. I haven't picked up a copy yet, so this is just what I remember from reading stuff here and there. But break's over, got get back to getting my back into my living. Cheers!

For a combination of storage, nutrition, and usefulness I would list potatoes. winter squash, dried beans, and kale. You'll probably want a fishing pole too

Soybeans are great if you can keep the animals from decimating them. While it's probably not hard to do on the scale of acreage, it's very hard to do in the home garden in my experience -- everything that eats plant matter just loves soybeans.

Potatoes are one obvious choice -- they were the subsistence crop in Ireland, until the blight hit and caused the famine -- one good reason not to "put all of your eggs in one basket."

Winter squash is a good candidate for the list, you can grow a pretty large amount in a decent space, it's relatively dense in nutrients compared to most vegetables, and it stores pretty well.

I would throw parsnips onto this list -- while not everyone's favorite, they're pretty easy to grow, fairly dense in calories, and they winter easily in all but the coldest climates.

Finally, if you're in a climate that allows it, sweet potatoes would be another good candidate, also producing a lot of calories per area.

You need to think in terms of calories, really. Cabbage has a lot of vitamins and beneficial compounds, but is very low in calories, so if you were relying on it not to starve to death, well, you would starve eventually -- I think it would be almost impossible to eat enough cabbage to survive on, given that there are only 109 calories per POUND -- so, a typical man would have to eat about 18 pounds a day to get the minimal approximately 2000 calories needed for survival at any kind of decent functional level. A potato has about 400 calories per pound (raw), and sweet potatoes are almost exactly the same at 390 calories per pound. So, you would still need about 5 lbs a day, which sounds sort of daunting -- that would be about 10 "average" sized baked potatoes, assuming that was entirely it for the day in terms of your food intake, and I think that would be "do-able" if spread out over a day, but would get awfully boring awfully fast to anyone used to the diversity of foods we now have available on a routine basis.

Winter squash has about 180 calories per pound (raw). Parsnips have about 320 calories per pound (raw) if I've done the math right.

I guess this is why our ancestors utilized ALL kinds of food sources, both animal and vegetable, and came up with methods of concentrating the nutrients and the calories, such as grinding grains into flour to remove some of the non-caloric, non-digestible bran.

If you really want to provide a lot of nutrients, nuts are about the best you're going to do in the plant world. Walnut nut meats have about 3,000 calories per pound. If you were in a subsistence/survival situation, I would say you'd need to eat the squirrels to allow yourself to get a crop of nuts, and that would add to your diet, too - ;-)

@tishtoshnm You can practically harvest cabbage all year long also if you have the space.

There is a variety of cabbage called January King that you start in the summer. It is ready for harvest in January and can keep until Spring.

I think the Native Indians had it right for my area.
Corn; High calories, storage
Beans; good protin, storage
Squash; vitimins, storage
Sunflower; oil, storage
All just staples, we know that the Indians suplemented their diets with game,fish,wild fruits and vegetables

Curt

I've been making a list on just that subject. The top calorie producers (per cup, cooked):

Soybeans, boiled, 298
Navy beans, 260
Cranberry beans, 240
Pinto beans, 240
Small red beans, 220
Great Northern beans, 200
Sweet potato, 180
Corn, fresh kernels, 180
Garlic, 180
Potato, baked, medium, 161
Peas, 134
Parsnip, 128
Onions, raw, 128
Artichoke, globe, med, 64

But calories aren't the whole picture. We also need complete protein [a source of protein that contains an adequate proportion of all nine of the essential amino acids], and none of the above except the soybeans, provide that.

Complete proteins (with a few exceptions) tend to be a combination of sources, eaten together or within a few hours of each other. You can eat ANY TWO of legumes, seeds, grains (and pseudo-grains), and nuts for a complete protein.

Remember all those Mexican meals that always had beans and rice? That was legume + grain, a complete protein.

A few sources are complete proteins in themselves: soybeans, amaranth and quinoa (South American grains), and hemp.

Quinoa ('keen-wa') is very high in protein, is drought-tolerant, has no hull, but the seed does need to be washed before cooking or eating to remove the natural soapy coating (saponin, which you can use as a laundry soap). Many quinoas require tropical daylengths or unusual growing conditions, but Bountiful Gardens carries several types that grow fine in temperate climates like ours. (1 cup cooked, 222 calories).

Amaranth also has no hull, and a single plant of some varieties (like Golden Giant) can produce more than a pound of seed per plant. (1 cup cooked, 251 calories). The leaves are also edible, a source of Vit A, Vit C, Calcium, Iron.

Hemp seeds can contain up to 36% protein, but until the US govt can pull their heads out, it's illegal to grow here right now. But if you're living in Canada, you're good to go.

(p.s., quinoa, amaranth and hemp seed are all gluten-free.)

Another good source of protein that you can 'grow' in winter are sprouts (see link below), very nutritious.

Note: every grain or pseudo-grain from food bulk bins that I have tried sprouting (mainly just to see if they would), DID sprout, but those listed as 'hulled' may not. This could be a valuable source of high-protein salad sprouts or emergency 'bulk seed' for planting, although the variety, and suitability for your local climate) in some cases wouldn't be known.

Look at your local bulk bins with a fresh eye. You pay a lot extra for a plastic bag and measured exactly to a pound or two. Check out the bulk spices, too: cheap whole seeds (more than you get in a seed pack) often for less than 25 cents.

If you're storing any kind of seed in your freezer for disaster preps, consider buying some mylar food storage bags and oxygen absorber packs (often sold together as a set) to store them in. Regular plastic bags are not an oxygen barrier, and your seeds may dry out over time.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: The Sprout People

This is an interesting question, and I would highly recommend The Resilient Gardener to anyone who want to go into it in depth.

I think it is important to take into account what will grow well in your part of the country, too. It's no accident that pecans are more popular in the south than walnuts, and that nearly everyone has eaten sweet potatoes and almost no one knows what winter squash are.

I sincerely hope that I never have to grow enough food to keep my family from starvation, but I am very glad I know how.

In the meantime, I still have to set priorities for my limited garden space. These decisions take into account the retail dollar value of the vegetables I can grow, whether they are tastier or more nutritious than ones I can buy, and whether I have the means and the space to store them.

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I'll have to check out The resilient Gardener
My choices weren't taking calories into account so that was definitely enlightening.
I'm not in a situation where I have to do this, but thought I might dedicate myself to learning to grow the necessary ones, how to preserve them, and create some tasty recipes with them so I'll be ready if it ever happens to me. In reality, I would combine it with fresh meat or fish and still buy some stuff in bulk. I like to germinate brown rice and mung beans that I buy in bulk. Anyway, I phrased the question the way I did so people would give a bare bones kind of answer and not have to clarify what they would be combining it with to meet there nutritional needs.
I had the legume grain thing in the back of my brain, but hadn't really considered it in this context either.
And, I had never thought to plant any of the seeds/beans from the bulk food bins. I may have to give that a try.

It will never happen(cross my fingers), but I will play along.
Collards- because they can be harvest year around, at least I do.
Tomatoes- there are so many in a small space & you can do so much with them.
Cucumbers-same as tomatoes.
Peppers- same as tomatoes.
I will plant the weeds some people call Herbs, too.
Mint,garlic,spring greens, things that can live with out our help.

The wider the variety, the better the eating. If you only had access to four or five foods, you would probably get sick of them pretty fast. Tuck in herbs, onions, half a dozen carrots, beets, turnips, cabbage, lettuce, etc, in any open spot.

If things do get hard (and I don't think our economy is doing as great as the media is trumpeting), remember that valuable plot of land called The Lawn. You can't eat grass -- it's just wasted space. Slice off the sod just below the surface, flip it over, and let it break down into a garden plot.

Sue

If I could only grow three or four. Thats a hard question because I can grow year round in my zone. Really wish the question was what three or four summer crops and what three or four winter crops would I grow.

Given the limited scope of the question. I would have to go with my strengths and what my family will eat.

Tomatoes
Potatoes
Squash
Root Crops like Carrots, Beets.

The main issues I would see would be (in decreasing order of importance):

Calories
Nutrients
Ease of Growth
Storage
Multitasking
Taste

The first two are obvious. You don't grow celery as a survival food.

Ease of growth, rather self explanatory. Best food crop in the world is useless if you can't grow it. This includes not only picking a crop that is suited for your environment (no relying on oranges if you're living in Canada), but also taking into consideration things like soil depletion rates. Corn is great, but its a heavy feeder, it'll exhaust a plot very quickly without fertilizers. Remember the old pilgrim stories about the indians having to teach them to put a fish under each stalk of corn they planted?

Storage is the next most important thing. Tomatoes are all well and good, but they don't keep well. Sure, you can sun dry them, but you basically aren't going to be able to eat them year round if you're relying solely on what you grow (assuming here that we're talking survival situation, where you don't get luxuries like a freezer). Beans that can be dried, squash/pumpkins with thick shells that can last for months and months, grains, that sort of stuff will be what you want most. Gotta plan ahead for the winter, and anything that won't keep won't help.

Multitasking, by this I mean crops that serve multiple uses beyond just eating. A crop like sugar cane, in addition to being very high calorie and vitamins can be used like bamboo in many ways (building material, split into slivers for needles, etc). Hard shell gourds that can be used as water containers/bowls/cups/etc. Hot peppers can be turned into weapons, while a great many food plants have incredibly poisonous parts that have good uses.

And last and probably least, taste. In a survival situation, anything tastes good if you're hungry enough. But in planning for long term survival, you're going to want things with different tastes, preferably a mix of strong and subtle in order to keep eating from being a chore.

But, lets just assume we're not talking about an actual survival situation and just a "I don't want to spend money going to the grocery store, but I can whenever I want to" garden.

Potatoes - Easy to grow, good nutrition (actually 3 decent sized potatoes and a glass of whole milk provides everything the body requires per day), and lots of ways to cook it.

Tomatoes - I wouldn't include these in a survival list, but for normal use, yeah. They're good fresh, they can be sun dried to keep, and you can cook them down into a sauce that can be stored in the freezer for long, long periods of time.

Lentils - Second only to soybeans for protein, and a good source of iron. And in my opinion, they taste better than soy.

Bell Peppers - They have 3-4x the vitamin C of oranges when allowed to mature to red. The leaves are also edible and contain calcium and beta carotene as well as various other nutrients. Yet most people just compost them because they don't know any better.

Great, now I'm hungry. =P

Lentils, amaranth, and quinoa are all great suggestions that hadn't occurred to me. An interesting thread, despite the rather morbid - if unstated - undercurrent.

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.

If it was me, I'd grow the stuff that's expensive in the grocery store and buy the cheap stuff. And then I'd learn how to store the stuff I grow.

I try to do that and I grow peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, specialty beets and turnips and lettuce. I also grow lots of greens because fresh picked has many more nutrients than anything I can buy. I can, dry and freeze anything I can't eat. Beans, corn and summer squash are cheap during their season so buy them in bulk and freeze. Landscape with herbs and learn to use them and store them.

I don't think 4 veggies is an adequate variety to remain healthy for any length of time.

Ah, but if you plant corn, it will attract deer. Corn on the cob AND venison!

Make selection so that you have enough varieties to represent the color spectrum of your products.Like Tomatoes Red color, Spinach,Cucumber etc. green,Squashes and Zucchini from grey to yellow,Peppers Green to Purple ,Radish and Carrots Red to Pink etc. This is a good way of gardening to get most of the nutrients.

I'm not running around yelling "the end of the world is nigh", but I plan to survive if it is!
I'm trying to grow plenty of high-calorie storage crops this year. I have drying beans climbing pretty much every vertical surface. Luckily they're a runner; we've had such a cold summer that pole beans wouldn't have been very productive.
Potatoes. If I could grow sweet potatoes, I would, but it's not warm enough. And they need to be as blight-resistant as possible. I lost my tomatoes to late blight and some potatoes succumbed, but after cutting back the haulms, most of the tubers seem ok. But there's plenty of starvation potential there...
Winter squash. I'm growing an 'ironbark' type that will store till next season.
Corn isn't realistic for me from a seed-saving perspective: my place is really small and I couldn't avoid inbreeding depression.
Kale. Indestructable and a prolific self-seeder in my climate. I'd get really sick of it though!
Extras, but to make things palatable, I'd have to have as many different herbs as I could grow.
All I need now is a beehive and access to a miking cow and I'm set!

There is only one herb/flavor you will ever need. Garlic. Luckily, its easy to grow, and has lots of delicious nutrients.

someone else has been thinking about this

Here is a link that might be useful: survival foods

I agree with curt grow. The Indigenous people knew what they were doing. The three sisters, corn, beans and squash and then I would supplement with a green that will grow here most of the year, kale. I know that around here, Kansas City area, there is wild garlic and onions, wild blackberries, wild raspberries, wild gooseberries, wild plums, rose hips, dandelion greens, all kinds of wild fruit and vegetable material that is available from April to November. I would also ensure that I have a good source of Vitamin C through the winter when the greens may not always be available. Possibly watercress could live in a protected stream area.

The best source of winter Vit. C for us in the continental US is seaberry, either dried or cooked down to a jam. The berry is about 1% Vit. C by weight (very sour).