Lately I’ve been on an extreme paleo diet, ranging into carnivore diet territory. Since I’ve been doing construction work on my house, which necessitates lifting a lot of heavy things, I thought it would be a good idea to eat more protein and less carbs so I can gain muscle and lose fat.

Meat is expensive. And it’s a better food than vegetables. As much as I like to garden and grow everything under the sun, I eat a lot of meat and thrive on it. So I need to get it from somewhere.

I was pondering these things this morning while drinking my coffee and got talking with Rachel about raising meat. At first, we thought about raising animals. Pigs are easy to raise in a backyard, as are chickens, but both of those aren’t nearly as good for you as beef.

Yet beef comes from large animals that are not as easy to raise in a small space.

So what does this have to do with cash crops?

I am a great gardener. If I grow something I can sell, I can trade the cash for meat and not have to raise cows myself.

Last year I had good luck selling yams, but they are a lot of work and I don’t eat many of them, despite them being one of my favorite plants.

Coffee, however, is easy to grow – and I just started planting a hedge of it. Why not expand and plant a couple hundred trees? That could be a good business.

Better: plant beds of tobacco in between the coffee. A farmer can sell his tobacco here without a special license, and there’s always a market for it. If I target tourists and rich ex-pats, I can sell it as local, organic tobacco and make a great return. Especially if I can turn it around quickly by drying it like this:

And coffee can be processed like this:

We could grow our own vegetables near the house, then grow tobacco and coffee in the back section of the yard.

Cash crops to sell… and then buy meat!

Caffeine and nicotine are never, ever going out of style.

In between, I could also grow pineapples, vanilla, black pepper and other crops for additional income.

I’m psyched. Time to get planting.