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I'm curious about what parameters people are using to plan/evaluate their food storage needs. I've been using primarily servings and calorie/serving to determine how many days my food will last.
I think my calorie count method is "ok", but assumes that I'll only consume X amount of calories each day. In practice, the serving sizes for each food or my preferences may not line-up nicely with those assumptions.
I have a decent variety of things, but I haven't really done any "meal planning". For example, I have no idea if I'll run out of breakfast items quickly or not. I also don't have a good handle on balancing protein/vitamins/etc for my diet. I've tried to buy things that I've eaten before (Mountain House) but there are some things that I'm not sure how much I'd like to eat for multiple days (MREs, SOS bars, even the buckets of rice/beans).
Lastly, I'm not really planning for any definitive time horizon. I'm in the "more is better" mode of planning. I don't really intend to have a year's worth of food on hand, but I'd like to have more - how much more is a question. Food takes up a lot of space & I'm running out of (good) places to store it.
There's also a bunch of little things that I'm probably missing from my stockpiled food - seasonings, baking goods, etc. I generally have these in the house, but they're really not part of my formal stockpile of food. I generally don't count on the food I have in the house in my planning - I probably have a couple of weeks worth at any given time, but that's variable and who's to say how fast it'll go without refrigeration.
So, how about the rest of you?
1) How do account for the amount of food you are storing? By servings? By calories? Some other method?
2) What's your time horizon for stockpiling? Certain number of days? Number of meals?
3) What other factors are you considering in your planning? Variety? Food preference? Longevity? Protein/Carb balance? Something else?
One other anecdote: we live on a medium-sized cul-de-sac and get along well with most of our neighbors. I recently ordered several buckets of food - rice, beans, etc. My wife and I were thinking this might be useful for helping out neighbors. Doing the math - there's probably 35 houses on my street & maybe three people per house. If we were to share these buckets of food with them, and they ate a 2400 calorie diet, I could feed them all for exactly... one day. Food for thought on how quickly your supplies could get consumed.
I think my calorie count method is "ok", but assumes that I'll only consume X amount of calories each day. In practice, the serving sizes for each food or my preferences may not line-up nicely with those assumptions.
I have a decent variety of things, but I haven't really done any "meal planning". For example, I have no idea if I'll run out of breakfast items quickly or not. I also don't have a good handle on balancing protein/vitamins/etc for my diet. I've tried to buy things that I've eaten before (Mountain House) but there are some things that I'm not sure how much I'd like to eat for multiple days (MREs, SOS bars, even the buckets of rice/beans).
Lastly, I'm not really planning for any definitive time horizon. I'm in the "more is better" mode of planning. I don't really intend to have a year's worth of food on hand, but I'd like to have more - how much more is a question. Food takes up a lot of space & I'm running out of (good) places to store it.
There's also a bunch of little things that I'm probably missing from my stockpiled food - seasonings, baking goods, etc. I generally have these in the house, but they're really not part of my formal stockpile of food. I generally don't count on the food I have in the house in my planning - I probably have a couple of weeks worth at any given time, but that's variable and who's to say how fast it'll go without refrigeration.
So, how about the rest of you?
1) How do account for the amount of food you are storing? By servings? By calories? Some other method?
2) What's your time horizon for stockpiling? Certain number of days? Number of meals?
3) What other factors are you considering in your planning? Variety? Food preference? Longevity? Protein/Carb balance? Something else?
One other anecdote: we live on a medium-sized cul-de-sac and get along well with most of our neighbors. I recently ordered several buckets of food - rice, beans, etc. My wife and I were thinking this might be useful for helping out neighbors. Doing the math - there's probably 35 houses on my street & maybe three people per house. If we were to share these buckets of food with them, and they ate a 2400 calorie diet, I could feed them all for exactly... one day. Food for thought on how quickly your supplies could get consumed.