Food How accurate do you think...

[ginnie6]

the LDS food storage charts are? I'm trying to fill in some holes and was looking at them this morning. Based on our actual usage of items I think they're kind of high on some things. maybe its just the way we eat? Anyway wondering anyone else uses their charts as guidelines.

 

[summerthyme]

They're probably based on better (longer term) research than anything else anywhere. However... they tend to be VERY heavy on wheat, honey and dry milk.

A better resource (although I think the author may be LDS as well) is "Making the Best of Basics" by James Talmedge Stevens. I've got an early edition, as well as a much later edition. It contains tons of charts and worksheets, so you can personalize it with your own family's needs. And it breaks it down by sex and age (teenage boys can need DOUBLE the calories/nutrition of an adult non-pregnant, non-lactating woman)

I will say that the vast majority of Americans who buy their food weekly (or daily!) have NO clue how much food they actually can go through in a month or 6 months. Because we're farmers/homesteaders, and raise almost everything we eat, we have a better handle on it, and believe me, it's a LOT! Even with just hubby and I now, I can up over 300 pints of soup every year- and we rarely have much left over. When I was feeding 4 teenagers, I routinely started supper by peeling 10# of potatoes, and only if I were lucky did I have any leftover for hashbrowns for breakfast, or fried mashed potato patties for dinner.

One other factor to keep in mind... If "TSHTF" and we lose the grid, everything currently done by our kilowatt slaves will have to be done by hand- using human "calories". I've posted this before, but hubby, who isn't a big man, could easily consume 5,000 calories and not gain an ounce when he was in his 20's and working our dairy farm. Even now, in his 60's, he eats over 3000 calories a day and often still needs a snack at night to keep from losing weight. Physical labor and activity burn a LOT of calories. Our current "weight conscious" society forgets that most of us sit on our butts a good part of the day. If we end up having to shelter in place because of radiation, or self-isolate in a small apartment due to Ebola, that's one thing. In that case, you may be able to get by with a lot fewer calories than we can, out here on the farm.

Summerthyme

 

[ginnie6]

Trust me I know about that 10lbs of taters a meal! If the married dd's and sils come over its more like 15lbs. I buy taters 50lbs at a time and people think I am crazy but they never stay around long enough to rot. I've got a 13yo and a 9yo boy and they can pack some food in. Dh in his 50's still consumes tons. He has put some weight on since his 20's but is not fat by any means. He does nothing but munch till bedtime either.
So I will stick with the higher guidelines then.

 

[summerthyme]

Seriously- if you can find the book on Amazon, even the older editions are REALLY useful for preppers. I've been doing this for so long that it's pretty much second nature, but I wore my first copy out. It isn't just lists and charts... it has recipes and other recommendations.

I may dig mine out (if I can find it... still have building materials stacked against my bookshelves.. I don't think we're EVER gonna get our greatroom finished, although if we end up with the grown kids all here for self-quarantine, that project is going to keep them busy and from killing each other! LOL!) and use it to double check my preps.

As far as taters... we grew 1600# this year, and I'm debating how many I dare offer for sale. Aside from 4 bushels promised to our rural mail carrier, none are committed, and I need to plan on keeping 200# back for seed for next spring, in case certified seed isn't available next year. And if all the grown kids/grandchildren end up here for the winter, we'll use pretty much all of them!

Summerthyme

 

[Dafodil]

I gave up on the chart! I buy what my family will eat and STILL I catch grief for prepping from my DGI family! I told them to think of it as insurance. You don't want to get sick but if you do you're covered! I told them when I die, dig a couple of extra feet deeper and just throw all of my preps on top of me! But, when an emergency does appear they wont think mom was as stupid as they thought! Look for the best but prepare for the WORST!

 

[summerthyme]

A lot of my preps are "deep" preps... for when the XX number of months of "regular" food runs out, or in the case of something making growing our own food as we usually do impossible for a year. Say, a nuke issue, where radiation makes staying outdoors long enough to plant/tend/harvest gardens too dangerous.

No, I'm not looking forwards to eating beans and rice every day, and under normal conditions, that isn't what we'll have to do. And yes, I catch some flack from the grown kids about the "mess" in the basement. I'm blessed that hubby's only comments are "we need a bigger basement"... but he's benefitted several times from my "prepper mania' (most recently when we were able to go 11 months without a penny of income while he waited for, and then recovered from, a total hip replacement, because we had everything we needed on hand) and he's smart enough to acknowledge that.

And yes, I've used the "insurance" angle more than once when talking to the kids. I once asked the most vocal of them "how much do you spend on auto, home and health insurance every year?" and pointed out that I had spent less than that on "life insurance" (in the form of preps) that will cover 10-20 years. They backed off after that,

Interestingly, I got a call from my DWGI daughter yesterday, saying "I know you've probably seen the Ebola news from Dallas"... and then going on to say that her hubby has said they are NOT flying to Florida for a winter vacation as they had been planning, and that they WILL be coming to our farm to self-isolate if it gets to our state. I also heard those delicious words "you were right"!! DD is a sweetheart, and there's no one I'd rather have here with me if TSHTF- she's got organizational talents I never got, and between us two and the other two DIL's (if the one can leave her "essential" job... not sure of that yet) we will manage to handle keeping what's going to be a chaotic household fed, cleaned and organized. However, she has more of a "female" brain than I do, and definitely fits the mold of "not wanting to think about stuff like that". Fortunately, she's also got a strong practical streak once things can't be ignored any longer, so at least we won't have to drag her, kicking and screaming, into isolation.

Summerthyme