A Wake Up (For me anyway.)

[UrbanFool]

I was going through a preparedness packet, and although I'm aware of 400 pounds of grains here and 60 pounds of beans there, it's hard to put that visual into a room and see what you're going to end up with for a year's supply of food. I found this out of the LDS Preparedness Manual which I think was mostly gleamed from the Internet. But it made the towering boxes of food come to life for me.

Do you REALLY have a year’s supply?

Just how big is a Year’s Supply of food? As explained on the previous page, our Church is suggesting the following minimums for each adult:

400 lbs. Grains (17.5oz / day)
60 lbs. Beans (2.6oz / day)
10 quarts Cooking oil (0.87oz / day)
60 lbs. Honey (2.63oz / day)
8 lbs. Salt (0.35oz / day)
16 lbs Powdered milk (0.70oz / day)
14 gallons of drinking water (for 2 weeks)

So, just how much is this?

Two 5 gallon buckets will hold about 75lbs of wheat, rice or other grains.
This means you need 11 buckets of grain for each person in your family.

If you store all your grains in #10 cans...

Wheat, Rice, Corn, etc..
You would need 64 cans or 10.5 cases per person.

Pasta
You would need 32 cans or 5.25 cases per person.

Rolled oats
These are lighter but bulkier, so they require more storage containers and space.
You would need 124 cans or 21 cases person.

Beans
A 25 lb bag of beans will about fit in a single 5 gallon bucket, with a little space over, so 2 buckets would hold a one person supply, or 12 -13 # 10 cans or about 2 cases.

Daily Food
Dividing 400lbs by 365 days, equals out to 1.09589lbs, or just over 1 lb of grain, per person, per day. That is approximately 2 cups of unground grain to cover your breakfast lunch and dinner.
Dividing 60lbs by 365, this works out to 0.16 lbs of beans per day, or 2.6 oz—approximately 3/4 cup.

The other foods listed would also need to be used in limited amounts.

This is not much food, folks. Get the basics, then immediately begin to add more kinds of grain,
soup mix, canned and/or dehydrated vegetables and fruit, etc to add variety and provide more than the minimal survival diet.

As an example, the minimum recommended amount of grain, when ground and prepared will yield about 6 small biscuits or a plateful of pancakes. Its enough to keep you alive, but a far cry from being satisfied and not hungry.

[M4wilson]

We are setting up for 5 adults instead of 2 adults, 2 kids and a baby and then doing 2x the minimum amount for the adults. It begins to take on a life of its own after a while. We have it cached not only at home, but in other locations as well to ensure that one disaster doesn't get all of our preps at once.

[idmedic]

M4,

Sounds like we're traveling the same road. Two kids and one in the works so why not plan for 5? We just left Rigby. Moved down closer to town. Fuel was killing me! Good to see you on here.