The next calendar year, 2016, could prove to be a tipping point. Our food security (and overall security) could change for the worse. So I’ve started a reassessment of my stored foods. I use a spreadsheet that calculates the total calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates for the food. I’m finding that fat and carbs are easy to store — vegetable oil, pasta, rice, flour — these foods are inexpensive, store well, and provide ample fat and carbs along with some protein. I have over 100 lbs of pasta, over 50 lbs of rice, and about 35 lbs of wheat flour. For vegetable oil, I have 5.6 gallons of assorted oils: soy, canola, olive, sunflower seed.
The most difficult macronutrient to store is turning out to be protein. Stored protein in my pantry: salmon and tuna, soynuts, walnuts, canned legumes, peanuts, peanut butter, dry instant milk, sunflower seeds, and some frozen egg whites and frozen blocks of cheese. All those protein sources only raise the amount of protein in my food stores to 10% of total calories. And that value is the bare minimum for an adequate diet. So I’m working on increasing high protein foods in my prepping supplies.
My spreadsheet says I have 100 days’ worth of food, for 3 persons, with 10% of kcal from protein, 40% from fat, 50% from carbs. Those are acceptable percentages, though I’d like more protein and less fat (as a percentage of total calories).
By reader request, here is my spreadsheet in new and old Excel formats. I’ve changed the amounts of each food item, so that people don’t know exactly what I have stored. You can delete rows or add rows to make the foods match your storage items. See the USDA Nutrition Database to fill out each column.
Spreadsheet for Analysis of Stored Food (New Excel format)
Spreadsheet for Analysis of Stored Food (Old Excel format)
I’ve recently acquired a soy milk making machine (soyajoy G4). My goal is to be able to make my own milk substitutes, for when the SHTF and the food supply become unreliable. Perishable foods will be most severely affected by any food crisis. I can make a milk substitute from soy, walnut, pecan, cashew, or sunflower seeds. Other nuts/seeds should also work. But my past experiments with milk substitutes identified those 5 as the best choices.
How much soymilk or other milk substitutes can you make per pound of nuts/seeds? One pound of nuts/seeds produces about 7 quarts of the nut milk. So the amount of money and storage space is well worth it for the amount of milk substitute that you get.
You can make milk substitutes without the machine. See my previous posts:
DIY: Sunflower Seed Milk and Pecan Milk
DIY: Cashew milk and Walnut milk
Fresh Milk Substitutes: taste and nutrition
Best Sources of Stored Protein
How much Protein should you Store?
Balancing Macronutrients in Stored Food
How To Evaluate A Protein Source
- Thoreau
Have you thought about canning meat. I teach canning and gardening classes. I have 100s of quarts of canned chicken, ground beef, sausage, bacon and venison. I try to teach people that canners are not dangerous and can really help you get your prepping pantry stocked.
@Brenda: Could you expound upon how you can this meat, please? Or provide a link that would instruct us. You have some very vital need to know skills here and would say some really nice things about you if you would pass along the info. God bless and thanks.
Well I am not Brenda but the first thing to learning about canning would be to just Google it. You will need to buy a caner and I would suggest also getting the Ball book on caning. Then just read and follow the instructions. pressure caning is very easy though a little time consuming but the benifits make it worth while.
I can a lot of meat and it is easy as long as you read the directions carefully, don’t leave out any steps, and time the canning properly. You do need a pressure canner as a water-bath caner will not be sufficient. There are tons of websites about caning meat, you just have to do a search or use a good caning book like the Ball Blue book.
I have canned meat for 30 years. The how to book that comes with canners has a section devoted to meats and seafood. I think canned meats are my favorites. They are fall apart tender and so versatile.
Would you be so kind as to share your spreadsheet template?
OK. I will add to the post.
Agree canning is great! But when I get tired of listening to the canner weight jiggling, I dehydrate. Yes, you can dehydrate meat. That is, jerky. For some meat I dry, it works better to slow cook (crockpot) or pressure cook first. Chicken is less rubbery when rehydrated. Ham is fantastic dried and I have to defend ham bits from my bacon lovers. Ground beef is ok; it just loses flavor some, but still good protein. Just add spices when cooking. Beef roast is great. Must be lean. Fat is the enemy when dehydrating. You can buy small dehydrator at Walmart et al, but my favorite for even drying is Excalibur. Check out dehydrate2store videos on youtube. They will give you the vision, and she is one of us!
Thanks. I use a spreadsheet for inventory, but only did a person-day calculation for our water. I would like to see how you handled the food calculations.
My first comment to the article is a response to 2016 proving to be a tipping year. So was 2015,2014,2013 ect. That said the reasons for food storage are so much more numerous than for a end of the world situation. Convenience, money savings,peace of mind all come to mind first for me. Second if you are looking to store more protein then store it. You can self can meats which gives you more control of what you are eating or buy more canned meats like chicken beef or pork. Either way you can get meats with anywhere from a 2-10 year shelf life. Things like Ham,Turkey go on sale at the holidays and this is a great time to buy and can them. I can beef also when it is on sale. Not a fan of caning ground beef myself but others seem to like it.
Thanks for those spreadsheets. They are far more detailed than my own regarding caloric portions. I will see if I can upgrade my spreadsheets to integrate calories, grams of protein, and water portions.
Thanks again! …and… Happy New Year! May God have mercy on us all!
The start of the year is a great time to take inventory of what you have, what you need and what you need to replace. This goes for your food as well as seeds that you might be storing.
When stored in a cool dry location, seeds can last for more than 5 years, but to be sure they are still viable, I always recommend growing some older ones and recording germination times. The longer it takes to germinate the closer the seed is to being useless. So take inventory of that data as well.