Food Storage Calculator

[Cowboy]

This is a spreadsheet that will help you calculate your minimum food storage needs.

Cowboy

[dlcorrell]

Thanks for this calculator. I use is all the time. Spreadsheets are my favorite and you have all the calculations figured out, so I won't have to.

Thanks
Donna

[bokbadok]

Thanks Cowboy, for this calculater. I have a question though - the provident living website calculator recommends 300 lbs of grains/year for one person, while your calculator recommends 400 lbs. Can you comment on the discrepancy? Thanks.

[prairiemom]

Have you looked at FSP (Food Storage Planner) by Revelar? We bought a bunch for our stake so that we got it at the lowest price ($9-10 if I remember right) and it's the greatest program. Not only get your food storage calculator, but a monthly budget, shopping list, inventory tracker, convert recipes to food storage, etc.

[thor610]

If you do an engine search of 'food storage calculator ' , there are quite a few online that you can use.

[Cowboy]

the provident living website calculator recommends 300 lbs of grains/year for one person, while your calculator recommends 400 lbs. Can you comment on the discrepancy? Thanks.

It used to be 400. I guess we don't need to eat like we do now. I think 600 would be more like it. You have to realize that these are minimums to keep you alive. You can stay alive on very little. But is that the way you want to exist? Just barely surviving?

[goldilocks]

Cool, but how do I put this into my microsoft word program, or can I ?

[mirkwood]

300 lbs is the equivalant of what the Nazi's gave their prisoners in the death camps.

[bokbadok]

300 lbs is the equivalant of what the Nazi's gave their prisoners in the death camps.
Got a source for that fascinating little stat, Mirk?

[mirkwood]

Tim Woolf's presentation. I can't remember who his source was or if he gave one.

[bokbadok]

Ok, the concentration camp comparison lit my curiosity. I did a little googling and measuring and calculating, and this is what i came up with.

According to this website (http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/html/eng/historia_KL/warunki_bytowani_ok.html), prisoners in Auschwitz received a ration of 1300 - 1800 calories per day, depending on work load. A camp in Czechoslovakia (http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/whitebook/desg84.html) provided ~ 1150 calories per day.

Current minimum recommendations (300lb grain, 60 lbs legumes, 10 qts oil, 60 lbs sugar, & 16 lbs dry milk per person per year) would provide ~2292 calories per day. (It works out to approximately 2 1/4 cups wheat, 1/2 cup beans, 5 tsp oil, 1/4 cup dry milk, and 1/2 cup sugar. If you'd like a more in depth explanation of my calculations, please let me know.)

So, church recommended minimums come in a fair sight higher than concentration camp rations, but admittedly low for an athletic, active male.

Boosting the grains to 400 lbs per person would up the calorie intake to roughly 2708 per day.

So, the obvious answer is that food storage goals should be tailored to caloric needs. If you've got a houseful of teenaged boys, better go with 400+ lbs of grain per person. If you've only managed to produce female offspring or if your children are young, the lower 300 lb grain minimum would probably suffice.

Personally, I thought the oil ration was a little low at 5 tsp, and 1/2 cup of sugar seemed high. Obviously, I need to do some more experimenting to find out how well the recommended minimums fit our family.

Thanks guys, for getting me thinking.