I think numbers was part of my problem. I had used the tactic of buying extra each time we went to the supermarket. Our shelves were full so we felt like we had a good start. For our test we purchased milk, eggs and a little meat but didn’t buy anything else.
By the end of the month our shelves were pretty much empty. We would have been on beans and rice for another month, maybe.
My lessons:
1. Don’t underestimate the serving size. I counted a can of tuna (plus sides) as a meal. In reality we used two cans and got really tired of tuna quickly.
2. The importance of variety is not to be underestimated.
3. An inventory would have helped us figure out what we really had.
4. Its harder to bake tasty bread once you run out of sugar.
5. My wife made some pretty good dishes out of the freeze dried food we bought.
On the plus side we now have our old stuff gone. Moving forward I’ll count serving sizes more closely and watch staples like sugar and flour. Things like if you want a canned vegetable each day then you need 365 cans of em, sounds simple but we overlooked it.
Also, many of the 1-year supply kits you can buy are short on calories so be careful with what you buy.
We have relatively LARGE amounts of sugar, honey, cornstarch, white rice, cocoa, lard, and dried beans & legumes at ALL times - because those first six items simply never go bad. They have to be stored properly, of course, to have an indefinite shelf life.
Thanks for the information and insights. I think I need to take a closer inventory my self, keeping in mind what you have shared.
As an aside comment, I think trying to provide beyond a year is pretty much futile. Political circumstance will override most plans, except for the plan that includes being united in Christ to the very end, if it be His Will.
I'm not sure how many people you are feeding, but for emergency rations we'd never use more than one-eighth cup of tunafish, (that is equivalent to 2 tablespoons) per person.
To make positive that each person was getting this portion the 1/8th cup would be placed UNCOOKED straight from the can into each person's bowl, letting whatever HOT food was accompanying it be dumped on top of the room temperature tuna.
If there is no electricity, in the winter freezing cold temperatures out of doors would keep food from spoiling; however, if it's summer I have read some descriptions of how people have gone to the coolest corner of their basement and set up a metal tray of water on the concrete floor, and then placed airtight SMALL baggies of the cooked leftovers in the water, weighing them down so that they are fully submerged.
This is an attempt at an EASY "refrigeration" -- but obviously wouldn't work in HOT areas of the USA.
I'd never use this method for overnight, but there might be some times during emergencies when you must store food for a couple few hours --- and don't have access to a cold running stream anywhere nearby in which to submerge it.