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When it comes to prepping, you need to make sure your food store is sufficient to maintain your family for a necessary period of time.
Often, you may be stockpiling food without ever knowing for certain how long your food store will sustain you.
This is where a food storage calculator can come in. This calculator will be able to calculate the minimum amount of food needed to feed your family for a certain period of time.
Some popular time frames include 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year.
The calculator includes food storage recommendations for grains, canned or dried meats, fats and oils, beans, milk and dairy, sugars, fruits, vegetables, water, and other cooking essentials.
All recommendations are based on organizations like the CDC, so you can feel confident that the data is accurate.
How Much Food Do You Really Need to Survive?
It is important to remember that your recommended daily calorie intake depends on a number of factors, including age, size, height, sex, lifestyle, and overall general health.
An average recommended daily calorie intake for a US male is around 2500 calories, and for a US female, it is around 2000 calories.
This is obviously ideal when you have access to a full range of food items. Should the worst happen and you no longer have a steady food supply, you would want to know how much you need to survive.
In order to avoid starvation, the minimum calorie intake the average person should maintain is 1200 calories a day.
All these values are estimates based on the “ideal” or “textbook” person. Every person is different, and some may require more daily calories in order to survive.
A food storage calculator can give you a more accurate idea of the amount of food you will need to sustain your family.
What Exactly Is A Food Storage Calculator And How Does It Work?
A food storage calculator allows you to calculate the necessary food storage required for your family.
The calculator calculates the quantity of each food group that your family would require based on the number of people in your family, the rough ages of your family (children vs. adults), and the period you want to sustain your family for.
The calculator uses built-in average daily requirements for both adults and children as recommended by official organizations that have access to the data to know what the average daily food intake would be.
The full range of food groups is calculated, so you know how much of each you would need to store to keep your family fed.
Most calculators just require you to input the number of children in your family (the age cutoff for children depends on the specific calculator) and also the number of adults.
Some calculators only calculate for a fixed time period, like one year; others have a third input option for the time period you want to look at for example, 2 weeks.
Once you have entered your relevant data, you click calculate, and the result for your specific family will be displayed, including all the food groups you would need for a balanced diet.
Certain calculators are more detailed than others, breaking down different options within each category.
For example, you could get a total grain value for your family broken down into different grain options like wheat, rice, flour, oats, pasta, and cornmeal to ensure your family has a variety.
Some Food Storage Calculator Options
Below are some food storage calculators that you can find online that will be able to tell you how much you should store for your family to comfortably survive for a fixed period of time.
EZ Prepping Food Storage Calculator
One of the most comprehensive options where you can calculate 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year food supply for your family with their food storage calculator.
Use it to get a good idea of the minimum food storage needed to feed everyone in your family. It includes recommended food storage of grains, canned or dried meats, fats and oils, beans, milk and dairy, sugars, fruits, vegetables, water, and other cooking essentials.
The calculator is based on estimates from organizations like the CDC and recommendations from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Home Production and Storage manual.
These figures are minimum recommendations and may be increased to fit the needs of specific individuals and families.
Provident Living Food Storage Calculator
This handy calculator will help you figure out what works best for your family. 52 weeks is a year’s supply, but you may calculate for any other number of weeks.
Enter the number of weeks’ storage you want, as well as the number of adults and children in your family. (Children 12 and over count as adults because they tend to eat full portions.)
Click “Calculate,” and the recommended quantities will appear in the bottom pane.
Family Survival Planning Food Storage Calculator
Fill out the number of family members and click “calculate.”. Use this form to get some idea of the volume of food you may need.
Use your own judgment to decide how much food your family uses at a given time. For example, fifty pounds of oats may be enough unless you plan to use them for more than making oatmeal for breakfast, so take into consideration how your family consumes these products.
Use the calculator to figure out the minimum food storage amounts for your family for a year. These are only recommendations. You will need to determine the needs of your own family.
Final Thoughts
You may be tempted to overstock when it comes to your food store, but this can be a mistake as you could be wasting food unnecessarily.
Using a food storage calculator will give you peace of mind that you at least have the minimum quantities covered for each of the food group items for the specified period of time.
You can then adjust your storage based on your family’s unique needs and ensure that you will have more than enough to keep you going should disaster strike.