Starting A Food Supply And Confused By Kcals

Hi there,

I am in the process of building a six month food supply for my wife and I. I am basing the amount I need to store on a total of 4400 cals a day for us both, based on what we eat now. I've bought a basic set of food and am inventorying it in a spreadsheet.

Something is confusing me. I am calculating the amount of Kcals in each item and dividing it by the amount of days to see how many days food I have. I know the math is correct . However, the volume of food that I have looks considerably more that the spreadsheet is telling me will last. As an example, I have bought enough rice to last us about two weeks, the same in pasta, the same in oats etc, but the Kcal equation is telling me I have enough food for 6 days!

Is there another way to calculate what I have into meals that is perhaps more realistic than the pure Kcal to cals needed calculation? Has anyone else experienced the same confusion?

Thanks in advance! John

 

Thanks Lonewolf - I guess I need to stop getting bogged down with the maths and use best judgement.

 

Good morning John,

For my non-evacuation foods, I follow Lone Wolf's plan mentioned above.

Some specifics as ... pun might or might not be intended - food for thought;

I augment my emergency stockpile with anti-stress foods. In my case: chocolate bars. Admittedly avoiding the more longer lasting baker's chocolates since they mimic C-ration Hershey brand "Tropical Bars" ... a chocolate-flavored candle.

Refrigerator items are minimized to the point of zero items needing refrigeration. Thus no more frozen pizza (an oxymoron [I've had real pizza]). Ditto for frozen French breads.

There are some jams and preserves and some semi-healthy garbage "spreads" not requiring refrigeration after opening. I'm loaded with these products. They're kept next to the honey.

Am guessing your spreadsheet is based on your current schedule. If/when a real SHTF occurs and you and madam are stuck at home 24/7, coffee and/or tea consumption might increase. Factor this concept into your planning.

...

I am now in the mood for some kippers, toast with orange marmalade and some of that quinine mixed drink that keeps the mosquitoes away.

Transmitting from Lord Fairfax's upstart colony at the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia.

 

Hi John. Something wrong in the weights or conversion, like calories in a kilogram of rice but you're calculating it using pounds? Might help to provide more details, like what quantity of rice do you have, how many calories per unit of measure are you using, and what is the spreadsheet telling you the result is?

Edit to add: If you should have enough food for 14 days, but your spreadsheet says only about 6 days then it's off by a factor of 2.3 somewhere. Since 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds, that'd be my best guess where the problem is. Hope that helps find it.

And - Not to make John's post an example, but this is very much related to what I suggested in the "Let's Milk This For Some Serious Improvement" thread earlier today. John's new here and has a question, and he's already taken a very logical and intelligent approach to food storage, including a method to easily inventory and track his progress. Well Done imo! So let's help John find and solve the problem. Welcome John!

 

Stocking up for 6 months require serious effort and probably extra money. Anyway I personally use supermarket items as my food prep in lieu of fresh organic foods I typically consume. For determining calorie content I just use whatever is written in the labelling, I'm aware it's may not perfectly accurate but it's a start nonetheless.

Furthermore, due to my circumstances of which I live at apartment building but I also rent room elsewhere in the same city, my prepping planning is more about holding out temporarily or leaving for another unaffected city /town thus I currently only stocking for 2 days for 2 adult at 2 different place (4 days worth for single person at each place)

A typical rule of thumbs for any prepping is you should try to use or in this case actually eating them for at least 24 hours just to get "a feel" out of it and know what work and what doesn't.

This is my 24h food kit. Its only give slightly less than 2000 Calorie, however my line of thinking is more about moving out elsewhere thus its more of backpacking kind of logistic.

 

Calorie usage will vary with activity levels. If, for instance, now you both sit around and do not do much calorie usage may be around 1400 to 2000 per day but after SHTF if you need to be up and working in a garden to grow more food or hiking out of there the calorie usage may double or more per day.

 

If a food item has a calorie count number listed, that number is in kilocalories. In the day to day world, just think calories -- somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that you are actually talking kilocalories. In a chemistry lab, such things matter. Wanna get royally confused?! Start calculating food energy in joules. In electronics, phase calculations are in radians.

https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/energy/kcal-to-joule.html

https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/degrees-to-radians.html

Old Geezer's Bible of B.S.; Book of Rufus, Chapter 22, beginning verse 16: "Clutterest not thy mind with minutia! For I say unto you, simplicity shall suffice and thou shalt not be brought down by its weight. Suffer not over these least things, for thy world is fraught with tribulations real in nature." Begin verse 46: "Rufus did then go out from among them saying, 'Who amongst you is with tobacco?'"

 

For starters, think "What can I get by on that I normally eat anyway?" Start paying attention to the volume, the literal volume, of food you eat per day, per week. Write this down. Keep records. During hard times, you can get by on half that. Me, I eat too much -- I sure would not die were I to cut in half that which I normally stuff down the hole in my face.

You will not die if you have pasta, beans, & rice put back. All of these items can be acquired at any grocery and in large sized bags. These items come as a dried product. I know a store that supplies Asian restaurants. One can buy over 50 lb. burlap bags of rice at that store.

Subdivide the above into glass jars, toss one or two oxygen absorber packs into each jar, then seal with sealing lid and outer ring. Those jars will last on and on. One does not have to pull a vacuum on these jars. Actually these dry goods food items (beans rice pasta) have a long shelf life even if you do nothing to preserve them. Sugar and salt last on and on if all you do is protect them from the environment.

When using these foods, boil them up as you normally do. Now add what you normally add. Most folk put tomato paste on pasta. Store your favorite spaghetti sauce. Kept in a jar protected from any harsh environment spaghetti sauce lasts for months, at least half-year to a year. Two years?, probably not, but if the lid hasn't popped-up, ..., hmmmm, I'd sure boil it one long time.

My wife made sauce out of the tomatoes we grew this year. I don't even begin to know how many jars she put back. My grandmother canned veggies ... enough for a hungry platoon of big eaters for to last the winter and then some.

https://www.eatbydate.com/vegetables/fresh-vegetables/spaghetti-sauce-shelf-life-expiration-date/

Put back canned meats to supplement your volume of veggies and stacks of starches. You'll not die.

Without water, you are a gonner. I have several 15 gallon water storage tanks. I have a Katadyn ceramic water filter (pump-type) plus a bunch of cheap charcoal types. Charcoal improves the flavor of water. Even in times of heavy drought, where I live still has plenty of water. Think anti-desert. But all natural waters must be treated.

Powdered drink mixes last on and on. Make treated water taste better. Great to get kids to hydrate themselves. SHTF, we're not worried about tooth cavities -- least of our worries.

 

This is a COPY of post I made to the other thread.

The food supply will be of little or no value to you and your family, if anyone knows about it. If you have children they will tell everyone. If you tell any of your family you are stocking six months of food, and the SHTF.........they will be moving in with you. If you have told anyone at work or church or the corner Pub or anywhere......they will remember, especially they will remember when their family is crying from hunger.

Prepping is a high security and dangerous endeavor. You really can't do just one part, like food, or food and water. You need to have a whole plan, with everything well thought out, and tested.

In my opinion..........the biggest error preppers make is they massively under estimate how hard it will be to retain control of their supplies. And they assume they will be successful at fighting off repeated attacks.

 

There are two kinds of Kcalories. Large and Small. 1 small Kcal equals 1000 calories while 1 large Kcal equals 1 calorie. You are using the wrong Kcal in your calculations.

Kcals to calories
https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/energy/kCal_to_Calorie.html

Calories to Kcals
https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/energy/Calorie_to_kCal.html

 

I like to keep a substantial percentage of my emergency food in condition for rapid Escape and Evasion. As one member here learned, when they showed up and said you have 15 minutes to be gone. The wildfire was moving that fast. He lost everything, but what they threw in the vehicle in 15 minutes.

 

Good points. That is also my primary reason to keep all my things as mobile as possible.

 

There are large differences between countries when it comes to self defense. England makes it difficult to obtain weapons and sufficient ammunition to meet the security needs of a family.

Consider dogs for protection and as early-alert mechanisms. Prepare food items for them. Canned dog food lasts on and on. Bags of dog food last a long time also. Kill small game for your table and feed any scraps to your dogs.

Post SHTF in any country, police and military will be drawn far too thin to be of any use as regards your family's protection. Economies will have collapsed. Those in uniform will not be paid. Most will abandon their posts to take care of their own families. Some military units will live off of looting the citizenry. Look at Venezuela to observe raw oppression of the people. People with medical conditions are unable to buy their medications and die.

As to security in the U.S. currently, one can buy a repeating high power rifle, pump shotguns, and hundreds of rounds of ammo for them. Should the anti-American, anti-Liberty Democrats come into power, they will attempt to burn the Constitution and rape the citizens of their Freedom as has been already been done in England. In the U.S., civil war is likely as is the likelihood of massive racial violence (the latter in urban areas especially).

Certainly, citizens will refuse to obey firearm & ammunition laws, but note also that many law enforcement agencies have been refusing to enforce anti-Constitutional laws. In the state of California the rate of disobeying laws registering/banning "assault rifles" is 85%; only 15% have complied with these communist dictates.

If a person lives in an oppressor nation, all I can say is that that person consider side-stepping these totalitarian laws. Your call.

Now is a critical juncture to stock up on ammunition. Buy as much as you can. Buy that ammo that is a proven performer in the firearms you own. Remember to buy a large gun safe constructed of thick steel, locking lugs in multiple directions, and that has a Sargent and Greenleaf locking mechanism. If you are absent or overwhelmed, you do not wish to arm the scummy inferiors. Small safes are available with fingertip touch points enabling very rapid access to those knowing the correct sequence of entries.

Just count on being found out and prepare for robberies. During the months/years of SHTF bleakness, show no mercy if you wish your family to make it through to the other side. There is zero fear of God in today's citizenry, therefore let them be afraid of you.
.

 

Dude, I think your needed caloric intake might be off a bit. Calories needed per day for average folks to maintain, females about 2000, males 2500. I'm not average height and weight so I would take less. I'm also not climbing mountains or doing any farming currently.

 

but of course I'm not familiar with your terminology of "Kcals" and I'm sure I'm totally off-base once again! Hi, how's it going?

 

John: This is a pretty good link. As was mentioned earlier, read the labels on your packages, and use that as a guide. This link will help with some of the bulk items. It might not be an exact measurement, but you will be pretty close.

https://www.myfooddiary.com/foods/search?q=tuna+fish

 

First, welcome.
This is how I accumulated my supplies. I dated each item with month and year that I acquired it and placed the newer items in the back. When I take that item out for use I look at the date and that tells me how much, of that item I have. The idea is to have a balanced inventory. I can throw a years worth of rice at 4,000 calories a day for both of us in the back of my car in one trip, and not for a lot of cash. That's not how I wish to eat.

I bought a little extra on each trip to the store. When I see a good sale on something I eat I buy lots. That may mean that something else doesn't get purchased on that trip but in the end you get more food for less. Eventually most items will go on sale. As your stash enlarges most purchases will be sale items which allows you to buy more food on your food budget. The same applies to your non food items. Another benefit is that gas and time are saved by not making emergency trips to the store. If I use it it is in my pantry.

FIFO, first in first out. Rotate your stock. Eat what you store, store what you eat. You don't want to change your eating habits any more than necessary in an emergency. You will have enough stress as it is without asking your gut to adjust to a new diet.

When I started I worked on a month, then three months, then six, then a year. This gave me goal successes rather than a long slog uphill. It also gave me an idea how many to buy when I wanted to
go to the next level. When I ran across an excellent sale I might blow my budget buying a years worth of that item. This left my preps out of balance but the cost savings were worth it to me.

I hope we see much more of you. Thanks for the question.

 

If you want to go cheap buy bags of flour . Stored in vacuum sealed bags it will last about eight years but will lose its yeast in about one year . Biscuits and gravy will fill an empty stomach and keep you full longer than most anything . Here a five pound bag of flour costs about $2.80 . You can add yeast or baking powder when the original yeast is gone . If you think you will need more calories put up syrup . Pancakes with syrup should put out a lot of calories and result in energy .