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Food for X number of months - how do you know?


SereneHome
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So this whole Covid thing has me completely freaked out and I've been watching tons of "preppers" videos on youtube. And any time I hear " you should have enough of X for Y number of months", I just want to scream - how the heck do you know what that X is?

I have no clue how many loafs of bread or rolls of TP we use in a month. Do you?  If so, how did you figure it out?

May be it's bc I shop in a weird way or something, I don't know....I've always had stock piles of things we regularly use. Like there is no way I would be opening the "last" jar of anything. There is always more on the shelf. There are lots of things that I would only buy on sale and lots of things that I only buy in BJs.  So, I just "had" stuff and have no idea who long my stock pile would last....

Ides? Suggestions? Should I just stop watching youtube??

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Well one week for toilet paper might not be accurate.  If someone's having a heavy period or eats a salad the day it gets recalled that might blow up your average by 20% or so.  But otherwise yes, just pay attention to how long it takes to need to restock something.

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There are calculators out there, but they make giant assumptions. You do have to get to know your own situation really well. And then you have to set your own priorities from there.

For example, my food storage assumes eating more peanut butter than we normally do. Which is fine because we all like peanut butter; we just typically choose to have more variety. Powdered peanut butter is a lot easier to store than some of our other standards though. So I keep more of that than, say, lunch meat even though my 9yo would very much like to have lunch meat at all times, even in an emergency. (I do keep a stash in the freezer. Don’t tell him.) 

I do know how much bread I buy each week. If I multiply that by 4, it pretty much does even out for the weeks the kids let it rot and the weeks we run out, but it still takes a rough estimate to convert to flour. I don’t have anywhere to store months of loaves of bread! On the plus side, we find homemade bread more filling, so I’m probably estimating higher than we consume.

There really is no perfect number for anything. If there were, no one would ever have black bananas on their counter. It’s all guessing based upon the best info we have.

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40 minutes ago, Katy said:

Well one week for toilet paper might not be accurate.  If someone's having a heavy period or eats a salad the day it gets recalled that might blow up your average by 20% or so.  But otherwise yes, just pay attention to how long it takes to need to restock something.


 

This!  

This is so true, and it made me laugh out loud to see someone else say it.

Smack dab in the middle of the TP shortage here, I came down with a six week case salmonella.  Thankfully, we had enough, but I am a bit paranoid about it now.  I totally plan for extra now.

(Where is that running away icon we used to have?)
 

Edited by Spryte
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31 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Well, I tend to think that it's better to have too many than too few when stockpiling, especially if doing so for an emergency type of stockpile.  Afterall, it's possible to have a heavy period in the middle of the emergency too.  Having too much is really only a problem if there's an issue of something spoiling or a storage/space issue.  

 

 

I'm more wary of not having enough than of having too much. And there's no such thing as too much with paper products, except maybe disposable diapers that are too small.

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20 minutes ago, Spryte said:


 

This!  

This is so true, and it made me laugh out loud to see someone else say it.

Smack dab in the middle of the TP shortage here, I came down with a six week case salmonella.  Thankfully, we had enough, but I am a bit paranoid about it now.  I totally plan for extra now.

(Where is that running away icon we used to have?)
 

 

Yes, we were deep in lockdown mode and I kept getting diarrhea. Then I got a notice from my grocery store that every salad I'd purchased in the last 2 months was recalled for a parasite that causes intermittent diarrhea for up to a month.  DH was complaining my toilet paper use doubled but what did he want to do?  Install a bidet?  Luckily it came back in stock here fairly quickly.  I've been mailing it to people in other areas.

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2 minutes ago, Katy said:

 

Yes, we were deep in lockdown mode and I kept getting diarrhea. Then I got a notice from my grocery store that every salad I'd purchased in the last 2 months was recalled for a parasite that causes intermittent diarrhea for up to a month.  DH was complaining my toilet paper use doubled but what did he want to do?  Install a bidet?  Luckily it came back in stock here fairly quickly.  I've been mailing it to people in other areas.


Yikes.  Yep, it was a harrowing time to have long term GI issues, for sure.  We now have plenty of TP, and I’m keeping an extra pack hidden in the basement, just in case.  (And, errrrr, that’s a Costco sized pack 🤣.)

 

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I have no clue how many loafs of bread or rolls of TP we use in a month. Do you?  If so, how did you figure it out?

 

If your usage is fairly consistent month to month, it's easy enough to just make a tally mark every time you use up one loaf of bread or four rolls of toilet paper or a can of tomato sauce or whatever.

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I keep a mental inventory. A loaf of bread would last a week because we don’t really like bread but the bread is likely to start getting moldy after three days so my husband had to eat them for supper since I don’t have fridge space to store.

A pack of chinese or Japanese noodles last me a day as each meal use up half a pack. A 15lb pack of rice would last me months since we prefer noodles. 

Toilet paper is something that we always have excess of since DS14 and I have a temperamental digestive system. 

Spices are something I have always stockpiled because I can’t drive so I buy more when my husband drives me to the Asian supermarkets.

While my kids are picky eaters, they will eat fish, beef or pork. It’s not hard to buy canned fish so those are our earthquake rations. Pork has ran out more often than beef for me, but I haven’t had both being out of stock at the same time. 

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37 minutes ago, acresoft said:

It doesn't hurt to know something about wild edibles too, but don't forget God used ravens to bring food to Elijah. He cares about people!


Wild edibles worry me for my allergy kids, but could be good otherwise if one knows which to use. I think there’s a learning curve there.  Could be a fun homeschool subject.  (We did this, as much as we could due to allergies, in BYL 9.  Fun times!)

I am not making light of what you said, at all, but wanted to share the instant mental image I had of ravens delivering TP.  Apparently I have TP on the brain!

Bowing out now, to count the TP rolls in the basement.  🤣

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I think I am going to count what I have.....

I also think that I have a tendency to want to store more than other  people.....I don't know if it a nature thing or just based on how I grew up....

My husband keeps asking me if he should turn on our second freezer.....but then I keep hearing in those videos how we might not have electricity, so I don't know if I want to fill up another freezer full of food.

I NEVER wish for time to go, but I just want it to be next spring already, this coming fall and winter are freaking me out!

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1 hour ago, SereneHome said:

My husband keeps asking me if he should turn on our second freezer.....but then I keep hearing in those videos how we might not have electricity, so I don't know if I want to fill up another freezer full of food.

I am for dehydrating or pickling perishables instead of freezing perishables. We do get power outages from time to time.  My teens do like dried fruits, jerky and kimchi though.

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Our normal life means that we usually have a lot of food of some sort on hand - we buy meat by the 1/2 pig and 1/2 cow from local farmers, and we grow a lot of our veggies to freeze.  Since I usually buy rice and beans in big bags from Sam's and typically keep 10-20 lbs of flour and sugar on hand (along with cornmeal, yeast, etc) I usually could feed us for a long time, even if it wasn't our usual fare.  When we saw covid news in early Feb, we decided to try to stock up early because it would give stores plenty of time to restock, and we put thought into what would keep.  We ended up adding potato products to the freezer (hash browns, fries, sweet potato fries) and also some things that we don't usually buy frozen like carrots and extra frozen fruit.  We thought about shelf-stable bread products and realized that tortillas last a long time, especially in the fridge.  Sour cream was good for dairy - we were always able to get milk, but if we couldn't, sour cream can be used to make biscuits, for instance.  Buttermilk also lasts long past it's date and is great for baking.  I have never meal planned in a way that caused me to think in recipes, if that makes sense - I just keep a lot of ingredients and trust that I can turn them into something.   I also stocked up on condiments. I would struggle to figure out exactly how much of anything we use in a given week - in the summer much of our food comes from the garden, if we run out of loaf bread for tomato sandwiches I make biscuits, etc.  

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5 hours ago, SereneHome said:

So this whole Covid thing has me completely freaked out and I've been watching tons of "preppers" videos on youtube. And any time I hear " you should have enough of X for Y number of months", I just want to scream - how the heck do you know what that X is?

We used to live about an hour's drive out from decent shopping.  I did once a month shopping during that era of our life.  The easiest way to track x for y duration is to chart x for a week. Make a menu plan, chart x, and multiply by 4.5 weeks. That's roughly a month's worth of whatever.  The next thing to figure out is your household goods--tp, paper towels, laundry soap, feminine hygiene goods, etc.  

Since you keep an inventory, you could keep your entire inventory and track your inputs and outputs and calculate change over a month.

Ides? Suggestions? Should I just stop watching youtube??

Practical Advice:

1. That said, there is a crap ton of fear being peddled on the 'net this year. It's like most times of instability---'99, '08, and now where people are feeling anxious about life in general.  We've seen some supply chain gaps this year, and that has certainly added fuel to the fire.  I think for some people, they become addicted to the fear.  Here's what I mean. They feel anxious. They identify a tangible thing they can do to address the fear (buy bullets). They get a dopamine hit from that. Fear pops up again. They repeat. The reality for most people is that they are most at risk of losing a job, or losing healthcare. That is a ton more likely than the end of the world as we know it with electricity being turned off, mobs running through the streets, and so on.  Take realistic steps.  Keep up with your doctor appointments, build up 6-12 months of money, maybe plug in that freezer.....but don't cash out your 401k to buy bullets and MREs, iykwim.  

2.  Once you start doing the math of how much to buy, you realize pretty quickly that you either need your own temperature controlled warehouse attached to the back of your house, or you realistically can't store more than a few months of basic goods in your home (if that).  Remember that in the highly unlikely event that the world comes crashing down, you're going to have to use what you store.  It makes much more sense to just store what you normally use and just push out the quantity of what you've purchased.  Your body will revolt if you instantly move to eating bread from the wheat you ground and beans you cooked from scratch and lettuce from your backyard if you were previously eating a typical diet (FIBER!)  If you 50 lb of dry beans and you don't normally eat beans....at some point you will either be throwing away really old beans or breaking down and eating them. I know this sounds completely ridiculous to even have to point out.....but having watched a fair number of videos over the years on this point, I've watched a lot of nonsense being put out on the 'net.  People who buy food and don't put it into rodent safe containers. People who have to trash everything because they put it into a hot garage in trash cans and the food took on the smell of the trashcans.  People who build elaborate bug out bags, but have never actually hiked 10 miles with a pack on.  Like, really, realistically....if you are having to leave because of flood or wildfire or hurricane.....you are much more likely to need a backup external phone battery and charging cord than a hatchet.  You're dealing with insurance companies and paying your bills online while you are displaced, and calling your friends and family.  So, whatever you commit to doing....really think about the practicalities of it.  If people are bugging out, it makes much more sense to buy a traveljohn for when you've been sitting on the highway for 8 hours in your minivan and your kid has to pee than it does to plan that you're going out on foot to some unknown place  (I live someplace where people actually do go live in the forest.  They still need supplies weekly. You can't hike with much food and water.)

3.  Try taking a media fast for a month and reevaluate how you feel about life.

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Katy said:

 

Yes, we were deep in lockdown mode and I kept getting diarrhea. Then I got a notice from my grocery store that every salad I'd purchased in the last 2 months was recalled for a parasite that causes intermittent diarrhea for up to a month.  DH was complaining my toilet paper use doubled but what did he want to do?  Install a bidet?  Luckily it came back in stock here fairly quickly.  I've been mailing it to people in other areas.

Is he still alive? 

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Don't have time to read all the comments so someone might have said this already. There are some items that would be difficult to stockpile like bread, fresh fruits and vegetables. I do keep a full pantry with extra non-perishable items like rice, canned tomatoes, salsa, pastas, peanut butter, nuts, quinoa, and beans (not the full list) plus always have extra spices we use regularly on hand...items we could put together in an emergency situation like another lock-down or hurricane. I keep extra bread and frozen vegetables/fruit, home-made vegetable broth, and a few other items in the freezer. We tend to try to keep a huge package of toilet paper stored and that would keep three of us for a good 3 weeks.

We definitely eat a much wider variety in daily life than we would in a situation that would require us to eat up my stash. 

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On 7/31/2020 at 3:31 AM, SereneHome said:

So this whole Covid thing has me completely freaked out and I've been watching tons of "preppers" videos on youtube. And any time I hear " you should have enough of X for Y number of months", I just want to scream - how the heck do you know what that X is?

I have no clue how many loafs of bread or rolls of TP we use in a month. Do you?  If so, how did you figure it out?

May be it's bc I shop in a weird way or something, I don't know....I've always had stock piles of things we regularly use. Like there is no way I would be opening the "last" jar of anything. There is always more on the shelf. There are lots of things that I would only buy on sale and lots of things that I only buy in BJs.  So, I just "had" stuff and have no idea who long my stock pile would last....

Ides? Suggestions? Should I just stop watching youtube??

I work on a loaf of bread a day and serve of rice or pasta a day and one of rice.  I know the 6kg bag of bread mix does ten loaves so if I needed to plan for multiple months that would be three of those bags approximately for month.  There’s no way I’m storing more than 3 or four bags though.  1 1/2 cups of rice is a meal for us so multiply that by however many days were doing and convert.  I know I use a 250g pasta for us for one meal so I need however many of them as well.  The work on half pasta and half rice meals.  Then oats:

 

lol... then I go ... there’s no way I can source store and organise that much food so we’re just going to have to survive off venison and kangaroo! 

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For things that you slowly go through a jar or loaf or box, when you open it, write that date on the packaging. When it's empty, the date will tell you how long it takes on average to go through that jar of peanut butter or that bottle of ketchup. 

My stockpile is mainly in the freezer - I've done lots of little freezer meal mini-cooks as I find meat on sale. I figure as long as electricity holds, we'll be eating things that we normally eat. I've also been doubling our normal dinner and putting one in the freezer for later. Today my youngest is picking blackberries off our bush and we're going to try some blackberry cobbler and blackberry ice cream. 

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I agree with OP that this is complicated home economics!  

The fact is, if we were in true lockdown, we would not be eating the same things we eat in normal life.  So a 3 month supply of rice and beans for lockdown might look more like a full year's supply during normal times.  Flour usage would grow exponentially, as I only rarely make homemade bread, but would make it as a staple in lockdown.  Same situation for tuna, tomato sauce, spices, quinoa, canned fruits, peanut butter, dried fruits and nuts, etc.  Save most of your freezer space for high nutrient items: frozen berries, frozen veggies, and meat.  

You need to square root all of that, then multiply it by expiration dates.  Divide that by the volume of your irregularly shaped storage areas.  If you have a pet, add 12.  If your DH or DS has a food allergy, they should move to the top of the list for getting kicked off the island.

Whatever number you get, add a zero to the end, and that's the amount of toilet paper you need per person.  

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