You'll need more food and water than you think.

[Gizmo]

Like has been mentioned the exersize seems a bit pointless but the actual topic is one that quite a few people seem to have problems with. Often people seem to underestimate their families food requirements or over estimate how much actual food they have in stock. To my way of thinking the simplest way of gauging how much you have is to count the calories of what you have and divide it by days and people, quite a few people just seem to look in their cupboards and say, yup, 3/6/9 months there, without actually working it out properly.

Just in case anyone thinks I am being harsh or bitching, i'm not. I did exactly the same when I first started storing food. I was quite confident I had at least 3 months food for my family, when I worked it out properly I had less than 1 month. And although not many people will ever admit to doing the same, I know for certain that at least 2 people I have met up with did do the same.

[Skean Dhude]

I've calculated my food based on the contents. Tin of peas, potatoes, sweetcorn, meat is a meal for 4 at the minimum plus some pud. Living well. Reduce that and make it last two days, perhaps add in some carrots as well. My calculations are based on meals like that. Sadly, I have a set of similar meals which I can mix and match.

I've tried out the meals but filling the pantry and then just using the tins and we made it last two months. In the end though we topped up some of the veg tins so I had to suppliment my veg stores with some more. It's the only way to learn. test your theories.

So some days will have had more calories than others.

[Highlander]

(8 July 2013, 20:25)Skean Dhude Wrote: I've calculated my food based on the contents. Tin of peas, potatoes, sweetcorn, meat is a meal for 4 at the minimum plus some pud. Living well. Reduce that and make it last two days, perhaps add in some carrots as well. My calculations are based on meals like that. Sadly, I have a set of similar meals which I can mix and match.

I've tried out the meals but filling the pantry and then just using the tins and we made it last two months. In the end though we topped up some of the veg tins so I had to suppliment my veg stores with some more. It's the only way to learn. test your theories.

So some days will have had more calories than others.

Thats the way I have done it SD,.. if I have 265 tins of stew and 265 tins of veg as a main meal per day, and 265 tins of fruit and coffee/tea, maybe sweets per day, then I have a years food.

I think that to count what you have you have to start with rationing in mind, and a person can survive on a tin of stew a day,.. once you have a couple of months of `rationed` food supplies, then you can add.

.... its a mind game, when you think you have 6 months `ration` food, you feel better about things, even before you add more, survival is about being in the right frame of mind as well as body,..if you feel good, you are more able to cope

.... and then we go and complicate things by buying tubs of this, or bags of that, bottles and all manor of containers containing different foods,.. that all very difficult to count

So, I personally think that a preper can get too wrapped up with his food count,..most of us put away what we can, when we can, its not important how much we have, most of us can do no more than we are doing now,.. so why bother counting at all,.. just keep adding

[Gizmo]

(8 July 2013, 21:29)Highlander Wrote: So, I personally think that a preper can get too wrapped up with his food count,..most of us put away what we can, when we can, its not important how much we have, most of us can do no more than we are doing now,.. so why bother counting at all,.. just keep adding

I agree to an extent, there is no point obsessing about it, but overestimating your food stocks can lead to you making potentially dangerous decisions regarding your ability to survive a particular event based on faulty information. It is a simple process to work out a roughly accurate account of what you have so it would seem a strange strategy to me to either not bother counting at all or just to guess.

[Rush2112]

(8 July 2013, 17:57)Gizmo Wrote: Like has been mentioned the exersize seems a bit pointless but the actual topic is one that quite a few people seem to have problems with. Often people seem to underestimate their families food requirements or over estimate how much actual food they have in stock. To my way of thinking the simplest way of gauging how much you have is to count the calories of what you have and divide it by days and people, quite a few people just seem to look in their cupboards and say, yup, 3/6/9 months there, without actually working it out properly.

Just in case anyone thinks I am being harsh or bitching, i'm not. I did exactly the same when I first started storing food. I was quite confident I had at least 3 months food for my family, when I worked it out properly I had less than 1 month. And although not many people will ever admit to doing the same, I know for certain that at least 2 people I have met up with did do the same.

better make that 3 Gizmo, we did the same thing. we were surprised at the low caloric value of much of our food. Then we started stocking more basic dry stuffs such as rice, flour, oatmeal, etc. these things can be eaten seperately or combined with soups to boost caloric value. a little fried sweet bread dough is quick and easy and hign in calories. not something we eat much now since we're not trying to increase our caloric intake, but made some last weekend and wasnt half bad.

[SecretPrepper]

(7 July 2013, 19:52)Highlander Wrote: Remember that although an Army ration pack is 4000 cals, and the average squadie will eat around 3000 cals per day, that is the cals required per day for that exercise [ anything from a couple of days to about 3 weeks ]

If you were living permanently of less cals, your body would get used to that amount, providing it was not something stupidly low

If you consider how armies have fought month long campaigns on almost nothing, say for instance the German Army fighting in Russian cities,.. they fought for months on very meager rations,............... the body can get used to a great deal, and still function very well.

The biggest problem we would have where rationing is concerned is going to be getting used to a less cal diet, we are all used to eating to excess, far more than we need to, going down to only eating what our bodies need is going to be a shock for most of us

I think you are talking about the siege of Leningrad. something i have only just started to look at