The next calendar year, 2016, could prove to be a tipping point. Our food security (and overall security) could change for the worse. So I’ve started a reassessment of my stored foods. I use a spreadsheet that calculates the total calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates for the food. I’m finding that fat and carbs are easy to store — vegetable oil, pasta, rice, flour — these foods are inexpensive, store well, and provide ample fat and carbs along with some protein. I have over 100 lbs of pasta, over 50 lbs of rice, and about 35 lbs of wheat flour. For vegetable oil, I have 5.6 gallons of assorted oils: soy, canola, olive, sunflower seed.
The most difficult macronutrient to store is turning out to be protein. Stored protein in my pantry: salmon and tuna, soynuts, walnuts, canned legumes, peanuts, peanut butter, dry instant milk, sunflower seeds, and some frozen egg whites and frozen blocks of cheese. All those protein sources only raise the amount of protein in my food stores to 10% of total calories. And that value is the bare minimum for an adequate diet. So I’m working on increasing high protein foods in my prepping supplies.
My spreadsheet says I have 100 days’ worth of food, for 3 persons, with 10% of kcal from protein, 40% from fat, 50% from carbs. Those are acceptable percentages, though I’d like more protein and less fat (as a percentage of total calories).
By reader request, here is my spreadsheet in new and old Excel formats. I’ve changed the amounts of each food item, so that people don’t know exactly what I have stored. You can delete rows or add rows to make the foods match your storage items. See to fill out each column.
I’ve recently acquired a soy milk making machine (soyajoy G4). My goal is to be able to make my own milk substitutes, for when the SHTF and the food supply become unreliable. Perishable foods will be most severely affected by any food crisis. I can make a milk substitute from soy, walnut, pecan, cashew, or sunflower seeds. Other nuts/seeds should also work. But my past experiments with milk substitutes identified those 5 as the best choices.
How much soymilk or other milk substitutes can you make per pound of nuts/seeds? One pound of nuts/seeds produces about 7 quarts of the nut milk. So the amount of money and storage space is well worth it for the amount of milk substitute that you get.
You can make milk substitutes without the machine. See my previous posts:
– Thoreau
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