# 3 month food supply list



## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

so my husband turns to me and says (after laughing at me yesterday for getting food for y2k ) get me a list of 3 months of food, we need to buy it.

soooo, I'm googling but only found one dumb list.

I want a staples list, NOT how many cans of chili or beef stew to buy.

thought this might help others right now.

I have a giant notebook I made for y2k, but I can't find it right now, when I do I'll see if any of the links I printed off back then still work. I know I found one good link like what I want.

BTW I still have most of my y2k stuff--I made some split pea/potato soup today with ancient y2k peas and it tastes great.


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## wvstuck (Sep 19, 2008)

Hmmm... What do you guys eat, what won't you eat? I would think it will be hard for anyone to tell you exactly what you may or may not need to buy. I have included a link for the LDS food calculator... It will blow your mind with the quantities needed, but it should give you a rough idea of what's on the list and where to start.

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

First step is just start adding to what you already have.


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2008)

There are some good lists in this topic that you might be able to build on or modify for your needs:

http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=273779


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

good idea wyld thing.we need to help all the folks we can to at least "sorta" be ready for any situation.do you folks have the winters firewood in?? did you use the old dozer?


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Make a list of all the basics you currently use - then double it - to figure you will use a lot more if you are short on food items.


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## Aint2nuts (Feb 18, 2008)

I can only tell you how I come to my 'numbers' conclusions. 

For each month I made out a menu. Breakfast, lunch dinner, snacks, desserts. 
For each meal, I wrote out what I needed for the meal (including spices and the basics like sugar and flour). 
For each month I created a tally sheet to tally what I needed and I went down the list of things I needed for each meal, tallying the quantities. 
Then I multiplied it by 12. THAT is what I keep on hand. 

For the past few years I have been 'buying ahead' slowly. I have some gaps because I can't afford to pay retail (I am disabled with three children and on SSI) I buy loss leaders and stock up on cereal 100 boxes at a time. ( a buck a box). I just bought 70 lbs of pasta ( a buck a box - cost me a little over 70 dollars for 70 lbs. with tax) that is sitting in my living room waiting for me to put a fourth pantry together for it all. LOL. 

Three months is a good start. A year is better. If you can afford it, buy out the darn store getting what you need for a year. LOL. Some people can afford it, which is a nice thing. 

We have a 'pasta type' dish at least once a week, sometimes twice. So I bought sauce for a year when it was on sale for 1 dollar a jar. I can't can it for that, and adding my own ingredients and cooking it down makes a jar of Progresso just as good as homemade.... or close enough for a buck~! 

I bought a dehydrator, and I dehydrate peppers, zucchinni, tomatoes. etc... so that I have them for soups. I process them while sitting at the table watching a movie. Peppers where on sale at one of my grocery stores and I got about 20 lbs of them. Red, yellow green and orange. LOL. 
I did green beans a few weeks ago. 

You and your hubby can get together and brain storm what you eat over the course of a month. Look over your cabinets and see what you have. Use an inventory planner like the Food Storage Planner to keep things up to date (it is a little work, but worth the time). 

HTH.


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## Madame (Jan 1, 2003)

Doesn't hurt to be ready, come what may.


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## rickd203 (Sep 11, 2005)

wvstuck said:


> Hmmm... What do you guys eat, what won't you eat? I would think it will be hard for anyone to tell you exactly what you may or may not need to buy. I have included a link for the LDS food calculator... It will blow your mind with the quantities needed, but it should give you a rough idea of what's on the list and where to start.
> 
> http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm
> 
> First step is just start adding to what you already have.


It is a good starting point but I made a lot of adjustments. In the dairy section, I went with 24 cans of evaporated milk and about 30 lbs of powdered milk. I also have powdered butter and sour cream and other substitutes in the dairy section. 

I have a good supply of canned meats, granola bars, trail mix, instant mashed potatoes canned and dehydrated vegetables and a bunch of other foods that aren't on their list. I would like to order a couple 5 gallon buckets of wheat but I don't think I would use 150 lbs in a year. I do like to use barley in my soup recipes so that should help offset the amount of wheat recommended on the list.


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

I found my notebook, here is one of the lists I had, I think it's the most helpful so far to get the brain thinking

http://standeyo.com/News_Files/Hollys.html

heh, taking inventory I do have at least 3++++ months of beans, rice, legumes, barley, pasta, various grains, spices, yeast, BS, tomato sauce/paste, boullion, canned fruit, salsa

yes my family enjoys eating bean stuff. My plan is to go to soup, stew and rice n beans or rice n sauce, already doing that more as I'm trying to squeeze more money out of grocery budget to put back more(I'vebeen using 5-10$ a week for prep).


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## DQ (Aug 4, 2006)

I did it by calories. each person needs 2000 calories per adult day 1/2 for child. divide that into what % of each "general product" I want to make up the portion of our diets. 

so for my family I need 5000 calories per day.

I want fruit to make up 5% of calories in our diet. thats 250calories per day in fruit for my family. A normal can of fruit I buy _averages_ 100 calories. so I need 1.25 cans of fruit per day. multiply that times 90 days = 112.5 cans of fruit. (1/2 of mine is dried fruit but you get the idea.(

do similiarly with 
vegies (remember not high caloriewise but important for health)
meats
breads/grains
pasta
rice
potatoes
etc.......
don't forget to be realistic and figure a percent and avg for ready meals like soups chilis and mixes. 

estimate products such as yeast/cornstarch/sugar/salt/spices based on your usage now.

It really doesnt' take too long. I have my plan all typed out somewheres. Its very eye opening actually.

this works for me but I'm especially not interested in using some list of what someone _else _thinks I should have. I want things that _I _use regularly and are in proportion to what _I _think is healthy.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

Store what you eat and use - these lists are generic, if you don't use something on a weekly or monthly basis theres no sense storing it. On the other hand if you do eat something regularily and its not on the lists, store it anyway.

Your food storage should be a part of your panty, you take stuff out of your storage to eat, and then replenish your storage.

I get a kick out of these people who have pails and pails of wheat in their basement who have never fixed a meal with it in their life. If TSHTF they're going to be sitting on their wheat pails saying "What do I do with this?" and if they happen to have saved a booklet with recipies for it, they will quickly learn what suddenly eating fresh ground wheat does to the digestive system after a lifetime of eating white flour products.
All I can say is I hope they stored plenty of Toilet Paper.


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## Freeholder (Jun 19, 2004)

IF POSSIBLE, put away double the calories per person that you eat now. Life could become much more strenuous than it is now for most of us. I have a friend who lives in NY; she and her husband have a small dairy farm. She says that now, at 55, her small-built lean husband (150 lbs. soaking wet) eats at least 3,000 calories per day or he loses weight (she said 20-30 years ago, double those calories for the same result). And they have motorized and electrical 'slaves' that do a lot of the physical work. 

Keep in mind that teenagers eat tremendous amounts of food, too, especially if they are working hard.

Kathleen


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2008)

Any list that you can find anywhere is going to work only so-so for you at best. You'll never get better data than what you derive from your own persconally recorded consumption.

Starting with the very next meal you cook write down everything you used in cooking it and most importantly _how much_ you used in putting it together. Two weeks records will give you enough data to get started with though if it were me I'd take it to a full month.

Once you have the data you can then extrapolate to longer time periods. Don't forget to make allowances for any food eaten that was not prepared at home.

.....Alan.


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