Do you REALLY have a year's supply?

Although the church presently is no longer is talking about a minimum of a year's supply...and now speak only in terms of "Longer-term supply"...it is still a good starting goal to have a year's supply of what it would take to keep you alive. I know of some that would say "Yes...I have on hand at least a year's supply"...but upon examination one would find that they had deceived themselves. A handful of buckets of wheat...water turned green with age...and a few boxes of bulging number ten cans out in our shed is not a years supply. It is important that we get real with ourselves and know what REALLY is a years supply. The following I did not make up. It is from the LDS Preparedness Manual...which was put together by an LDS man...not the LDS church. There is some GREAT information in his book.

Do you REALLY have a year’s supply?

Just how big is a Year’s Supply of food? As explained on the previous page, our Church is suggesting the following minimums for each adult:

400 lbs. Grains(17.5oz / day)
60 lbs. Beans(2.6oz / day)
10 quarts Cooking oil (0.87oz / day)
60 lbs. Honey(2.63oz / day)
8 lbs. Salt(0.35oz / day)
16 lbs Powdered milk (0.70oz / day)
14 gallons of drinking water (for 2 weeks)

So, just how much is this?

Two 5 gallon buckets will hold about 75lbs of wheat, rice or other grains. This means you need 11 buckets of grain for each person in your family.

If you store all your grains in #10 cans...

Wheat, Rice, Corn, etc..
You would need 64 cans or 10.5 cases per person.

Pasta
You would need 32 cans or 5.25 cases per person.

Rolled oats
These are lighter but bulkier, so they require more storage containers and space. You would need 124 cans or 21 cases person.

Beans
A 25 lb bag of beans will about fit in a single 5 gallon bucket, with a little space over, so 2 buckets would hold a one person supply, or 12 -13 # 10 cans or about 2 cases.

Daily Food
Dividing 400lbs by 365days, equals out to 1.09589lbs, or just over 1 lb of grain, per person, per day. That is approximately 2 cups of unground grain to cover your breakfast lunch and dinner.

Dividing 60lbs by 365, this works out to 0.16 lbs of beans per day, or 2.6 oz—approximately 3/4 cup.

The other foods listed would also need to be used in limited amounts.

This is not much food, folks. Get the basics, then immediately begin to add more kinds of grain,soup mix, canned and/or dehydrated vegetables and fruit, etc to add variety and provide more than the minimal survival diet.

As an example, the minimum recommended amount of grain, when ground and prepared will yield about 6 small biscuits or a plateful of pancakes. Its enough to keep you alive, but a far cry from being satisfied and not hungry.