How much food do I need? Do not short change yourself

I have seen so many articles flying around Pinterest and Facebook that are teaching the WRONG thing. If you really could fit a years supply of food into a 5 gallon bucket you would need to eat only a tablespoon or so a day. I actually saw this on an article and many people commenting on how easy it is to do, how they can't wait to have a whole years supply in one bucket, and how other people are crazy to keep more food than that. Some saying that you can just keep adding water and making soup stretch further. If you do this and really do need a years supply of food, you are going to starve. Plain and simple. For enough calories to function, you need more than a 5 gallon bucket of soup making materials.

If times are tough for whatever reason, this kind of food will not give you enough energy to do anything. If you survive at all. 

 So how much food do you really need? Don't get me wrong, you certainly don't need the $3,000 years supply many companies are selling, but you do need enough to function.
Here is a simple way to start.
1 Adult will need:
300 lbs of grain
60 lbs of sugars
13 lbs of fats or oils
60 lbs of beans/legumes
75 lbs of dry milk
Water. As much water as you can.
This seems like a whole lot, but it really is not when you think about the fact that that would feed you for an entire YEAR. Many different items can fall under each category and you can supplement with what you like. But do not think that you can fit a whole years supply in a bucket. Now don't think you have to shop at specialty stores to get these items. I took this photo, with permission from employees, of the food storage section at my local Walmart. Yup. Walmart sells food storage. Buckets, #10 cans and more! Plus they are cheaper than most places.

 So to get started the hard white wheat is only around $14 per bucket. Grab one each month and you will have enough wheat to grind into flour in no time. Plus the buckets are ready to store.

Do you shop places like costco? They have 25 lb bags of rice (yup, it's a grain) for only about $8. So for only $32 or so you have 100 lbs of grain.

Be sure when you shop that you get stuff you already like. Do NOT make the biggest mistake of thinking " If I'm hungry enough, I will eat it"

The basic food supply listed above will make enough bread for you to eat for a year, but why stick to plain bread? I will touch more on the subject of variation, but just be sure you plan for enough. Children under 7 will eat about half of an adult, so you can plan accordingly. Keep food storage in a cool dry place.