How long can you sustain your family on your stored food? And tips how to rotate

[Omega]

Rotation is causing problems - it is hard to store, then it turns up even more difficult rotating your food…
When I look at various disaster scenarios, it seems to me only a large scale nuclear war is a good reason to have relatively large food stock - our food supply chain proved to be quite robust for other disasters
I read guidelines on food storage from the governments in other countries - usually it is about 3-10 days ( Latvia, Germany, Russia)
Mormons recommend storing for 3 months
So, I concluded that I should store food to sustain the family for about 3 months. And my fridge-freezer is usually sufficient to sustain my family for 2-3 weeks. So, I need extra food for 2.5 months
To rotate canned food, I check how long cans last vs how much I eat them in my normal life. For example, I eat about 4 cans of beef in a year, my local Polish shop sells cans that expire in about 12 months, so my stock is 4 cans or less; my family consumes 2 cans of fish a month, they expire in about 2 years, so my stock is less than 24 cans etc
I avoid buying something different from what we currently consume - we cannot rotate them as we won’t consume them. Also, I realised that buying more tasty (often more expensive) food makes it easier to rotate
The exception from maximum storage is pasta, beans, rice - I vacuum packed some that they can be stored for several years, but buy normal too as we eat them faster. And honey - it doesn’t expire. Well, also army rations - I ate them 7 years post BBE date and they were fine, now I sometimes take them for lunch
I removed bread and chocolate items from my stock because their rotation is not great for my waist
Dehydrator- I got myself one brand new for £45. I have a smart socket so I can set when it switches on and off with great ease and control. However, after 1 month, I only dried dill, apples and rye bread(to make kvas), the rest I don’t get enough. Still , I will use it when I can. Don’t think I will use it for herbs though as I plan growing them using hydroponic kits from capsules - dill, spring onions, coriander and parsley; maybe veges too like peppers, tomatoes and some salad leaves
And I don’t intend following a recommendation splitting my food and store in different locations - this will complicate the rotation
Another issue I have is that I sometimes travel abroad, this makes it difficult to rotate if I am staying abroad for months (travels abroad make me questioning my sanity as I feel secure there without food storage, but why not in the UK?)
How long can you sustain your family on you stock and why you chose such a duration?

[GillyBee]

My best tip is to find some recipes/meals into your everyday menu that will use your food storage. especially if the stored food is a little non-standard - e.g. I was holding some tomato powder and onion powder. They don't keep forever. By using them to make up an "instant" curry sauce for everyday use I cycle through the supply so that it stays fresh.
It just takes some creativity. I am still on the hunt for more good beans recipes though. I think I went a litttle overboard on those
The other advantage of this is that should SHTF you are not wondering how to use your wonderful stores or trying to persuade your nearest & dearest to eat new foodstuffs.

[Omega]

Partially agree with tweaking recipes - it will work as long as it is not something you don’t enjoy

[Frnc]

My stock is a bit low at the moment as I was trying to get stuff used up. I'm still using a bag of pasta that's past it's best before date, but I believe it's safe for up to a year after if it wasn't opened. Obviously I have quite a bit of pasta. I cook it in a flask so it only uses a bit of electricity to boil the kettle.

I've never tried calculating how long it would last me. Probably not 3 months at the moment, but I have space for a bit more. I just need to be careful I'm not buying stuff that won't get used.

Like you I have at least a couple of weeks' food in the fridge/freezer. I even have almost half a loaf of bread frozen most of the time, as it takes me over a week to eat a loaf. I always keep two freezer drawers pretty full.

I intend to buy more dehydrated falafel mix, Al'Fez from Sains, £1.90 for protein. I keep about 9 tuna 100g tins or Fridge Pots. I might up this a bit. One tin does me two meals.

I keep tubes of tomato puree and tins of chopped tomatoes. I can up these a bit. I make my own pasta sauce and baked beans to reduce salt and oxalates. Tinned butter beans are low oxalate.

I just bought 300g cheese powder but it seems a bit expensive so I will try to find cheaper or just stick to this one bag. I think I will make a bit into a thick paste, then add to my pasta sauce. Also I can make a cheese sauce for pasta. I will also look into buying powdered butter milk and other similar things. Also powdered egg and Nido. However I don't want to buy too much stuff I might not use.

[GillyBee]

I slowly rotate through my Nido by using it to make cheese sauces when I cook normally. I also have some cheese from powdered milk recipes to try out sometime for mozarella, paneer and cottage cheese. I will report back when I finally get around to doing so.
You could look at the vegan's nutritional yeast powder to give a cheese flavour instead of real cheese powder but I dont know what the nutrition is like.

[jennyjj01]

Rotation is causing problems - it is hard to store, then it turns up even more difficult rotating your food…...

How long can you sustain your family on you stock and why you chose such a duration?

Great post Omega,

My own storage started late 2016 and I have two adults to feed. Approximately 6 months of rations at holocaust survival diet, comprising lots of cans of what we normally eat, rice, pasta, dried spuds and some powdered milk and flavourings. My approach was to get white carbs first as rice, pasta, oats. Then stuff to make that into a meal, such as tinned tomatoes, beans, dolmio, tinned veg and soups. Then get some protein as tinned fish, spam etc. Add a few gallons of oil, some tea and coffee, then round it off with flavourings like oxo, herbs, sachets. Then rinse repeat till the extended pantry is like a foodbank.
Rotation is a problem, because our regular diet is more fresh and frozen food( we have 3 freezers). The extended pantry is not accessible enough. Because, we never use powdered milk, spam, pek etc, these exist in our reserves to be retained till they are mercilessly chucked without rotation. The rest of the stuff, I TRY to rotate by treating our extended pantry as if it were the grocery store and each shopping trip is treated as a wholesaler run. Cans and packs get the expiry date written big in marker pen to ease rotation. I store many years past BBE, which I treat with contempt.
I used to use a spreadsheet, but it went to seed. I've got dehydrator and vac sealer, but they are seldom used lately.
A two month lock in would be a breeze with these reserves apart from feeding MrJJ who would rebel at the chickpeas and pesto.
Because ration foods are different to regular diet, I've come up with a few rather zany recipe ideas for using pulses, dried veg etc. I try to eat one 'rations' creation each week. It might be a broth, or some weird pancake creation or simply pasta and pesto. You can take a look here ...
https://www.uk-preppers.co.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=15975

If you are serious about survival eating, check out 'therationchallenge' where you survive a week on a carrier bag of rice, flour, chickpeas and not much else. It's a revelation how little we can survive on and does reveal how desperately important creativity and flavourings are.

[jennyjj01]

Partially agree with tweaking recipes - it will work as long as it is not something you don’t enjoy

Better to discover now that you or the other half hates chickpeas and pesto.
The common mantra is "Buy what you eat: Eat what you buy". I only partially subscribe to that. Some rations will be compromises such as Nido, powdered eggs, corned beef and spam. Even flour is useless if you have never made any kind of bread. But boy, how versatile if you give it a go. flatbread, pancakes, batter, muffins, drizzle fries. TVP, chickpeas, pulses, even rice, you need to get used to using.

My initial stockpile summary

[pseudonym]

I've gone through two complete stored foods changes.

The first when diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure, the second on the death of my Father.

On both occasions all foods within date were donated to food banks the rest thrown into the bin.

I have gone down the route of Military MREs pouches off ebay all bought singular at first to taste test and check the ingredients.

That and the tinned fish and pork/chicken I can say 5 months at 2 meals a day, longer if I reduce that down to 1 and a 1/2 meals.

Until I can increase my Medication storage, having more food is a waste of time.

[Frnc]

I've calculated that Nido at £9.90 for 900g is just over twice the price of fresh milk. I think I ended up using some in the past, but giving one to a food bank. I intend to use this, it's down as groceries, not prep. I just ordered one on subscribe and save. This gets me £1.10 off £11.000 -> £9.90 and bypasses minimum £25 spend for free delivery. I set it to one every six months, but you can keep delaying them or even cancel. This I can store on my bedroom shelves. Something expensive, that I don't regularly use, will go onto my general Expiry Dates spreadsheet. This has random things including puri tabs, freeze dried meals in EGB, passport, driving licence etc. First aid and batteries are on separate sheets.

[Nurseandy]

As an aside but related to topic - I was rearranging my long term foods and came across some plain flour and real coffee (not instant) that expiry date was 2020. Had been stored in original packaging in plastic crates with lids in the shed at old house then indoors in new house. Neither appeared to deteriorated at all, cake & bread made with the flour and coffee drunk as usual.