How much should I plan to eat each day?

I found great nutritional information on some official government or government-sponsored websites.

The first one determines how many calories a person should consume daily based on activity level. Again, I think if I am in the middle of some kind of emergency, my body just might need more than the usual calories I regularly consume. Not sure I have ever seen a sedentary child, but I suppose an ill or injured child might need less caloric intake temporarily. I think I would probably seek advice from a pediatrician on this topic.

Calorie Range - this is based on activity level:


2–3 years of age: 1,000 calories (sedentary) 1,400 calories (active)
Females
4–8 years years of age: 1,200 calories (sedentary) 1,800 calories (active)
9–13 years of age: 1,600 calories (sedentary) 2,200 calories (active)
14–18 years of age: 1,800 calories (sedentary) 2,400 calories (active)
19–30 years of age: 2,000 calories (sedentary) 2,400 calories (active)
31–50 years of age: 1,800 calories (sedentary) 2,200 calories (active)
51+ years of age: 1,600 calories (sedentary) 2,200 calories (active)

Males
4–8 years of age: 1,400 calories (sedentary) 2,000 calories (active)
9–13 years of age: 1,800 calories (sedentary) 2,600 calories (active)
14–18 years of age: 2,200 calories (sedentary) 3,200 calories (active)
19–30 years of age: 2,400 calories (sedentary) 3,000 calories (active)
31–50 years of age: 2,200 calories (sedentary) 3,000 calories (active)
51+ years of age: 2,000 calories (sedentary) 2,800 calories (active)


After determining one’s caloric level, the following provides the amount of each food type needed.
If your body requires 1000 calories a day, you will need to eat 1 cup fruit, 1 cup vegetables, 3 oz. grains, 2 oz meat and beans, 2 cups milk, and 3 teaspoons oil

If your body requires 1200 calories a day, you will need to eat 1 cup fruit, 1.5 cups vegetables, 4 oz. grains, 3 oz. meat and beans, 2 cups milk, and 4 teaspoons oil

If your body requires 1400 calories a day, you will need to eat 1.5 cups fruit, 1.5 cups vegetables, 5 oz. grains, 4 oz. meat and beans, 2 cups of milk, and 4 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 1600 calories a day, you will need to eat 1.5 cups fruit, 2 cups vegetables, 5 oz. grains, 5 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk, 5 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 1800 calories a day, you will need to eat 1.5 cups fruit, 2.5 cups vegetables, 6 oz. grains, 5 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk, 5 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 2000 calories a day, you will need to eat 2 cups fruit, 3 cups vegetables, 7 oz. grains, 6 oz. meat andbeans, 3 cups milk, and 6 teaspoons oils.

If your body requires 2200 calories a day, you will need to eat 2 cups fruit, 3 cups vegetables, 6 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk, and 6 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 2400 calories a day, you will need to eat 2 cups fruit, 3 cups vegetables, 8 oz. grains, 6.5 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk and 7 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 2600 calories a day, you will need to eat 2 cups fruit, 3.5 cups vegetables, 9 oz. grains, 6.5 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk, and 8 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 2800 calories a day, you will need to eat 2.5 cups fruit, 3.5 cups vegetables, 10 oz. grains, 7 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk, and 8 teaspoons oil.

If your body requires 3000 calories a day, you will need 2.5 cups fruit, 4 cups vegetables, 10 oz. grains, 7 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk, and 10 teaspoons of oil.If your body requires 3200 calories a day, you will need 2.5 cups fruit, 4 cups vegetables, 10 oz. grains, 7 oz. meat and beans, 3 cups milk and 11 teaspoons oil.

Sorry about the long winded text above but I stupidly thought I could cut and paste a cool looking chart but ended up hand jamming every single word. I thought nutritional information was important enough to be included. I learned quite a bit about the nutritional aspect of planning for food storage. I now have to bump up my planning for fruits and vegetables....who knew that I was so nutritionally deprived. I have also learned that I am probably eating way more protein than my body needs. Sorry, I am not going so far as to weigh my meat intake tho. LOL.

I am sure there are those folks who question the requirement for oils. Oil are essential to our bodies in several ways. We need oils for our skin, hair and nails. In other words, the cooking oils, butter, salad dressings, etc., all contribute to keep us lubricated internally and externally. Believe it also contributes to supporting our tendons and ligaments too.

Again, I am not sure which site (s) I grabbed this information from, and I am certainly not claiming this information as my own. Just trying to get a handle on what I need for my preparedness planning.

Yep, it is scenario time. I love dreaming up these dangerous situations that might require me to break into my storage supply.


Scenario Three

It is 2:30 in the afternoon and you are sitting at your desk reading your e-mail. Suddenly, the fire alarms start sounding, and the fire team leaders start an immediate evacuation plan. As your fellow workers rush to their designated safety zones, everyone notices thick black smoke billowing out of cafeteria windows. Flames are leaping ten to twenty feet above the roof line. As the alarms continue, fire truck and rescue vehicles pour into the company parking lot. You overhear one of the fire battalion commanders mention that it is a grease fire, and it is like it might to spread to other areas. High pressure water is being flooded over the rest of the building in an effort to contain the fire and keep it from spreading. Employees are told to go home and await further instructions. Later in the evening, the local news features your building’s fire and it likes look like you won’t be going to work in the morning. Hmm, when will you be returning to work? Your supervisor calls with the great news that only the cafeteria was destroyed. Big deal, the food wasn’t that great anyway. But she goes on to say the entire building has suffered considerable smoke and water damage. Several million of dollars, in fact. The work estimate to restore the building is going to take at least several months. Because the damage is extensive, no one can work in it. Some of the workers will be moving to an alternate site to resume their normal duties. Your position, however, is not moving to that site, and, as a matter of fact, you are to be furloughed until the renovation is completed.

A situation similar to this actually happened to my office – a very small office. The county was rooting around where it wasn’t supposed to be, and caused the sewer system to back up into our office. The damage was so bad the health department and EPA became involved. Thanks to some smart thinking on the boss’ part we remained operational. We did, however, have to lay off personal because over 50% of our building was damaged and therefore so was our business. Those people who were let go never returned to work at our business. The point of this is, ya just never know what is going to happen at your place of employment.

This brings up another point. Some businesses are so small that if the key employee, the boss, dies, is unable to work, or just closes down the operation, all employees will be unemployed. That too nearly happened to our office. Made me stop and think where would I be if something happens to my boss.

I have found a really great female (shock) prepper!!! She is so full of common sense, love her style of writing, and the topics about which she writes all seem to be relevent to me. Just love her blog entitled "She survives." You can find her at http://shesurvives.blogspot.com/

Goals for the week. 1. Work on ways to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet. 2. Look for some oxygen absorbers for my long term storage of wheat, rice and flour - gets buggy if not properly sealed. 3. Continue to research my preparation needs. 4. Re-look my meal plan idea and start extending it to 30 days

Research into the World of Prepping

I have been doing a lot of research to see how other preppers are doing their thing. It seems like prepping runs the gamut from common sense “let’s store some extra food for a simple three –day emergency” plan to all the way to “retreats in the hills fortress armed compounds.” My research has taken me from meals-ready-to-eat (MRE), to 55 gallon drums of drinking water to hydroponics (now that sounds interesting), and then the multi-mega buck ($$$$$) let us plan your survival needs for you companies. I have eaten MREs and they are ok for filling your gut but I am sort of used to my own cooking, and the same goes for those companies who want to sell me a year’s supply of food for a gazillion dollars. The hydroponics thing about growing my own veggies and stuff inside has possibilities but this topic needs a lot more delving into before I go down that path.

Still not sure for how far out I am planning and then there is the question of just what am I planning for? I am still keeping to my original idea of planning my storage by the meal. Not only can I track what I need to buy for each meal, I can also be conscientious about nutritional requirements. Pretty sure that any disaster which will make me break into my storage plan is going to stress my body and I will need to at least meet recommended daily vitamin and mineral requirements. I am looking for a chart that spells that out clearly…maybe something by age group or whatever.

I have looked at the methods of storage too. Dehydrated, frozen, canned and a combination of all three. Wow, those companies that offer dehydrated stuff sell some pretty exotic stuff; imagine dehydrated beef stew or beef stroganoff. I have a dehydrator but it is a little late in the season to be jumping on board this bus now. Looking into a company that offers dehydrated veggies, powdered eggs and milk for cooking. And of course, the ever popular canned foods. Still thinking that my storage plan is going to work an angle that includes all of these methods.

I put together my first entrée that I am going to include as a meal in my storage plan. Its easy to fix, ingredients can be easily stored, and it is nutritious. My first attempt!! I altered a recipe to include canned products, samples of dehydrated veggies, some frozen ingredients and normal pantry stuff. I made a Tuna Casserole, and here is how I prepared it.

Tuna Noodle Bake
Ingredients
1 small package of noodles, cooked and drained
2 small cans of mushrooms, drained
1/3 cup chopped green peppers (I regularly chop and flash freeze green peppers)
1 ½ cup chopped onions (dehydrated sample) Odd looking critters. Need to be rehydrated!!
2 small cans of tuna, drained
2 tablespoons lemon juice (trust me it adds a special zing to the recipe)
¾ cup mayonnaise (looking into how to make my own)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I regularly freeze shredded cheese, works great)

Instructions
Cook noodles as directed. Saute onions and green pepper until soft, add mushrooms and tuna. Pour lemon juice over primarily the tuna. Drain noodles. Put noodles back into pan, add the onions, peppers, mushrooms, and tuna to the noodles. Feel free to add salt and pepper to your taste. Add mayonnaise to the mixture. Place in a greased 9X 13 pan. Top with cheddar cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Bought a new sewing machine, nice automatic fancy stitches I am sure I will never use. Gee, they make them with automatic needle threaders too!! Joann’s Fabrics had a great deal on patterns. Have already made two tops, and have material for three trousers for myself. Not sure I see myself making clothes for my blondguy. Just refreshing my sewing skills. Sure glad I learned to sew as a kid. I am thinking about putting aside some material for the future too. Thinking about PJs, quilts and the like.

Oh, worked on another reason everyone should be planning for the future. Actually, this scenario just helps convince me that my prepping is a good thing. This scenario is being faced by more and more people on a daily basis.

Scenario Two:

You are the shift supervisor for a company that produces widgets, and you have just come out of a crisis management meeting. Production of widgets will have to stop until more toggles for the widgets can arrive. The workers at the company which makes the toggles for the widgets have decided to go on strike for more benefits. Employees and management are taking a hard-line on the benefits issue, and it looks like a protracted strike. Behind the scene negotiations are not going well at all. The toggle company is one of a kind; no one else makes any type of toggle that can be substituted. If there are no toggles, there will be no widgets. The production line will shut down, and all employees will be laid off until the strike is resolved. A similar strike ten years ago lasted 16 weeks, and when the strike was over many workers never returned to work at either company.



I see lack of income for the essentials of life. I see bills piling up once the pay checks stop coming. I owe a monthly mortage payment and utilities, and I have these covered for at least six months, and I am working to make this a greater part of my savings plan. And now I am working to have a food storage plan. I use my credit card for gasoline, and pay it off monthly. I am paying ahead on my car insurance. There are just soooo many things to consider.



Give me some input. What is everyone else doing? What key elements am I missing in my planning efforts.

Scenario 1 - The Weather Disaster

I have decided to journal today about the least frightening scenario that I personally could think of and logically prepare myself to handle in the event it happened. So here goes, and adapt your planning to your unique situations.

You wake up in the morning to three feet of unexpected snow. The roads are frozen and impassable, and your local news station is advising everyone to stay at home if at all possible. The announcer also says that it may take two or three days to have the roads and highways safe and passable. The closest grocery store is at least 10 miles away. Your freezer has two pounds of ground beef, a bag of frozen chicken wings, two boxes of chopped spinach, a half gallon of chocolate ice cream, and one frozen dinner entrée. The refrigerator is in even worse condition. The fridge contains three eggs, an out of date container of orange juice, a partial gallon of milk, a full jar of mayonnaise, a plastic container of last night’s leftovers, and two take-out containers from a Chinese restaurant. The pantry has two cans of corn, a cake mix, six packages of hamburger helper for tuna, and two cans of cat food. There is an exotic array of unopened containers of spices, and a single box of spaghetti. And you haven’t been grocery shopping in two weeks. You were supposed to have shopped for groceries later this afternoon.

What are your priorities in this scenario? First of all, I would be questioning the reliability of the roads being passable in two to three days. In areas that are accustomed to road clearing, this estimate might be feasible. Now in Georgia, forget it. Not only will it take forever to get the roads clear, there is always the likelihood that there will be no electricity because of trees falling on power lines. There is a good possibility if there is no electricity, there is no heat and no warm food.

In this case, there are several major competing priorities. Food and heat. If you have gas for heating and cooking, you are down to one problem…food.

With the available food detailed in my little scenario, I figure I can come up with some kind of concoction using the ground beef, spinach, corn and one package of hamburger helper for tuna. The bag of frozen chicken wings can be boiled for the meat, combined with some eggs, milk and another package of hamburger helper. I can scramble eggs and use some of the ground beef. There is always the frozen dinner entrée, and maybe what ever is in the take out containers. And I can make a nice cake for either dessert or snacking. The cat food is going to be divided up to last for several days….for the cat. But still, I could only come up with four very simple meals. Don’t know about you, but I am accustomed to three squares a day. Note: this planning is just what I could come up with for just one person. No special needs individuals, such the elderly or a picky child.

This scenario is a very realistic for where I live. The threat of snow brings my city of sissies rushing to the store to buy “milk and bread.” No thought to maybe buying some cereal, meat, veggies, you know the stuff that sustains the body for a couple of days. Particularly bothersome, is the failure to remember that if it snows and it is windy, the power lines will come down, and electricity will be out for days.

My approach to solving my preparedness situation is to buy items that when put together can make a complete meal. Maybe something like tuna fish, noodles or macaroni, cream of mushroom soup, some milk, some cheddar cheese. I plan to always keep these on hand. Another meal might be ground beef, spaghetti sauce, pasta, some parmesan cheese. Hey, another complete meal. Keep an extra box or two of cereal in the pantry and rotate to keep the contents fresh.

Hamburger meat can be prepared with a variety of veggies (onions, green pepper etc), frozen, and thawed to make spaghetti sauce, taco filling, and a variety of Tex-Mex casseroles.

Did you know that grated/shredded cheese can be frozen? That you can freeze milk? I have frozen both, thawed both, and consumed both. Works well, and problem solved. Don’t forget to have something you can throw together for snacks, like a cake mix or cookies. And don’t forget to store some extra pet food too.

Lack of electricity presents two major problems. Being cold is no fun, and in some places down right deadly. Most things I would prefer to eat in the middle of a storm emergency need to be hot. I am lucky in this regard because I can cook with either electricity or gas. I also have a fireplace for heat. Heating with my fireplace will be costly if I use its natural gas. My house is well insulated, and if I had to I could sort of camp out in the family room and kitchen to consolidate my heating and cooking. I am looking to getting some wood so that I can stay warm more cheaply. Note to self, what does it cost to have a chimney swept? Do they still have chimney sweeps?

Well, this is my first attempt to plan for a simple weather emergency. I am woefully unprepared at this moment. It is nearly the middle of August and I need to get busy with planning for a weather emergency. First order of priority is my meal planning, and then finding some cheap hard wood for keeping warm. I am working on putting together a couple of meal-in-a-kits to have stored and ready break out of storage if I need throw together in a bad storm. See ya, next time.

A lot bad stuff is going on in this world

I am a pretty avid reader of both national and international news. Over the past few month, certain events seem to have either escalated or appear to be getting more "hits" in the news recently. Some I can just ponder and move on because I am not directly touched by the impact of the event being covered in the news. That is not to say that I lack empathy or simply do not care, its just that I have not personally seen or felt a direct impact.


It seems that more recent events have the potential to impact on me, my family and my friends. I am reading with increasing frequency that there potential plans to attack Iran, may be alone or in concert with Israel. Do we really need another war? We certainly didn't get any extra gas or decreased gasoline prices out of the on-going war. Does our government think that we will be any safer or gas-richer by attacking Iran? Seems to me it might open the tidal gates to increased terrorist blow-back on our soil.


We still have crazies running around the world, maybe even here, that want to do us some serious damage. We haven't even identified all the remains of the 9/11victims. The 9/11 planners are still running loose while we take our shoes off and carry mini bottles of shampoo at our airports


There are still folks around who will never return to their homes in New Orleans because there were ineffective plans to evacuate even with DAYS advance notice. Just how long can YOU survive without clean water to drink and food in your belly?


Several banks have gone bust because of their poor lending choices and, oh joy, the tax-payer is going to have the honor of bailing them out so they can continue their fraudulent bank decisions. (Have we learned nothing from the Great Depression?). Hmm, I can feel the cold steely hand of the IRS reaching for my wallet already. More taxes = less disposable income = less $$$ for groceries = less people shopping = less need for employees = employees without jobs'


A number of businesses are either closing or scaling back their operations - Home Depot, The Gap, and what does that mean to you and me? Loss of jobs, increased prices at the grocery store, and on and on. I bet you know someone who has either recently lost a job or works for a business which is in the process of scaling down.


Speaking of grocery stores, aren't you just a little bit more than bothered by contaminated vegetables? It doesn't really make a difference whether it was tomatoes or peppers...the food we eat is becoming highly risky because we don't know who touched it, where it came from, and what is was grown in. And have you noticed that bagged "ready to eat" salad think stinks when you open the bag? Hey, its been trucked in 1500 miles to be ready to eat just for you; all you gotta do is toss on some salad dressing.


So you ask: "Where is she going will all this doom and gloom?" Simply this, it has made me think. How is this going impact on me? What if something disasterous happens and I and my loved ones can't get to a store quick enough to stock up on supplies like food and water?


Well, this is where my journey begins. I am going to detail my plans and actions to make myself more prepared for what ever the future holds.

My first step is to identify some of the potential events that could hinder my comfort zones: water, food, shelter, and safety.



I will be getting back to you on some possible scenarios that could cause me to take precautions and then I will outline what my priorities for each would be.



Would love to have tons of feedback and suggestions