Building a Kid-Friendly Food Storage; Part 2: Meat and Beans

Meat and Beans (This is all taken from http://www.melindabeth.com/food_storage/)

Meat and beans are also a very important part of your food storage and should be a large portion of your supply. The meat and beans group also includes eggs, dry peas, nuts and seeds. These foods supply many nutrients such as B vitamins, vitamin E, iron, zinc, and magnesium. Meat and eggs contain quality protein. Beans, peas, nuts and seeds when eaten with grains provide a quality protein as well. First, let's get to know some common food storage items that are part of the meat and beans group:

• Meat
  canned chicken, canned tuna, frozen chicken, frozen meat, frozen fish, bacon, hot dogs, pepperoni


• Eggs
  fresh chicken eggs, dehydrated whole eggs, dehydrated egg white, dehydrated egg mix, dehydrated Ova Easy


• Dry Beans and Peas
  black beans, black-eyed peas, chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, lima beans, navy beans, pinto beans, soy beans, split peas, white beans, tempeh, textured vegetable protein (TVP)


• Nuts and Seeds
  almonds, cashews, flax, mixed nuts, peanuts, peanut butter, pecans, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds

If you are just beginning your food storage, it is my recommendation to have an initial goal of storing the minimum USDA daily recommendation. This amount would be sufficient to sustain life and provide a good source of nutrition.

Here is a simplified chart for determining your family's meat and beans storage based on the USDA minimum daily recommendation:

What is an ounce equivalent? In general, an ounce equivalent is equal to 1 ounce of meat, poultry or fish, 1/4 cup dry beans, 1/2 cup cooked beans, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, or 1/2 ounce of nuts or seeds. Please note that an ounce equivalent is not always equal to the serving size on a food package label. We often eat 2-4 ounce equivalents in one serving.

Why is the meat and beans year supply not converted to pounds? The meat and beans group cannot be converted to pounds because one serving does not always equal one ounce for all foods. For example, 16 oz. (1 lb.) of dry beans generally contains 12 servings, a serving of nuts is 1/2 ounce and one egg weighs more than one ounce. Therefore, the year supply is calculated in ounce equivalents to ensure accuracy. Don't let the large numbers intimidate you! So now that you know how much of the meat and beans group to store, you need to decide on how much of each to store. It is a good idea to store a variety of foods from the meat and beans group that you know your family will eat.

Here are some tips to help you:

• Evaluate how much of the meat and beans group your family consumes on a daily or weekly basis. Try to calculate how much of the meat and beans group your family would consume in a year. Remember to include meals eaten out.
• Supply yourself with foods that you will eat regularly. If your family consumes a large quantity of eggs, you may want to look into other sources of eggs besides fresh eggs such as dehydrated egg products.
• Evaluate the storage life of different foods from the meats and beans group. Beans typically have a longer storage life, if properly stored, than meat and eggs. So you may want to focus on storing beans and gathering a variety of vegetarian recipes to try. Many meat recipes can also be used by omitting the meat or using a meat substitute such as Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP)
• Evaluate the storage conditions of the meat and beans group product you will be storing. Frozen meats can take up a lot of storage space in the freezer. Beans on the other hand can be stored in a cool, dry place pretty much anywhere in the house.

Example

Here is an example of my thought process in figuring my family's meat and beans group storage. With the chart (above) I calculate that my family requires 7665 ounce equivalents of meat and beans. Holy cow! A holy cow is what we are going to need to provide that many ounce equivalents! But we'll make it work with or without the cow.

So let's take a daily and weekly approach to our meat and beans group.

• Meat (624 ounce equivalents = 8% of total)
  20 lbs. of frozen chicken and beef = 1 ounce/person/week63 5oz. cans tuna = 1 ounce/person/week
• Eggs (600 ounce equivalents = 8% of total)
  2 dozen fresh eggs = 2 eggs/person/week for 2 weeks4 #10 cans Eggs Ova Easy = 2 eggs/person/week for 48 weeks
• Dry Beans and Peas (4320 ounce equivalents = 56% of total)
  360 lbs. dry beans = 2 ounce equivalents/person/day
• Nuts and Seeds (2190 ounce equivalents = 28% of total)
  32 40 oz. containers of peanut butter = 1 tablespoon/person/day

This gives my family a total of 7734 ounce equivalents. This is a good basic plan for the meat and beans group to help provide a well-balanced, nutritious diet that is pleasing to every member of the family. Note that the dry beans and peas subgroup contains the highest percentage of total ounce equivalents. Your storage should also contain a high percentage of dry beans and peas. Dry beans and peas store well and are high in nutrition and fiber.