Building a Kid-Friendly Food Storage, Part 1: Grains

The woman who wrote the following information is a nutritionist and food storage specialist as well as an at home mom. Her website is http://www.melindabeth.com/food_storage/. In her website she talks about how she built her food storage for her and her family of five based on the food pyramid. For posting convenience, I'm going to break up everything she talked about into food groups, so first off...

Grains

Grains are a very important part of your food storage and should be the largest portion of your supply. Grains are important sources of many nutrients, including dietary fiber, several B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and folate), and minerals (iron, magnesium, and selenium). There are two subgroups of grains, whole grains and refined grains. It is good to store both types of grains.

Here is a list of of grains you may consider storing:



Most refined grains are enriched which means certain B vitamins and iron are added back after they have been milled. However, fiber is not added back which makes it important to include whole grains into your daily diet. It is recommended that at least half of all grains eaten should be whole grains.

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

According to the gender and age of your family members add your family's total minimum one year supply of dry grains in pounds.

What is an ounce equivalent? An ounce equivalent is equal to 1 oz. (28g) dry grain, 1 slice of bread, 1 cup ready-to-eat cereal, 1/2 cup cooked rice, cooked pasta, or cooked cereal. 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.

So now that you know how much grain to store for your family, now you need to decide on how much of each grain to store. It is a good idea to store a variety of grains that you know your family will eat. First, Divide your total pounds of grain by 2 to figure the amount of whole grains and refined grains to store.

Here are some tips to help you:

Evaluate what your family eats on a weekly basis. Try to calculate how much of each grain your family typically consumes in a week and multiply that amount by 52 to arrive at an estimated yearly supply. Remember to include meals eaten out and convenience foods such as microwave popcorn.

Supply yourself with foods that you will eat regularly. If your family eats large amounts of rice, you may determine that this grain will serve as a staple item in your supply.

Evaluate the storage life of different grains. Some grains store very well such as hard grains like uncracked wheat, while others have a rather short shelf life such as brown rice.

Evaluate the volume of space the food to be stored requires. For example, if you plan to store pasta products, consider the shape of the pasta. 25 pounds of orzo, alphabet pasta, or couscous will take up considerably less space than 25 pounds of elbow macaroni while providing the same amount of nutrition.

Evaluate your family's dependency on store-bought foods. For example, if your family is dependent upon store-bought sliced sandwich bread, think about what it would require to make a homemade loaf of bread.

Example (by Melinda)

My family = Myself (29 years old), my husband (35 years old), 5 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, 1 year old.

Here is an example of my thought process in figuring my family's grain storage. With the chart in step two I calculate that we need 686 pounds of dry grains. Wow, that's a lot! At least half of this amount (343 pounds) should be whole grains. Ok, so what whole grains does my family typically eat? Well, I eat oatmeal for breakfast and the kids love popcorn when they watch movies. I need to store some wheat,for making bread. Barley is good in soup.

Moving on to enriched grains... Our family could eat two pounds of pasta per week. We make grits with eggs once a week. I am notorious for my variety of stir frys, so rice is a great choice. Flour comes in handy to make cookies and quick breads. Cornmeal could be useful to make cornbread. With all this information in mind I come up with the following solution: