How Much Food Storage For 1 Year

When getting started with food storage, we believe every home should aim to have at least one year of food storage ready for potential emergencies.

For 1 year of food storage, you should consider the amount of food you need on average per day for a person in your home. The ideal number of calories you should have per day is at least 2,000 calories for each person. This will provide you with plenty of food for a full year with meal variety too.

Food storage is essential in every home and many expert agencies recommend stockpiling emergency stashes for one year. This is why we break down the exact amount of food you need for you and your family so you can build out a perfectly stocked food storage system in your own home.

Our experts understand how to properly prepare for disaster with years of experience trying new techniques and helping families do the same. Keep reading below to learn about how much food storage is needed for one year.   

‍How Much Food Storage For 1 Year?

This is an important question for everyone. It is one of the most common questions people ask themselves when they are thinking of getting ready for food storage.

The difference between the two numbers is in the number of calories that each item in your food storage plan will contain. The government recommended daily amount is 2,000 calories per day, whereas the average person in America needs to eat anywhere between 2,000 to 4,000 calories per day.

It is important to have food stashed away so that it can be consumed in times of emergency situations. There are many ways to store food, but some are more effective than others. You can store foods in a variety of ways, including freeze-dried, canned, dehydrated, and freeze-drying.

1 Year Food Storage

It is possible to make a 1-year food storage plan by thinking about your family's needs. Consider the total number of people in your household, the average food consumed per day, and the age of each person.

If you have younger children or infants, the strategy will be a little different and even requires less food to be effective. We will provide the recommended food storage portions for the average adult.

Dry Staples

Dry staples are the food items that are an absolute must-have for storing your food. These are items that can be stored for a long time without spoiling or going bad. They can have a shelf-life of up to 30 years when stored properly.

The most common dry staple foods included grains, legumes, and dried beans. They will make up the majority of your entire food storage collection. You should aim to store around 450 total pounds of grains and beans for each person in your household.

Of this total, approximately 400 pounds should be allocated to a range of different grains and the remaining 50 pounds to dried beans and legumes. This equals about 1 pound of grains per day and 1 pound of beans and legumes per week.

Canned Foods

Canned foods are excellent because they include plenty of variety. You can store canned meats, canned fish, canned fruits, and canned vegetables and they are cheap with a reliable storage shelf life.

However, when determining exactly the amount of canned foods you need entirely depends on how you deploy your stockpiling efforts to other areas too. For example, if you buy extra grains and dry staples you won’t need as many canned items

For canned meats and fish, we recommend 50 pounds of food per person. This will give you at least one pound per week for meals and should be plenty to last you for an entire year.

For canned vegetables and fruits, you will need even more. These items are typically measured in quarts instead of pounds so you should aim to stockpile at least 350 quarts total between both canned fruits and vegetables so you have about 1 quart per day.

Dried or Dehydrated Foods

The most popular foods to dehydrate for one year of food storage are fruits, vegetables, meats, and herbs. All of these items are critical to your food storage plan and they are extremely nutritious when dehydrated too.

If you prefer to include dried meats in your food plan, you can split up your canned good total and stockpile 25 pounds of each instead. This will add more variety to your diet too.

For fruits and vegetables, we recommend stockpiling approximately 100 pounds total of dried or dehydrated items. This will allow each person in your house 2 pounds per week to supplement their diet with healthier and more delicious foods.

Not all homes will include these food types in their 1-year storage plan, but we highly recommend it because of the health benefits these foods provide.  

Freeze-Dried Foods

Freeze drying food is a cheat code for food storage. You can freeze dry meats, some vegetables, fruits, and anything in between. All that matters is allocating enough freezing time for the appropriate food item for best storage.

When you freeze dry food, it removes 98% of the moisture and provides a shelf life anywhere between 25 to 30 years. Ideally, you should look to accumulate at least one freeze-dried meal per day for each person in your home.

Depending on the food type, the actual amount will vary. However, you can expect this to equal about 0.5 pounds per meal. That gives you about 180 pounds total of freeze-dried items to enhance your food storage with excellent options high in nutritional value.

1 Year Food Storage Tips

In a world that is getting increasingly unpredictable, it is important to make sure you have enough food stored in your home. This ensures that you can feed yourself, your family, and even your pets in case of any emergency. Here are some important tips to remember.

Use A Food Storage Calculator

A food storage calculator offers a way to quickly and easily assess the amount of food to store for a given number of people. It can be used as a tool to calculate how much food is needed for emergency situations, such as the end of the world or nuclear fallout.

Stick To Your Budget

It's a good idea to have a food storage solution in your home. With the help of food storage, you can always have an easy and quick meal whenever you need it. By setting a budget before you begin shopping, it allows you to shop smarter and look for bulk deals and local sales.

Track Your Meals

Before buying food, write down the meals your family consumes over the course of 3-7 days and see exactly how much they eat and what they enjoy most. After making a list of meals, write down the recipes too.

You will be able to picture exactly what type of foods you need and how much is required to live an ideal life with one year of food storage.

Use A FIFO Method

Keeping food fresh in a 1-year storage plan requires constant rotation of food. Be ready to use the oldest food first and prepare to restock the shelves when necessary.

The FIFO method is a time-tested technique to use for food storage. It stands for first in, first out. That means that the oldest items are at the back of the shelf and the newest items are at the front of it.

It is best used for foods with a shorter shelf-life like canned goods rather than dry staples.