A Year of Supermarket Food, Simplified

My pantry has been in a dismal state lately. Grocery prices are just so high these days that I haven't been able to add much to my stockpile. In fact, it's diminishing quickly. I'd like to get control over it, and I know the first step is to figure out exactly what I need. So I decided to do a quick calculation of what a year's worth of canned/boxed foods would look like for my family of four. A few things about this calculation:

• This does not take any freeze dried or dehydrated foods into consideration, nor does it account for things like MREs. We don't have a ton of those types of items anyway--basically, we keep a little around so we can easily grab 2-weeks worth of food for bugging out. So it was important to me to see what I would need to live for a year with just grocery-store-type foods only.
• This also does not take into account any "extras" or "treats" that I might have in my pantry, like Jello or brownie mixes. I also did not consider things like eggs, sugar, flour, spices, oil, or other raw materials that might be used to make bread, biscuits, etc. Both treats and raw materials would be supplements to the meal plan below (either as additional side dishes to a meal or as a third meal for the day), since it's already pretty spartan.
• This meal plan is as basic as I can get with canned goods. It's also a rationed diet. I am assuming that we are only eating two meals per day with enough calories to function. My kids are still very young. If they were older, I might have to increase the amount of food in a "meal."
• Proteins are defined as canned meats, canned seafood and canned beans.

Here it is:

• A Meal for Four = 1 can of protein, 1 can of vegetables or fruit, and 4 servings of starch
• Four Servings of Starch = 1/2 lb rice, 1/2 lb pasta, or 1 box of mac/cheese or rice mix (like Rice-A-Roni)

For 2 meals per day, my family needs a total of 730 meals in storage.

Assuming an even split between rice and pasta, and an even split between vegetables and fruit, a year's worth of food storage for a rationed plan for my family of four looks like this:

730 Cans of Protein
365 Cans of Vegetables
365 Cans of Fruit
183 Pounds of Rice
183 Pounds of Pasta

It was a total shocker to see those numbers.

For one thing, this is a very rationed plan. Hubby and I would almost definitely have growling tummies all the time. For another, I am nowhere near close to this type of storage. I have, maybe, 20 cans of Spam in my pantry. That's a long way from 730. My best guess is that I have about a month's worth of food in my pantry... maybe less.

It certainly was an eye-opening exercise.

On the other hand, I have 216 rolls of toilet paper in my basement. Assuming conservative use of 3 rolls of toilet paper per week, I easily have a year's worth of it in storage.

So we might not be able to eat, but at least we'll have something for wiping our butts.