I'm copying this from another forum, the OP is a person I believe knows his stuff and has lived it. The topic was "25 #'s of grains and 5 #'s of beans per person per month".
With no fat, you will dry and shrivel up from the inside out.
If you look at the numbers on paper it kind of sums it all up. Having actually lived off rice and beans both with and without oil for extended periods of time I can honestly say most people won't make it by doing too little, too late.
1lb of pinto beans (2 cups dry) cooks to 7 cups of cooked beans.
1 cup of cooked beans is a little more than 200 calories +/-.
1lb of rice makes (2 1/4 cups dry) cooks to roughly 7 cups of cooked rice.
1 cup of cooked rice is about 200 calories.
1 cup each serving of rice and beans fills you up. Read that is you really don't have much more room when the fiber expands. So if you are going to eat anything else with it, it needs to be served with it. Anyway.....
So you eat 3 cups of rice and 3 cups of beans everyday. That's only 1200 calories. You have a complete protien yes, but you have no B12. B12 is the stuff that keeps you sane and without it you die. You NEED animal protien.
Oil/Fat is roughly 120 calories per Tbsp. If you use one serving, 3 times a day, that adds up to 360 calories.
So that means you still only have 1500 calories. You will feel full, but remember ANY activity you do will burn calories. Only 1200-1500 calories a day will maintain your body weight if you do nothing. But you will starve to death if you do actually do something, like patrol, work a feild, grind wheat, whatever.
So lets further break it down if ONLY going with Rice, Beans. (No B12, and No Oil/Fat and MANY other things and you WILL eventually die...horribly)
25lbs of Rice = 56.25 cups of rice divided by 3 cups a day= 18.75 days of Rice
5lbs of Pinto Beans = 35 cups of beans divided by 3 cups a day = 11.5 days of Beans
That 3 meals a day, ONLY giving you 1200 calories (starvation diet) and you still do NOT have a months worth.
The 300lbs grains and 60lbs beans is an absolute MYTH that is repeated over and over again.
Even with the Milk, Sugar and Fat in the "5 will keep you alive" it's not enough to stay healthy for very long.
It doesn't work in the REAL world.
Most of the "quick and easy" food storage advice doesn't work in the real world.
Lastly, numbers on paper are one thing. They pretty much go out the window with season changes and work habits.
So if just only concentrating on beans and rice (I hope you are doing more), then 50lbs of rice and 20lbs of beans ers person, per month, would be a START.
Food Storage is a study of what you need to not just live, thrive.
Food Storage and planning USED to be common sense. If you read any of the lists of what people actually packed for a Wagon Train, expedition, campaign or the like, it gives a bit more insight as to more realistic quantities of food that people KNEW they would need. And even then sometimes fell short.
You SHOULD overshoot of what you "think" you might need calorie wise. You might lose some food to storage conditions, pests, etc.
But that is kind of the cart before the horse.
The first question to be answered before how much beans and rice, is how much water will it take to soak and cook them and how much fuel do I have to do it?
I'll stop here. I have to start my morning. Food Storage can be as simplified or as complete as you want it to be. *Me*, I like to see it through to being complete as in health wise. Remember, you can have a full belly everyday but still starve from manutrition. I gave a few breif examples as to the how and why. Unfortunately I myself did not think to ever question the numbers or the consequences of any of it. I can say without reservation that most of the "food storage" advice given is bunk when you actually try and follow it.
