Fruits & Veggies

DO you have a garden this year? No?
That's ok but we'll need to prep because you'll need one. Let's put gardening on the back burner for a moment and discuss stockpiling canned goods first.  If the whole world goes sideways ~ and let's say for some reason you can't get a garden in for a year, or the world goes sideways midwinter you'll still want 3-5 years supplies of stored fruits and veggies.

First figure out what your family will eat, and what you need for recipes. We like a variety of fruits and veggies You'll need both at your BIG meal of the day and remember to plan for your family and whomever else you'll be feeding if the lights go out forever.

Okay here's a list to get you thinking:

Fruit Cocktail?
Mandarin Oranges?
Pineapple?
Dried bananas?
peaches
pears
raisins
dried apricots
prunes
cherries dried
dried cranberries
dried apples
Fruit Juice
Fruit jams/jelly
applesauce

How many times a week could you eat each of those?
How much of each is a serving for your family?
Serving amount * # svgs/wk * 52 weeks
DO this for everything on the list that y'all would like to have in your menus
Once you've done this for everything your family enjoys count up how many servings you need for a meal.
USDA has new recommendations for fruits and veggies.  HERE

Now let's talk veggies..

Let's assume for a moment you don't have a garden, and you don't know how to can fruits or veggies (don't worry we'll get you there)
SO you want to stockpile veggies and you know you can't eat a #10 can (those are the REALLY big cans)

Veggies are important.  Rice, Potatoes, Corn, and Pasta ARE NOT VEGGIES those are carbs.

Make a list of every veggies that comes dried or in a can that you enjoy eating
Now figure out how much you need for a single meal
How many meals are you willing to eat that in a week?
Do that for all your listed veggies

Multiple each of those answers by 52 (for 52 weeks in the year)
Once you've done that add up eat meal (just like we did in MEAT it's what's for dinner post)
And you will know how many meals you have covered...
Whatever your totals, extend that to get 5 yrs coverage for each item.

Now you have a goal on what to buy for canned fruits and veggies. We will discuss gardening in a later entry.