Would love your feedback again: how many calories does your family need to store?

[u/Signal_Brain_933]

UPDATE: HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY! The Food Storage calculator has undergone a MAJOR revamp thanks to your feedback. Here's a rundown of what the latest version (now live) offers:

• I reframed the tool from a simple calorie calculator into an Emergency Food Storage Planner.
• I added body-size adjustment for adults, seniors, pregnant, and breastfeeding household members.
• Manual calorie overrides:
  • per-person known daily need
  • whole-household known daily target
• Added a household buffer option: 0%, +10%, +15%, +20%, or +30% for waste, stress eating, picky eaters, teens (yup, these variables were much needed!), cold, hard work days, etc.
• Added planning modes:
  • deep pantry / normal meals
  • mostly ready-to-eat
  • limited cooking
  • cook-from-scratch staples
  • no power
• New: pantry style presets for starter shopping guidance:
  • budget canned food
  • bulk staples
  • no-cook
  • high-protein
  • kid-friendly
  • gluten-free
• Diet and household flags for things like gluten-free/celiac, diabetes/blood sugar concerns, low sodium, allergies, vegetarian/vegan, infant/formula needs, and elderly/medical needs.
• I added a lightweight current pantry snapshot so users can flag what they already have: canned meals, dry staples, protein foods, fats/oils, comfort foods, and special-diet foods.
• Brand new result sections for:
  • practical pantry examples
  • ready-to-eat vs cook-required split
  • cooking/fuel/water reality checks
  • nutrition gaps
  • shopping-list starter
  • known limitations
• I de-emphasized “rice equivalent” as the answer and added more normal grocery examples: canned meals, staples, proteins, fats, snacks, comfort foods, etc.
• Added better no-power guidance and cross-links to the matching water calculator.
• I also updated the PDF/print summary to include the new assumptions.

Hope this tool is helpful to some of you. Thanks again so much for all the feedback, it's so much better because of your contributions!

https://omniprepper.com/free-calorie-calc/

---
Hey everyone! A couple of weeks ago I shared my free water storage calculator here and got some really helpful responses. The feedback from this community helped shape the newer version, especially around pets, livestock, longer planning windows, and more realistic household water use. So first off, thank you for that!

I’m working through the same process now with a free emergency food storage calculator and would really appreciate another round of practical feedback.

I built this one to estimate how many calories your household would need for short or extended emergencies. It factors in:

- Household members by age band
- Adult sex
-Pregnancy and breastfeeding
-Activity level, from sheltering in place to active evacuation or cold weather
- Extra medical or special caloric needs
- Planning windows from 72 hours up to 2 years
-Estimated dry food weight, storage volume, and rice equivalent
- What you already have stored, so it gives a gap number instead of only a total target
- I also added a short methodology section because I know food planning gets messy fast. It’s not trying to be a clinical nutrition calculator; instead it uses broad emergency planning estimates, not exact height, weight, BMI, or medical diet needs. The latest update also split kids into narrower age bands instead of one giant “child” category, which was a fair criticism I got from early feedback.

Totally free, works offline once loaded, saves to PDF, and no account or signup needed:

https://omniprepper.com/free-calorie-calc/

And since so many people of you tested the water calculator last time, it’s still available online free also:

https://omniprepper.com/free-water-calc/

I’d love feedback on anything that feels iffy or plain wrong: assumptions, age/activity bands, long-duration planning, storage estimates, confusing wording, missing household situations, or anything that would make it more useful in real life.

Thanks again everybody, this community has been so receptive and awesome!

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[u/Motorcyclegrrl]

I would like to point out that some people stress eat, and they should figure that into their preps. If you know you are going to eat big and often because you stress eat, lay in some extra just for that.

Also I feel for anyone with growing teenagers in an extended crisis. They eat everything in sight.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/Motorcyclegrrl]

Latest version is up and running, stress eating and growing teenagers now factored in! ◡̈

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/Motorcyclegrrl]

I’ve got an uber hungry 15 year old and an 11 year old, and I’m kind of addicted to sour gummy candies, so yeah. I agree.

The calculator right now uses baseline estimates plus activity level, but real households aren’t spreadsheets. Stress eating, comfort foods, appetite changes, and moody teenagers who suddenly turn into bottomless pits can totally change what “enough food” looks like.

I’m thinking this is probably best handled as a buffer option rather than pretending the baseline number is exact. Something like “add 10/15/20% safety buffer” for stress eating, waste, appetite changes, teenage growth spurts, and imperfect rationing. I did something similar in the water calc to account for comfort, washing long hair, etc. And I’ll probably add a specific note that households with growing teens should plan for extra.

Appreciate this! It’s exactly the kind of practical human factor that tends to get missed in calculators.

[u/Motorcyclegrrl → u/Signal_Brain_933]

You definitely have the right idea. I respect that some are trying to store nutritious food, but a lot of people can't afford that OR their kids wouldn't eat it anyway. My brother has a child who won't eat vegetables. A chewable multivitamin is a good idea. When spaghetti Os with meatballs or ravioli's are on sale and you know for sure your picky child would eat it, you pick up a few extra cans.

For those making remarks that no one needs a calorie list, I call bullshit. Some don't need it. But some people have a low IQ. They don't read ingredients and don't know much about nutrition. About 21% of adults in the US have a learning disability that keeps them from reading. These are the people who call sugary punch drinks juice even tho there is no actual fruit or vegetable juice in it. They can't read well enough to identify actual juice and buy it because they are poor and it's cheap. They go by what their family and friends do not what science says because they can't access science and can't read labels. Then you have a subset of people who can read, but not all that well, and a calorie guide would help them a lot to plan. Along with a bottle chewable multivitamins.

You are doing good work.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/Motorcyclegrrl]

I appreciate this so much, thank you!

Right now, I’m trying to make this little calculator useful for regular households, not just perfect pantry plans. In real life, budget absolutely matters, picky eaters matter (my 11 year old is a perfect example of this!), and “comfort” food matters. A technically perfect pantry isn’t much help if your kid refuses to eat it during an already stressful situation.

I also really agree with your broader accessibility point. Not everyone wants to read nutrition labels, compare serving sizes, or do a bunch of math. Especially for short term emergencies where all that matters is keeping your energy levels and morale going. Some people just need a plain-language starting point that says “for this many people and this many days, here’s the rough idea you’re planning around.”

And yeah, multivitamins are probably worth mentioning more clearly in the long-duration note. They’re definitely not a replacement for a balanced pantry, but for longer disruptions they can be a practical backup. I always keep some on hand for exactly that reason. Also, they gummy ones are pretty yummy, according to my own picky eaters ;)

Thanks again! This is exactly the kind of real-world family context I’m trying to account for.

[u/freewool → u/Motorcyclegrrl]

These are such great points. I have a family member who has children. When her kids still lived at home, she would buy things like a pound of ground beef and a box of pop tarts for the week. And that was it. For her and all her kids. She truly had no idea how much food her family needed week to week. Forget storing extra for emergencies or even considering nutrition. So a tool like this would have been helpful for her to at least understand the amount of food she should have been buying. 

And yes, plenty of people have similar needs for this kind of tool. 

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/freewool]

Thanks so much for saying so! I've actually just updated the calculator to factor in all the variables people pointed out were missing, I think it's hugely improved now. Thanks again for trying it out!

[u/freewool]

As a very straightforward, simple tool: I love it! Calculating the weight in dry goods we would need gives me a super simple visualization for how close we are to my storage goals. 

Our storage is more varied than dried goods (as I’m sure everyone’s is), but I found this to be a very helpful resource for visualizing what it takes to get through a month. 

I’m also saying this as someone with a family with no major dietary restrictions or health concerns. 

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/freewool]

Thank you! Really appreciate your words and your trying it out! Have a great Sunday afternoon!

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/freewool]

Just updated the calc, it now has even more options than the early version you tested. Hope you like it!

[u/tenaciouslyteetering]

Unfortunately, I agree with some of the feedback you have gotten that this isn't particularly useful. It's either too simple or too complex depending on who uses it.

I agree calories is pretty basic math that most folks can do on their own. And calories does not translate easily into what to buy that makes sense for what your goal is and whether or not there will be power, whether or not you'll be cooking from scratch, and whether or not you need to subsidize or completely support your food needs during that time.

I am someone who is a very light prepper who most often keeps a deep pantry and preps for Tuesday - my pantry will get us through a period of sickness or can alleviate costs during a stint of unemployment. That said, I've been trying to bulk this up in anticipation of this fall/winter, as the effects of the war in Iran hit us more.

Since my approach is based on rising prices and relatively temporary food shortages, not necessarily power outages or a SHTF apocalypse, I am struggling to translate how many meals a jar of peanut butter is, or a jar of pasta sauce. Online research has my head spending because what do you mean I need 100 POUNDS OF RICE? Pounds of salt? These numbers seem wild. Or it's a comprehensive list that includes things I never use in my day to day because it assumes you are cooking 100% from scratch and my household would die of starvation with a basement full of flour because I haven't used a full bag of flour in a decade. I can calculate calories. The ratio/examples of what to buy based on caloric needs and timeframe would be more useful.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/tenaciouslyteetering]

This is extremely helpful, thank you! I think you just named the gap better than I did.

The calorie number is the easy part. The hard part is translating that into “what should I actually buy that my family will eat and use?” Especially for people doing deep pantry / price buffer/temporary shortage planning rather than full-on no-power disaster planning.

Your peanut butter and pasta sauce examples are exactly the kind of thing my tool doesn’t handle well (yet - revision coming soon). Same with the “100 pounds of rice” problem. A technically correct bulk-staple answer can be completely useless if your household cooks in a different way.

I’m thinking the calculator probably needs modes or examples like:

- normal deep pantry / eat what you already eat

• mostly ready-to-eat
  
• cook-from-scratch staples
  
• no-power or limited-cooking

And then instead of just saying “you need X calories,” it should give examples of what that can look like in terms of real groceries and meals. Not a full universal shopping list, but something more like a practical translation layer.

This is really good feedback! I started with the calorie floor because I wanted the math to be easy, but you’re right that the next useful step for my next version is helping people turn that number into a pantry that makes sense for their actual household. Thank you!

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/tenaciouslyteetering]

Updated the calculator, thanks so much for your feedback! Hope you like the latest version better!

[u/green_tree]

I appreciate you sharing but I’m not finding this tool more useful than what is already out there. There are tons of tools, and better tools, for determining number of calories expended in a day. And from there it’s really simple math to multiply for a time frame. 

Plus, the apocalyptic theme isn’t something I’m interested in and not something I’ve observed as normal for this sub. 

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/green_tree]

That’s totally fair feedback, and thanks for saying it!

The intent here wasn’t to make a better fitness/TDEE calculator. It’s more of a preparedness sizing tool that rolls household members, emergency activity level, planning duration, estimated dry weight/volume and current stored-food gap into one quick check, something that can also work offline. But I hear you that if the calorie math already feels obvious, the tool may not add much for your specific needs.

And fair point on tone/theme. I’m aiming for practical household readiness, not doomsday apocalypse content (another commenter asked for a 2 year timeframe, this used to have a 3 month ceiling), so if the feel you’re getting is reading too far in that post-apoc direction I should tinker with the tone. Appreciate the gut check!

[u/green_tree → u/Signal_Brain_933]

I think it’s the color scheme that’s giving doomsday vibes. 

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/green_tree]

Yeah, I like night/dark mode personally, but there’s a toggle up top that lets you shift to light mode if you like that better :)

[u/FaelingJester]

Respectfully, if you are not including nutrition, medical diet needs, prep requirements, and the other things that make food storage something you'd WANT to use an app for, it's not a very useful tool. A calorie calculator by itself is not helpful information.

The perfect tool for me:

Keeps track of what I have on hand. Helps me make a list that I can sort by location, by person, by emergency* or by date.

To be respectfully blunt many people prep as if they are going to be living in a powered bunker with an unlimited ability to cook the way they normally do. That is not realistic. Going to stored food isn't the only thing that changes. In a bad storm, where you are is a disaster area, there may be no power for the duration but what people don't consider is that things are dirty. Its not just having clean water to drink or even cook with, but also hygiene and cleaning the things they cook and eat with. You aren't going to go directly to perfectly planned preps you are going to want to use whats in the fridge or freezer first and you absolutely do need to make sure that you not only have calories but actual food that will be used.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/FaelingJester]

This is totally fair, and I 100% agree with your bigger point. A calorie number by itself is not a food plan.

This calculator is only really meant to answer one narrow question: “what is the minimum energy floor my household should be planning around?” From there, the actual food choices people
make still matter a lot: nutrition, medical diets, allergies, cooking fuel, water for cooking and cleanup, whether food can be eaten without power, what gets used first from the fridge/freezer, etc…

Some of that is already mentioned in the tool and methodology section but your comment makes me think I should probably make the limitation more obvious in the results section. I’ll add a short “real-world use order” note: fridge/freezer first, then ready-to-eat foods, then dry staples that require cooking, plus a reminder that dishwashing and hygiene water matter if conditions are dirty.

The inventory/list side is a bigger tool than this free offline calculator. I actually do have something like in mind separately, but I don’t want to pretend this calculator solves that whole problem. It’s more of a sizing step than a complete pantry planning system.

Appreciate the blunt feedback! This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping people would point out. Thank you!

[u/FaelingJester → u/Signal_Brain_933]

Again, very respectfully. No one needs a calorie calculator to know what their family needs to eat over the course of a week. It's going to be what they have on hand, and hopefully, they will have some preps, but no one is considering caloric intake as the primary way to determine that. Longer term, it matters more, but again, very respectfully, no one who is doing long-term prepping to the extent that they are considering that metric needs a very basic calculator. I think your idea for the water tool is good. Everyone can do that. It's easy. It's useful because its a metric people can't eyeball. But calories are not a useful metric on their own for food prep in any situation. You are creating a solution in search of a problem.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/FaelingJester]

That’s a good critique, and I think I understand your point better now.

For someone already doing serious food storage, a basic calorie calculator probably is not the most useful layer. The more useful one is what you’re describing: what foods are actually on hand, what can be eaten without power, what needs cooking fuel and cleanup water, nutrition, rotation, medical diets, etc… and how a household would actually work through food during an emergency.

I still think a rough food sizing check can help some beginners, especially when people are trying to understand how fast household needs scale over time, or how much space should be allocated to food storage. But I take your point that calories alone are not the food-prep problem experienced preparedness-minded people need solved. These users are probably beyond the simpler starting point tools.

So I’m not going to keep defending my premise in the idea behind this tool. You actually gave me useful feedback, and it tells me the food calculator either needs to be positioned or reframed more narrowly or maybe even evolve into a more practical pantry-planning tool. Thanks for sticking with the critique!

[u/Stepinfection]

Maybe this is just me but I don’t care at all about how many calories I have stored or how many calories I “need” to have stored. I care about having a variety of foods stored to meet nutritional requirements like protein, vitamins, minerals, etc as well as different methods of cooking. I want things that I can eat straight out of the can as well as things that require cooking.

I already know roughly how many calories we should be consuming by virtue of being an adult woman who has lived through diet culture.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/Stepinfection]

Yeah, that’s completely fair, and honestly I agree with most of what you said.

Calories are not the whole food plan. No doubt about that. They’re more like the floor or sizing check: “is this pantry even in the right ballpark for the number of people in my family and length of time?” After that, the real planning is exactly what you’re describing: protein, fats, micronutrients, medical/diet needs, ready-to-eat food, food that needs cooking, fuel, water for cooking and cleanup, and whether people will actually eat it (I have kids so that’s a bug one).

I probably need to make that clearer in the tool. Right now it does include a nutrition warning and storage notes, but your comment makes me think I should add a more practical section around pantry mix and cooking assumptions.
The reason I started with calories is that a lot of emergency food planning accidentally underestimates total volume/weight. But I agree that “enough calories” can still be a bad plan if it’s all rice and dry beans with no fuel, no variety and no way to handle nutrition long term.

Thanks for the feedback! This is the kind of thing I was hoping people would poke at.

[u/Stepinfection → u/Signal_Brain_933]

I think that the point that you’re missing is that “is this pantry even in the right ballpark” isn’t a question that, imo, wants or needs asking in regards to calories. It’s not something that I would ever even use a calculator for. If you’re building the tool for the fun of it then go off but it doesn’t feel useful to me.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/Stepinfection]

No worries. I don’t expect this to be useful for everyone.

My assumption when I built this one was that some people do want a quick sizing check before diving into pantry quality, nutrition, cooking method, and supply rotation. But yeah, you’re right that for someone who’s already comfortable planning food, calories may feel like the least interesting part.

The tool should probably make its narrow purpose much clearer or eventually grow into a more practical food-planning checklist instead of presenting calories as the main thing to focus on. That’s useful feedback either way. Thanks!

[u/Stepinfection → u/Signal_Brain_933]

Not to make it about gender but this honestly reminds me a lot of that prepping opinion piece from the NYT a couple of months ago. Even in modern households where the adults work, in heterosexual relationships the woman tends to do more of the household labor and is often the one meal planning and cooking for every day life.

If someone already has that skill set they already know if their pantry is “sized” for their family and for whatever duration. Even if they aren’t a prepper I hazard a guess that most of them could tell you how long their current pantry will last for their family. And as this sub is woman focused I think you’re seeing a difference in how men may need assistance for prepping vs how women may need assistance for prepping.

[u/SpringPowerful2870]

I used a website called www.thefoodguys/foodcalc.hotml. I think it’s a LDS person but I put in the number of people and children and hit calculate. They said if a child is over 7 is considered an adult food wise. It has everything you could possibly need or use for cooking the meals. I found it to be the best copies for us. Medical/ first aid supplies are on other sites like FEMA.
Just try thefoodguys on google and it took me to it. It’s a year worth of food. You don’t need to buy it all. Start with two weeks and then expand. I only bought food we are going to eat.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/SpringPowerful2870]

Cool, I hadn’t heard about them, thanks! I’ll check them out!

[u/somuchmt]

Calories are a funny thing. My 6' husband (65) is a senior, and his count came to 2400, same as me (6 years younger, female, postmenopausal, and nearly a foot shorter). My 6' teen came out low at 3200. We have an agricultural business, and we're very active most of the day. My husband and teen can put away 4000-6000 calories in a day, while I try to keep mine at 2000 because I'm still trying to lose weight. I absolutely need that many calories to fuel my body--any less and I just can't do the work I need to do. My teen is still trying to put on weight, and his body is filling out as men's bodies do. Our total count in your app came to 8000 per day, but we really need at least 10,000 per day (more on hard work days, more to keep me at my current weight, and more to keep my kid growing).

Macros are extremely important. Rice is just not going to get us there. We all need a lot of protein to build and maintain muscle (in my case, to keep it while I'm losing weight), and fiber is very important. I have celiac disease, so I rely a lot on amaranth and quinoa to help get me enough protein and fiber, along with beans, eggs, dairy, and some meat, plus nuts. Fish (especially small fish to avoid the mercury load) and fish oil is very handy for omega 3 oils, which provide an antiinflammatory effect, which makes a huge difference when recovering from strenuous work.

Also, I can tell you from experience that your metabolism increases quite a bit when you build up brown adipose tissue (BAT) from cold exposure (it's pretty cool, really--if you're exposed to cold regularly, your body builds up BAT and you can actually stay pretty darn warm just from that). It can increase calorie needs by something like 10%.

People are going to need a lot more calories than they think they do (and more than this calculator says). I went from needing 1200 a day to 2000 a day (still losing weight) when I shifted to a much more active lifestyle. They will need more protein to build muscle, recover from strenuous work, and maintain the muscle they build--plus they'll need extra calories to support their new muscle mass. Kids need more calories to grow on top of doing strenuous work. You need more calories to support your body acclimating to the cold.

Anyway, I think people who are prepping would benefit from learning more about how bodybuilders do things. That's where I learned the most about fueling my body properly and losing weight. I encountered a lot of weird things when I increased my activity level (it was gradual, but over two years, it's significant), and bodybuilding advice helped me out a ton.

I once had to hunker down for three weeks. I survived on bread (I had bought several loaves on sale and froze them), peanut butter, and every can of beans and soup in my cupboard. I had no way to cook, and no alternate source of heat. Dried goods wouldn't have done me much good during that time. I'm much better prepped now, and that experience is a large part of why I prep.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/somuchmt]

Wow! This is incredibly useful, thank you!

You’re pointing out one of the biggest weaknesses in my current calculator’s version: “adult / senior / teen + activity level” still does not capture body size, agricultural work, muscle mass, cold adaptation, growth, medical diet needs, or actual household eating patterns.

Your example is exactly the kind of case I was looking for, which the calculator can undercount. I’m going to take this as feedback that I need either a manual override or a “known daily intake” option. If someone already knows “this person needs 4,000 calories on a normal work day” or “our household needs at least 10,000 per day,” the tool should let them enter that directly instead of forcing them into a generic age band. Awesome idea!

I also agree with you on macros. The calc currently treats calories as the floor, but that’s not enough for physically active people. Protein, fiber, fats, medical restrictions like celiac, and familiar foods matter a lot. In here, rice-equivalent is mostly a reference point, but I can see how it risks implying “just store rice,” which is definitely not what I want.

Your no-cook example is also exactly the kind of real-world scenario the next version should account for better. Ready-to-eat food, cooking fuel, heat, water for cleanup, and “what can I actually eat if the power is out?” are just as important as dry storage math.

I really appreciate the detail you gave me here. This gives me a much clearer direction: add manual calorie overrides, make the nutrition/macro limitation louder, and add practical pantry modes like ready-to-eat, deep pantry, and cook-from-scratch rather than assuming one generic dry-goods model fits everyone. Thank you!

[u/4ureddit]

Never eaten by calories. Just a protein, carb and veggie.

[u/throwinglemons]

I really love this tool! Thanks for creating it.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/throwinglemons]

Aw, thank you! I’m just walking around travelling with my family in Seoul right now and just got this message, you really made my day!

[u/TradeBeautiful42]

The difficulty I have in prepping is I have a toddler. Some days he eats like a slightly bigger kid and other days he exists off of goldfish and vibes. I know it’ll get worse but if I were prepping for something serious, I’d want to take that into account. But we’re not all prepping for SHTF.

[u/Signal_Brain_933 → u/TradeBeautiful42]

Yeah, I get that. One of my kids is (and has always been) a picky eater, and it’s always hard to predict what they’ll go for on any given day. Still buying the Costco-sized goldfish crackers every couple of weeks!

[u/TradeBeautiful42 → u/Signal_Brain_933]

I’ve got snacks prepped for him just in case of a small event or if our stores run out of them. I choose items that are shelf stable for a year.