nutritional need for each nutrient. For example, pregnant women need the most calcium, so the minimum amount needed by pregnant women determines the RDA for the entire human population.
There is no RDA for fats other than it is recommended that nobody get more than 30% (if I remember right) of their daily calorie intake from fat. This ignores the fact that some vitamins are only soluble in fat, which means they have to be mixed with fat in order to be transported in the blood stream. It's a similar situation with protein- protein should account for a certain percentage of your daily calorie intake.
I'm not aware of any serving sizes that are defined by law, and serving sizes aren't even standardized by the food processing industry. My mother owned a neighborhood grocery store back in the 1980s and she stocked snack chips in 2 different size packages. But, even with identical brands and products both package sizes were labeled as having just 1 serving.
So what does all of this mean when it comes to preparing a food stockpile? It is more common for preppers to stock what they can get and then figure out how to use it, or does anybody start with recipes and menus they want and then stockpile foods accordingly?
I'm wondering if some kind of mathematical model could be devised to calculate what should be stockpiled to meet a given menu plan that would meet the real world nutritional needs of the people in a given group of preppers?
Suppose the nutrient content of every food that could be stockpiled is determined on a per calorie basis, such as cheddar cheese has X amount of calcium for every calorie while orange juice has Y amount of calcium per calorie. Then if you need to consume all of your day's calcium in a 2,000 calorie diet, you could use arithmetic to determine how much cheese and orange juice you need, while adjusting other food items so you don't end up taking in more calcium than you need?
There is no RDA for fats other than it is recommended that nobody get more than 30% (if I remember right) of their daily calorie intake from fat. This ignores the fact that some vitamins are only soluble in fat, which means they have to be mixed with fat in order to be transported in the blood stream. It's a similar situation with protein- protein should account for a certain percentage of your daily calorie intake.
I'm not aware of any serving sizes that are defined by law, and serving sizes aren't even standardized by the food processing industry. My mother owned a neighborhood grocery store back in the 1980s and she stocked snack chips in 2 different size packages. But, even with identical brands and products both package sizes were labeled as having just 1 serving.
So what does all of this mean when it comes to preparing a food stockpile? It is more common for preppers to stock what they can get and then figure out how to use it, or does anybody start with recipes and menus they want and then stockpile foods accordingly?
I'm wondering if some kind of mathematical model could be devised to calculate what should be stockpiled to meet a given menu plan that would meet the real world nutritional needs of the people in a given group of preppers?
Suppose the nutrient content of every food that could be stockpiled is determined on a per calorie basis, such as cheddar cheese has X amount of calcium for every calorie while orange juice has Y amount of calcium per calorie. Then if you need to consume all of your day's calcium in a 2,000 calorie diet, you could use arithmetic to determine how much cheese and orange juice you need, while adjusting other food items so you don't end up taking in more calcium than you need?