FOOD for thought and planning!

How much food would you need to survive a winter? What kinds of food would you need? How much would it cost to prepare all that food? Well the USDA's National Center for Home Food Preservation put out TONS of helpful and useful information every year and are the main and best source for canning safety. One the worksheets they put out is this one. (http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/usda/GUIDE%201%20Home%20Can.pdf on page 1-34) It is a chart that helps you to plan how much food you need to can and what foods you need to can. I did the above worksheet to see how much my family would have to can to make it thought the winter( 8 months of snow). It turns out that I will need 1,536 quarts of food. For fun over the next week or so I"m going to break down how much meat veggies fruit and TIME I will need to fill all those jar. But for now to just buy the jars alone it will cost about $2,560 (based on the average cost of a 12 pack of jars is $20).

This is why planning is so key when entering into a venture like farming, homesteading, or being self-sufficient. I have to admit I was a little surprised by these numbers. Were you surprised?