Feeding 500 People In An Emergency for $1.71 per day.
This is a ROUGH presentation of how to do this…I apologize in advance that it is not fancy. PLEASE ask questions and I’ll update this page with the answers. These were the notes that I used when I presented the plan to my pastoral staff.
BePrepared.com is listed because it is easy. It is NOT the cheapest way to do this. With feeding a large group, you could buy the food from food suppliers and store it in 2-5 gallon bags inside a 55 gallon sealed barrel using O2 absorbers or CO2.
500 people, 72 hours. (Multiply the numbers by 10 to get a 30 day supply)
1500 breakfasts oatmeal
1500 lunches rice and red beans
1500 dinners rice and pinto beans
Rice: http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FS%20P230 $56
500 people X 2 meals per day X ¼ cup per serving X 3 days = 750 cups (3000 servings)
8 X 47.1 lb pails, or 3136 ¼ cup servings. (50 calories per ¼ cup serving)
If each meal uses 500 x ¼ cup, then we’d need 500 x ½ cup =15.6 gallons of water.
To boil 15.6 gallons of water, we’d need ROUGHLY 21076 BTU at 100% efficiency or 52690 BTU at 40% efficiency.
8.34 BTU per gallon per degree, so at 50 degrees, it’s 15.6*8.34*(212-50)
This could be done with 16 liters of kerosene (4 gallons) or
9 liters of white gas (>2 gallons), or
1/8th of a 20# propane tank (430,270 BTU), assuming the use of a grill, large pots and 40% efficiency).
If your grill is 100,000 BTU, it would burn through a tank of propane in 5 hours and could boil the water in approx 30 minutes, total.
Pinto beans: http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FS%20P210 $65
500 people X 1 meal per day X 1 cup per serving X 3 days = 1500 cups
7 X 44.1 lb pails. (265 calories per 1 cup serving)
If each meal uses 500 cups, then we’d need 1500 cups of water = 93.75 gallons to soak and 93.75 gallons to cook.
This would require approximately 6x the fuel as ¼ cup of rice to soak the beans and the same amount to cook the beans, or 1 ½ propane tanks per meal.
To soak the beans, it requires 2 minutes of boiling and 1 hour of sitting (pot not available)
Cooking requires simmering for 2 hours.
Red beans: http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FS%20P240 $71
500 people X 1 meal per day X 1 cup per serving X 3 days = 1500 cups
8 X 44.1 lb pails (220 calories per 1 cup serving)
If each meal uses 500 cups, then we’d need 1000 cups of water = 63 gallons to soak and 63 gallons to cook.
Instant Oatmeal http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_FS%20G145 $6.75
500 people X 1 meal per day X ½ cup per serving X 3 days = 750 cups
32 X #10 can (140 calories per serving)
As a note, Clean water is the biggest hurdle to this whole plan.
The following is the spreadsheet to calculate the specific requirements.
I’ve pasted it below, but the formatting doesn’t look too good. You can also go directly to the document, and copy the entire thing into excel to edit it:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkF2CLAun5OPdFAwNTlyTnJIc3YzM2pVQ0puUW9pSmc&hl=en
Ambient temp 50
Gallons to boil 62.5
BTU per lb propane 21513.5
efficiency 0.4
lb of propane req to boil 9.812733865
gallons of propane 2.654960461
propane $ / gallon $2.50
propane $ / pound $0.68 or $13.53 per tank
% of 20lb tank 49%
Item serving size calories amt per meal water req propane req propane cost servings cost food cost cost per serving
per container per container food propane total
Oatmeal 1/2 cup 140 250 cups 15.625 gallons 2.4 lbs $1.62 24 $6.75 $140.63 $0.28 $0.00 $0.28
Pinto 1 cup 265 500 cups 188 gallons 59 lbs $39.91 224 $65.00 $145.09 $0.29 $0.08 $0.37
Red Beans 1 cup 220 500 cups 186 gallons 59 lbs $39.91 182 $71.00 $195.05 $0.39 $0.08 $0.47
Rice (lunch) 1 cup 225 500 cups 62.5 gallons 9.8 lbs $6.63 200 $56.00 $140.00 $0.28 $0.01 $0.29
rice (dinner) 1 cup 225 500 cups 62.5 gallons 9.8 lbs $6.63 200 $56.00 $140.00 $0.28 $0.01 $0.29
1075 514.625 140 $94.70 $1.71 per person, per day
1/2 tsp salt per cup rice or 250 tsp=3.3 LBS
Cooking will take 514 gallons of water per day.
we’ll need half again as much (1/2 gallon per person) for drinking.
We have none allotted for hygene.
All 764 gallons will need to be treated if it comes from the river or if the city water is questionable.
You can soak beans overnight without cooking and they take the same time to cook as they do if you boil them and let them soak for 2 hours. This reduces the fuel spent to prepare, assuming that the water is clean enough not to boil in the first place. You might consider adding spices to your plan. Dehydrated onion, garlic powder,cinnimon for oatmeal, pepper, Italian blend and possibly a “southwest blend.” I think you mentioned in an earlier lesson how the food shelters in New Orleans after Katrina requested spices because plain rice and beans is unpalitable for very long. 72 hours, you can deal with it. Longer – one needs some variety. Also, a bit of dried fruit – like raisans etc. help add nutrition and flavor to oatmeal and dehydrated vegetables help out on the beans. Bullion adds both salt and flavoring to rice at quite a low price. just a thought.
Interesting reading however I am concerned with the huge amount of water it takes to prepare the meal(s). In most dire emergency situations water is usually a critical item to come by.
[David's reply: You're absolutely right! It DOES take a large amount of water. In fact, it could require teams of people carrying & purifying water 24/7 if municipal water is not working. The best solution is to have each of the 500 people prepare for themselves. My thought is that if they have failed to do that, they can AT LEAST find/haul their own water if we're providing them with free food. In fact, it brings up the use of water as a barter item...in order for people to get food, they HAVE to bring water.]
Here,s another possibility. My mother lived through the 1930′s Depression and she said that back then, a few neighbors got together and brought whatever food they might have or could get and made a make shift meal of it. That would mean less water to be collected. I see a big problem with a large number of people leaving their homes unguarded while gathering to eat, but a small group living close by on the same street could have a couple of guards out to watch for trouble while the others ate. Afterwords the guards could eat. Sharing food with a few others might also leave the impression that you do not have a food supply of any significiant amount on hand, but if the meal was at your home, then you would want to keep the guests from wandering around and locating your stored food supplies. I wouldn’t make this an everyday event and only do this at the beginning of the hard times period, as other neighbors might get get the idea the group has a hidden food supply. I would make it a one meal affair for that day, and at irregular days thereafter. As things got worse, I would distribute my food supply anonymously.
wow! this is great information. I have a friend who was in Chile a few weeks ago when the earthquake occurred. Thanks to emergency food supplies she was able to survive and come back home safely. So we should all be prepared because we never know when or where we can be in a natural disaster.
A direct hit from a hurricane a few years ago left my county, and surrounding counties, devastated. My county wouldn’t let the feds in (they came anyway), but Samaratain Purse/SP (I am not affiliated with this group, just reporting what happened) also came. SP provided hot meals at lunch and dinner. You had to drive to the place and pick it up. They didn’t ask questions like the feds did, and would let you load up with as much as you wanted. Because of that I was able to deliver food to 15 other families in my community. These were people with children and elderly people who couldn’t get out to pick this up for various reasons. I let down the seats in my van, placed rectangle clothes basket in to hold food containers, and they whole heartedly loaded up my van for my deliveries. I can’t begin to tell you what it meant to have a hot meal, ice, water, and friendly faces greeting you during this turmoil! It empowered me, in a dismal situation, being able to do this small (yet large) task for my community… I was part of a functional team!
The serendipitous part was discovering needs unbeknown prior to my deliveries. My community was able to step in and help where I couldn’t. Point is: this is an awesome thing your church is doing! Trust me, it will not only fill tummies, it will build morale!
The oatmeal: by adding 1/4 C milk to a serving of oatmeal you get a complete protein. So, if your church could muster up some powder milk to add to that oatmeal it would be extremely prudent. Flavoring the oatmeal with some sort of sweetener, even varying the sweeteners, would reduce food burnout… and grumpy participants.
The beans: liquid smoke gives that flavor we love from bacon; it is relatively inexpensive, has fairly long shelf life; and a little goes a LONG way. 1 T masa flour to a 2 lb bag of beans (sorry, y’all have to do the 500 math adjustment) will give you another flavor entirely… i.e., TexMex flavor. Chili, smoked flavored paparika, bouillion (tomato, beef, chicken), creole spices, etc., all will give variety to those beans. Those beans and rice… can be made into soups, too. Canned tomato soup, canned hominy, canned whatever-liquid can be used to beans to create other tasty meals. Thing is, those church members… let them be experimenting with various ways to make those red beans and pintos! I promise you, good cooks will figure it out! Also, soup bases are just that: the base. Those beans (and rice) can be used to create the “base” for many different types of soups. With any luck, somebody will have something in their garden, neighborhood, or yard (foragers!) to add to that pot of “stone soup.” If you pressure cook the beans, less water and fuel will be needed. Take a tally of who has a pressure cooker! (Not sure how many you are gonna need for 500 people!!)
Finally, the biggest fly in the ointment is lack of fat. Without fat there is going to be serious constipation problems and GI issues. It is only one month you are talking about, but, it will matter. I have no idea how to resolve this issue without killing a hog or purchasing some fat. EVOO is a nice choice with a decent shelf life. Fats are as essential as complete proteins are!! And, can’t be obtained adequately through supplementations like vitamins.
OKAY, now a question: those plastic buckets and lids are getting expensive. It is harder to come by them from places like donut shops, etc. (At least where I live.) Today, for a couple bucks more, we bought two 20 gal galvenized garbage cans with tight fitting lids. Somebody told us we could use some sort of marine sealant to seal them tighter. We are gonna put stuff in mylar bags and put in the g. cans. Wondering if duct tape wouldn’t seal those lids? I could wrap those babies so tight with that duct tape nothing could get in or out. That marine sealant is suppose to be hard to open. The store also had smaller galvenized garbage cans, but the lids didn’t fit tightly (well one did, it was so tight the store guy had to use a rubber hammer to get it off… opted out of that can.) If I ever have to open those cans, I probably will be glad to have a garbage can!
canned tomato soup = canned tomato juice
“With feeding a large group, you could buy the food from food suppliers and store it in 2-5 gallon bags inside a 55 gallon sealed barrel using O2 absorbers or CO2.”
More questions:
What kind of gallon bags? Ziplocks? ??? Mylar? ?????
What kind of barrel? Sealed, like with that metal ring?
C02 = dry ice??
Those barrels are gonna be heavy! I am so inquisitive because I have a large family.
Why Red beans and Pinto beans? A mix of six or more bean types would be more nutritous, or so it seems. Wax makes a good sealant and is not toxic or obnoxious, odorous like caulking. Make sure you dry ice or use some other deoxigenator.
Sanitation is another primary concern. We pee in one side and #2 in another side for burial or burning, one member wants to process for fertilizer. Urine is saved for extra uses. Some require filtration.
Comments would be appreciated.
Thanks Dave,another great lesson(#9)!So much to think about! I like to buy 20 pound bags Of rice & break it down into 2Lb. bags & vaccume seal them with a few bay leaves to add flavor & keep the bugs out! I picked up a couple of new ways to approach my family & try to convince them,this food storage is a good thing! Thanks Again………….