# Most Calories Per Dollar ?



## Ripon (Dec 22, 2012)

My guess is it's a nut but I'm just not sure. 

Rice?
Beans?
pasta? 

Those three are prepper staples, but what would give us the most number of calories for a dollar? Any one know? I read lots of possibles and even hear milk might be at $1 per 1000 calories?


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## DoubleA (Nov 9, 2012)

Peanut butter?


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## James m (Mar 11, 2014)

Rice is 2,200 calories per dollar.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...X1NMM1dNcU9fakp0SGtrT2ZNN3c&usp=sharing#gid=0

A spreadsheet I found with math.


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## AquaHull (Jun 10, 2012)

Burger King


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## 1skrewsloose (Jun 3, 2013)

That's so true, but funny!


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## alterego (Jan 27, 2013)

Pure Butter By The Stick. Look It Up. It's What People Used To Eat When Tracking To The North Pole.


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## 1skrewsloose (Jun 3, 2013)

Along with calories, should we figure in energy needed to make such items? Beans take a while to cook. my .02 While inexpensive, the gains may be used up by the expending of fuel.


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## 1skrewsloose (Jun 3, 2013)

alterego said:


> Pure Butter By The Stick. Look It Up. It's What People Used To Eat When Tracking To The North Pole.


I once saw a guy use butter on his cereal cause he had no milk, the bulk truck had just came and emptied the tank. One of the stranger food combos I have seen.


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## Deebo (Oct 27, 2012)

For me, without looking at the cost charts, I say peanut butter, portable, hi energy, ready to eat, lasts a long time. 
But moneywise, hence the question, it may be rice. 
I have some instant rice and instant mashed potatoes in small water bottles, I figure I could put the water in the bottle, let the rice soften a while, then hest it up.


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## Jeep (Aug 5, 2014)

Gonna go out on a limb, but we sometimes get top ramen10 for a dollar, don't think rice can beat that


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## Arklatex (May 24, 2014)

McDonald's


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## Pir8fan (Nov 16, 2012)

Spam!


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## Seneca (Nov 16, 2012)

Now I'm hungry... :lol:


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

50 lbs of potatoes for $3.50


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

Do not stock pasta and do not stock Ramen. Yes, they are cheap. But they also consume a HUGE amount of space per calorie. Learn to make pasta. Storing the wheat or flour to make pasta is even cheaper and consumes a hell of a lot less space. Plus, homemade pasta tastes better and is better for you. On the prepper path, space is even more important than money.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

Inor said:


> Do not stock pasta and do not stock Ramen. Yes, they are cheap. But they also consume a HUGE amount of space per calorie. Learn to make pasta. Storing the wheat or flour to make pasta is even cheaper and consumes a hell of a lot less space. Plus, homemade pasta tastes better and is better for you. On the prepper path, space is even more important than money.


Grow potatoes. What you don't eat you plant the next year.

Wheat? How many acres for the same return as potatoes? Try growing enough wheat for your pasta. Then you have processing the wheat. Potatoes I dry in the sun and put them in the root cellar . Pretty simple.

I can make home fries, Baked, Mashed, frenchies, stuffed, .....

Concerning space and prepping if you do not have a root cellar you are not ready. At least where you can store potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, turnips, winter squash/pumpkins, apples, pears, rutabagas, parsnips, cabbage, brussel sprouts, ........

Root cellars require an initial investment, but then are pretty much FREE and TOTALLY OFF GRID.


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

Mad Trapper said:


> Grow potatoes. What you don't eat you plant the next year.
> 
> Wheat? How many acres for the same return as potatoes? Try growing enough wheat for your pasta. Then you have processing the wheat. Potatoes I dry in the sun and put them in the root cellar . Pretty simple.
> 
> ...


Ditto that!

I was thinking buying wheat, already harvested, and milling it into flour. But growing potatoes is a VERY efficient use of limited space.

Concerning root cellars... No matter what you have, it is not big enough. Mrs Inor and I have taken a very mathematical approach to the whole prepper thing. We studied up an decided that in a bad situation we would require between 3000 and 3500 calories per day, each, minimum. When we did the math on how much storage that would require for a year's worth of food... Then we started thinking about our family that are not prepared on their own. That multiplies the problem many fold. That is a HELL of a lot of space, even for just the two of us.

To any who say that we should leave family out that did not prepare on their own, I can only say: that is not an option for me. There are a couple in my family that I do not really like, but they are still kin.


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## SAR-1L (Mar 13, 2013)

Jeep said:


> Gonna go out on a limb, but we sometimes get top ramen10 for a dollar, don't think rice can beat that


Jeep, we are talking about calories per dollar, not sodium levels per dollar.


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## SAR-1L (Mar 13, 2013)

Inor said:


> Ditto that!
> 
> I was thinking buying wheat, already harvested, and milling it into flour. But growing potatoes is a VERY efficient use of limited space.
> 
> ...


Inor, you and I are both a like. Family is family, and they can be taught to be an asset rather than a liability.
You definitely have the right mindset in calorie economics. Just walking 5 miles a day, which is pretty easy
to do if you don't have a deskjob, plus your daily BMR is 3500+ calories a day. Imagine if you are digging ditch,
building fence, stamping t-post. I could easily see 5-7k range for an 8 hour day of back breaking labor.


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

SAR-1L said:


> Inor, you and I are both a like. Family is family, and they can be taught to be an asset rather than a liability.
> You definitely have the right mindset in calorie economics. Just walking 5 miles a day, which is pretty easy
> to do if you don't have a deskjob, plus your daily BMR is 3500+ calories a day. Imagine if you are digging ditch,
> building fence, stamping t-post. I could easily see 5-7k range for an 8 hour day of back breaking labor.


Yes sir, absolutely. But the body also learns to do more with less in a difficult situation. I agree with you, in a long term 1800 lifestyle, we would need at least double the intake we have planned now. But getting through the first year I think/hope we are adequate. Right now, we are both pretty active and we can maintain our weight with about 2000 calories per day. So that is what I based all of our calculations upon.


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## thepeartree (Aug 25, 2014)

I doubt seriously if you can survive more than a year basing your diet on calory counts. Better seek out a professional nutritionist and work out what balanced diet fits into what you figure is your ideal daily caloric intake. For instance, the Alaskan eskimos drink heated liquid seal fat to get enough calories to survive in the winter. So don't go looking for the most, look for the best. There won't be companies making vitamin pills after SHTF.


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