People and days in; a real shopping list out. Most food-storage advice starts with a product. It should start with arithmetic: how many mouths, for how many days, eating how much? This calculator turns those three answers into pounds of the staple foods that carry a household — rice, beans, oats, and the supporting cast — plus the extras people forget and the buckets to put it all in.
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How does the math work?
Each staple carries a share of the total calories, based on how real pantries get built: rice does the heavy lifting at 30%, beans bring protein at 22%, and oats, flour, and pasta round out the grains. Pounds come from standard calories-per-pound figures — about 1,650 for rice, 1,550 for dry beans, 1,760 for oats. Change the people, the days, or the appetites, and every line moves with them.
What doesn't this list include?
Canned food, freeze-dried meals, spices beyond salt, and anything fresh — those are the flavor and convenience layers you add on top of this base, and the Food hub covers them, including how our comparisons judge freeze-dried meals by real calories per dollar instead of the servings on the label. This calculator sells nothing; it is the same arithmetic our reviews are held to. The first-month guide puts this list in week two, right after water.