I am always being asked the question, how much food should I store. This is always a hard question to answer, because a lot depends on your eating habits and your likes and dislikes. The following food storage calculator put out by members of the LDS church that I recently found is a good place to start.
Go to the following website LDS Food storage Calculator and put in the number of people you are storing food for and push calculate. The food storage calculator will then give you the amounts of food you will need to store for one year.
Now the choices of foods that are on the list are pretty basic, but they give you an idea of what is required.  Now the calculator breaks your family into 7 years olds and above and 6 years and less.  Personally, I count them all as adults. Kids grow up to fast.
For various reasons, such as gluten intolerance you may not choose to store all these items. But you can still use the amounts to determine how much of other foods you need to substitute.
If I were starting my storage today, I would use the suggested items as a base to build my storage on. Â These items as a whole are on the inexpensive side and can be purchased in the LDS Home Storage Centers. Â Then I would add other types of long term storage items such as Mountain House meats to provide additional protein.
In addition, I would keep a good supply of items that I use every day on hand. Several months worth. This list is a good basic list that will keep you alive and well for one year. It is important that you learn how to cook from scratch with these types of food. There are a great variety of recipes that can be made from them if you have the knowledge. If you have to learn along the way, the cook may not be real popular.
Howard
Very interesting is this calculator! Thanks!