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  1. #1
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    How much food do people eat?

    We are buying supplies through extreme couponing for a women's shelter with the goal of stockpiling them for several months. There are 78 semi-permanent beds with 9 overnight beds for a total of 87 beds. Seven of the semi-permanent beds are for children.

    Is there some kind of equation for determining food needs for these types of situations? Or is it common to just throw food at the shelter and hope for the best?

  2. #2
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    What an awesome idea. Before school starts, there are groups looking to get supplies to kids in need so I always watch for the big sales and store coupons to get more bang for my buck so they get more supplies than I could normally buy. Definitely not at the extreme couponing level though.

    Although I'm sure there is some kind of general guideline for how much a shelter's food needs would be, I think you could get more accurate information from the shelter you are donating to. They would know how much food, what type and how much storage space they would have. You would also be aware of the expiration dates on the items based on how fast they can use it.

    When you wrap this project up, I'd love to hear how much you got for the shelter and how much you actually spent. I'm always amazed at how well extreme couponers do. I rarely find coupons for things I buy.

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  4. #3
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Oh yeah. Those penny sales at Staples are fabulous. We stocked an entire elementary school one year. An insane amount of stuff.

    They don't know at the shelter. They encourage people to use their kitchen to make meals and those people provide the ingredients as well. Last week, a family committed to making a lunch but had a death in the family so they cancelled last minute. We had brought in a few hundred cans of tuna with a tub of mayo and some of our chicken's eggs so the shelter people decided to take on the lunch with tuna and egg salad sandwiches since the guests really count on these meals but they didn't know how much to make and wound up with quite a bit of leftovers.

    Apparently, they used to do two dinners a week for everyone but don't really do any now unless it's a special occasion. Instead, they take have been taking the donations they get and putting them out for the shelter guests in the kitchenette because they never get enough of any type of item to make a meal for everyone. Their pantry is huge but was virtually empty when we started this a month or so ago. The freezer is still pretty empty but I think we can fill that quickly once a really good chicken sale hits. I would like them to be able to go into the kitchen and put something together without having to shop like they did last week but when I ask them how much they should have on hand they have no idea. So I'm looking at things like 50 cent Kraft salad dressing and don't know if I should pick up 100 or leave it at 30. I can get oatmeal at 10 cents a packet. More than 180? That's probably a yes. We picked up over 100 boxes of cereal then stopped just because it's so bulky. That's one thing they put out every morning and some company donates milk. Philadelphia cream cheese was free for a while after sale and coupons but I stopped at 30 after I ran out of coupons just because I don't know. 25 cent Kraft barbecue sauce. More than 10? And don't even get me started on pickles. What was that sale about? I stopped after 25 jars.

    Anyway. That kind of thing.

  5. #4
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    Good luck. Sounds like they never know what they need to cook. I'd make sure the freezer stuff is in reasonable sized packages and then they can take out multiple packages depending on what they think they will need. Then stock the pantry with items that can supplement the frozen stuff and also make complete meals. That way they can plan and defrost something but also make something else quick from just the pantry if they need more because they didn't plan for enough in advance.

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    Senior Dog POPTOP's Avatar
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    Thank you so much for doing this. That's quite a challenge. I'm not sure about amounts.
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    Senior Dog arentspowell's Avatar
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    A serving of meat is supposed to 3 oz, about the size of a deck of cards. So if you're trying to feed 87 people, lets say a grilled chicken breast every night for a week you'd need about 114 lbs of chicken. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of food but I guess you could use that as a starting point.

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  11. #7
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arentspowell View Post
    A serving of meat is supposed to 3 oz, about the size of a deck of cards. So if you're trying to feed 87 people, lets say a grilled chicken breast every night for a week you'd need about 114 lbs of chicken. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of food but I guess you could use that as a starting point.
    Yes! That's it! "Serving size". I was looking up menus and nutritional values, etc. I needed serving size. I found this immediately:

    serving size guide | Caldining

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    When we do a function at the restaurant where I work, we figure 6oz what ever protein per person. 4 ounces starch, 4 ounces veggie. Seems to work out pretty good, and we usually end up with a little bit of food left over.

    Now when you ask how much food most people eat, I'd say way too much. When I see some of the stuff people order, I just want to scream. Our normal burgers are 7oz, but we also do an 11oz option. By the time they add all the toppings, cheese, bacon, eggs, mayo, bbq sauce, relish, LTPO, and maybe 10 other options, plus a big pile of fries, they have a plate with 2500+ calories, who knows how many grams of fat. I once told the owner I feel like we are killing our customers. She responded, "yeah, one delicious cheeseburger at a time!" Who can argue with that! LOL!

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  15. #9
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by barry581 View Post
    When we do a function at the restaurant where I work, we figure 6oz what ever protein per person. 4 ounces starch, 4 ounces veggie. Seems to work out pretty good, and we usually end up with a little bit of food left over.

    Now when you ask how much food most people eat, I'd say way too much. When I see some of the stuff people order, I just want to scream. Our normal burgers are 7oz, but we also do an 11oz option. By the time they add all the toppings, cheese, bacon, eggs, mayo, bbq sauce, relish, LTPO, and maybe 10 other options, plus a big pile of fries, they have a plate with 2500+ calories, who knows how many grams of fat. I once told the owner I feel like we are killing our customers. She responded, "yeah, one delicious cheeseburger at a time!" Who can argue with that! LOL!
    No. It's all about free will. And those who get the LPTO are getting their veg.

    Just found this:

    https://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-gr...0_18plusyr.pdf

    A big part of the problem has been the fresh food. How many heads of lettuce for a week? I thought 40. The head of the kitchen said 25. But if they're not serving people, does that make sense? It was a really great sale.

    The other thing that bugs me is that they have all of the service equipment. A salad bar for instance. Was this a pre-recession donation? I don't get it but I want to fill it. And I'm pretty sure I can.

 



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