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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Food Storage Analyzer Review

I have been looking for one of these for FOREVER! This is an online inventory of your food  storage, and it goes way beyond what I have been looking for.  And it's FREE!!!

First, you plug in your family's stats and the analyzer calculates everything for you.  Next you plug in what you have on hand (whether it be from the grocery store, MRE's, or in #10 cans).  And they have a way for you can plug in anything that don't already have the stats for .  Once you have all of your food in (this takes a bit of time depending on how much food you have, but once you plug it in you don't have to do it again unless you buy something new) it calculates everything for you.

I can't believe what information this site gives me once I plug in my food.  It calculates the nutrition my family will receive and how long we could survive for.  I can easily see what areas my food storage lacks in.  As for this instance (I'm not done loading in all of my food as I have a TON), I am severely lacking in protein and calcium but I have over 100% in fiber and Vitamin A.  So this tells me so easily that the next thing I need to buy should be good in protein or calcium.

And just underneath that whole calculation box, they have links to foods high in different nutrition.  So I clicked on "protein" and it took me to a list of long self-life foods that are high in protein!  With this system I don't have to worry about the nutritional value of my food storage!  It tells me right away where I lack!  (Which is something that I have been REALLY worried about actually.  I bought a daily vitamin for my whole family for a year, but those vitamins are considered "dead" and we still need nutrition from actual food.  This makes it so easy for me!)

And one more thing that I love:  There is a wish list!  So you can put products here that you want to buy someday, but it doesn't have to specifically be your NEXT order or sitting in a cart (I always get nervous having things sitting in a cart for some reason.  Just so easy to accidentally order...)

And there are many print-friendly buttons.  You can print your current food storage, next order list, detail of the nutrition you have, etc.  So I can keep a hard copy of my food with my food.  I can use this to know what I have on hand for recipes in a power outage.

And as you rotate and use your food storage, you can easily manipulate just how many of each item you have.  It recalculates it as soon as you enter the new number.

The biggest thing I DON'T like about this is the fact that once your food is in, you can't change the name or any of the values.  Just the quantity you have.  So if you mess up, or later want to change a name to be more organized (me!) you have to start all over.  That's annoying.  So I suggest to name your food by the main thing (wheat) followed by what specific kind (hard red) so that all of your like items will be together since it is categorized alphabetically.  I did the same with my fruits and veggies, but by dehydrated or freeze-dried.  Then I know how much I have of both kinds, as each have their pros and cons.  So I want to easily see how much of each I have.

One more thing I don't like is you can't have any punctuation with the names.  So no commas, parentheses, hyphens, etc.  But maybe they will change that?  I hope so.  I think it is a newer program so still getting all of the kinks out that they haven't thought of yet.

Anywho, overall I think it's great and definitely worth your time using.  Especially for the fact it is FREE!  All the ones I have seen have not been in this depth AND cost money.  (Most a monthly amount to use!)

If you are interested in trying it out, here is their link.  And if you blog about your experience, you can get a $10 gift card to the store! (Don't mind if I do!)

Good luck!  And I'd LOVE to hear what you think if you choose to try it out!

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