Nutrition
The everyday RDA is 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. Under calorie deficit and physical stress, the Department of Defense puts the requirement at up to 2 g/kg.
Calories are easy to store. Protein is the hard part.
Most food storage plans are built on calories. Calories are the easy part — wheat, rice and oil are cheap, dense and last decades. Protein is the column that quietly goes missing.
From UC Davis Nutrition, citing the Dietary Guidelines:
The RDA assumes you are eating enough calories and living normally. Neither holds in a disaster. The Department of Defense’s Human Performance Resources programme is explicit:
“When calorie intake is inadequate, Service Members may require up to 2 grams of protein/kg body weight to maintain muscle mass, strength, and performance.”
DoD Human Performance Resources by CHAMP
They add a caveat worth repeating honestly: under severe negative energy balance, even extra protein might not be enough to preserve muscle. Protein is a buffer, not a substitute for calories.
For an 80 kg adult that is a range from 64 g/day at the RDA to 160 g/day under sustained deficit and hard physical work.
UC Davis notes that the current RDA “is likely too low to maintain lean body mass” in older adults, with research pointing at 1.5 g/kg/day. In an emergency, muscle loss in an older adult is not a cosmetic problem — it is a fall risk.
UC Davis lists the consequences of inadequate protein directly: impaired cognitive and physical development, stunting, edema, intestinal problems, suppressed immune responses, fatty liver, and reduced muscle synthesis. Infants, children and the elderly are affected first and worst.
A suppressed immune response is the one that should concentrate the mind. In a situation with compromised water and no easy medical care, that is exactly the wrong system to weaken.
Utah State Extension’s traditional one-year-per-person list is 400 lb wheat, 60 lb dry beans, 60 lb sugar, 16 lb powdered milk and 10 quarts of oil. Extension flags it themselves: enough calories for a year, but “may be lacking in calcium and vitamins A, C, B12, and E.”
Look at what is in that list. Almost no animal protein. And there is a structural reason:
The protein items are consistently the shortest-lived entries on the list. Meat is roughly 75% water (American Meat Science Association), and its fat is what spoils — Utah State warns that fat “increases the risk of spoilage” in freeze-drying.
That is the honest case for buying commercially freeze-dried, fully-cooked meat rather than trying to solve protein at home: it is the one macronutrient that resists cheap, simple, long-term storage.
Aim for the RDA as your floor and plan for more. Meat need not supply all of it — beans, grains and dairy powder contribute — but it is the component that is hardest to improvise once your freezer is warm.
Sources: UC Davis Nutrition · DoD HPRC · Utah State Extension · American Meat Science Association
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