You know, when you look at a food storage calculator and it has no recommendations on meat and how much to store, what do you do? I have no references other than my own opinions. So here goes…
I believe we should have canned meat - shelf stable - just in case we have power outages or other similar problems. I am a carnivore, not a vegetarian, so I suppose if you call yourself a vegetarian, you can check back tomorrow as I think about discussing storing other sources of proteins.
Easy shelf stable meats include: tuna, chicken, and I have now found pork chunks. I have family members who bottle (can) their own venison, or other wild meat. So those are all good resources and cannable meat ideas. Can you think of any others? (I’m trying not to include beans or other proteins, just meats, here.)
Now comes the real opinion. I would like to have on hand one can of meat per day for the year - just in case. Or maybe a can of meat for every other day might suffice. That would add up to somewhere between 182-365 cans of meat - your choice. To build that continually, you should probably purchase 20 cans of meat per month - some to use, some to store. I think one can per day should suffice a small family. If you have a large family, you might want to store more meat.
Wow, that seem like a lot of meat. Although, I suppose if I were only living off of canned meat and not fresh pork chops, or tender juicy steaks, or even hamburger from my freezer, I might need that much.
Feel free to adjust those numbers according to your own circumstances - remember to calculate for larger families, alternate energy sources (able to maintain refrigeration without electricity from power lines), storage space available, etc.