Part of the Sept.Challenge: Peanut Butter Sandwiches

(As I was writing the September challenge, it got so long that I feared no one would bother reading it.  So I decided to put half on today, and half on tomorrow.)

Sept. Challenge 1)  Buy enough Peanut Butter and Jelly to make sandwiches for three months.

What if there were no stores, and you had to eat only what was in your house?  Now honestly answer, how many lunches per week could you stand to eat peanut butter sandwiches?  If you can’t eat them every day, then you better plan for other lunches (such as soups, macaroni and cheese, tuna sandwiches, canned Spaghettios, ramen, etc.)

Okay, do you have a number?  Lets say you want to eat peanut butter sandwiches twice a week for lunch.  In three months, that is 26 times.

Peanut Butter:  On my 40 oz. jar of Jif Peanut Butter, it says “Serving Size 2 Tablespoons.  Servings per container, about 35.”  So a 40 oz. jar of peanut butter contains about 70 Tablespoons. 

I will take their word for it and assume that I can make 35 sandwiches from a 40 oz. jar.  (Feel free to alter these numbers if you know your family uses less than 2 tablespoons per sandwich.)

Jelly:  On my 22 oz. jar of grape jelly, it says “Serving Size 1 Tablespoon.  Servings per container, about 31.”  Using these measurements, you would use twice as much peanut butter (2 Tbsp.) as jelly (1 Tbsp.) per sandwich.

Here is a tentative plan for one lunch for a family of four:  2 sandwiches for Dad, 2 sandwiches for Mom, 1 sandwich each for the two small children. Six sandwiches use 12 Tablespoons peanut butter and 6 tablespoons jelly.  Therefore, one lunch would use 1/5 of a jar of peanut butter and 1/5 of a jar of jelly. 

If my calculations are correct, you could make 5 lunches for this imaginary family of four out of one 40 oz. jar of Peanut Butter and one 22 oz. jar of jelly.

If you were planning for 26 lunches (which is twice a week for three months), you need 5 jars of Peanut Butter and 5 jars of jelly.

Of course if you are planning to eat PBJ sandwiches FOUR times a week for three months, you would need 10 jars of each.  And so on.

(Note: You still need to store bread ingredients and learn how to make bread so you can make the sandwiches.  And powdered milk so you can make some milk to drink.  But that isn’t part of this month’s challenge.)