Storing Bulk Food
One way that we keep our groceries down is by buying bulk rice, beans, oatmeal and flour when possible. We are able to get a good deal on 25 lb boxes and buy them about twice a year which cuts down on our monthly grocery expenses. Since our family and apartment are small we have to be creative on storing food and packaging it to keep any critters out. Here are some key ideas for keeping our bulk food fresh.
1. Right containers
One of the best things I’ve found for storing bulk food items are 3-5 gallon food grade buckets. I can often get these for free by calling around to local bakeries and asking if I could have any frosting buckets they’d be throwing away. They are often eager to give away containers that would just go in the trash. I make sure to wash them out really well to get rid of all frosting traces.
2. Keeping the bugs out
Bay leaves, bay leaves, bay leaves. Bay leaves are a great investment to keeping any insects out of your food. I often throw 3-4 leaves in each bucket of food and have yet to have trouble with insects. You need to be more careful with flour though since flour contains little eggs that will hatch in 6-12 months. One thing you can do to kill the eggs is to freeze the flour for 24-48 hours. Since we just have one small freezer I divide the flour into gallon bags and freeze a few at a time. I also try to use up our flour within a year.
3. Date and rotate
This is the most critical aspect of keeping your food fresh. I mark all of our bulk food containers with the date on a piece of masking tape. This way I can tell which containers to use first and also gauge when I need to purchase new food. If you stock up on cans or other shelf items I would recommend dating those as well so that the cans don’t sit in your cupboards for years.
Tonight we are going to purchase some more rice and oatmeal and I am excited to have my pantry full once again.
Shaunda on Sat, 14th Feb 2009 12:21 pm
Do you put bay leaves in the flour? I do and have never had a problem with insects even when I have stored the flour for over a year. I bought new knee high nylons and put the bay leaves in the nylons, so when they crumble, they don’t get all over the stored food.