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Storing Food Right
Mar. 8th, 2020 11:21 amWhen scary news is circulating around, it can be hard to resist the urge to grab everything on the store shelves, as if you can build a barrier around your family with it to keep you all safe. But it’s much better to keep calm and carry on, as they say, with a normal routine that’s already a bit shock-resistant.
My DH is an emergency room physician, so there is a non-trivial chance that our family will need to self-quarantine at home for some period of time in the upcoming weeks or months. (We had a close call last week, when we waited with bated breath for a day and a half, until a coronavirus test on a patient he saw came back negative). Virus scare or no, the CDC expects all American families to store at least two weeks of food and other supplies against “normal” events. It’s not hard to imagine how widespread problems (earthquake, anyone?) might make it convenient to have a bit more than that tucked away. Some folks also might like to have stores of food on hand to balance out income fluctuations. But it can be very disappointing to find that your five gallon bucket of rice has bugs in it. (Ask me how I know…) So storing that “food cushion” right needs to become part of the routine too.
Incidentally, I was chatting with a neighbor a couple of weeks ago, whose family belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormons. Their faith encourages them to store a year’s worth of food, always. He admitted that they, like me, sometimes end up throwing away outdated food, despite their best efforts. I felt perversely better that even folks whose literal religion it is, sometimes have trouble getting this food waste thing worked out!
For a confirmed hoarder like myself, it can be hard to balance the urge to squirrel away large quantities of… everything! against the likelihood that no one in the house will EVER be hungry enough to want to eat yucky, stale food. And I really, really hate waste. It seems that the key to storing food right is… (drumroll, please…)
Store what you eat, eat what you store.
(I first encountered this bit of wisdom, along with many others, in Sharon Astyk’s terrific book about food storage and preservation, “Independence Days”.)
For us, that means choosing foods that are a normal part of our diet anyways, storing them correctly, and then cooking from those stores as part of the normal Tuesday (or whatever) routine, replacing them as needed. That way the stored foods never get too old. I know this is not genius, folks- first in, first out is pretty basic- but there are a few details that I’ve worked out that make it easier for us.
Rice, flour, sugar, etc. are great deals at Costco when bought in the big bags, but they really shouldn’t be stored in them. Moisture, bugs, bag failure- all looming disasters. Fortunately, Home Depot sells food-safe five-gallon buckets for about five bucks each. (I’ve seen the claim that you can get food buckets for free from bakeries, ice cream shops, etc., but every time I’ve asked, the employees have looked at me like I’m nuts. I think these must be reused or recycled within the industry now, instead of being dumpstered.) We keep smaller containers of each staple in the kitchen pantry for everyday use, and refill these from the big buckets as needed. I bought Gamma Seals, which are rims which attach to the top of the buckets with a lid that screws on and off, to make it more convenient to get in and out of the big buckets without prying off a lid with a screwdriver. (These run 8 to 10 bucks each on Amazon, when sellers are not gouging a vulnerable public with scare-pricing. Shame on those who are, and let the buyer beware…)
So when I get my monster bag of flour, let’s say, home from Costco, I first split it into gallon Ziplock bags. This makes it easier to deal with. You can pour your supplies right into your food-safe bucket (some people line them with Mylar bags, also available on Amazon), and this would be more space-efficient, but to my mind it’s way too messy and makes it harder to rotate your supplies without leaving a remnant of the old flour in the bucket when the new goes in. Because I have enough mess in my life as it is, I divvy up the flour outside on a card table and brush the inevitable spillage off into the grass. (Yet another advantage of living far enough away from neighbors that they don’t immediately observe my oddities- just read about them later! ☺)
Next, the gallon bags (with the date written on them in Sharpie) go into the chest freezer for a couple of days, as a magical ritual hoping to banish bug eggs, which would hatch later. I have no idea if this actually works as I’m practicing it- way too many conflicting reports about this on the interwebs, plus all the variables about freezer temperature, etc. etc.- but it makes me feel better. A 25-lb bag of flour fits into about 5 gallon Ziplock bags, and suddenly this storage thing doesn’t seem so unmanageable. When their Arctic vacation is over, the Ziplocks go into the storage bucket, and then I just have to start baking with them! If you only buy in bulk things that last quite a while- flour, sugar, rice, dry beans- and things that you will eat anyways, they probably won’t go bad on you as long as you don’t go completely crazy in the amounts that you purchase. Besides, the zombies will probably get you before you would eat through any more than one big bag, anyways.
As long as you have adequate supplies of whatever you need to make these boring basics part of your regular meals (Mexican seasoning for your beans? Soy sauce for your rice? Baking powder and yeast for your flour?), they can get you a long ways towards maintaining normalcy under weirder circumstances too.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Just a few personal bits of hard-earned wisdom:
*Nuts and whole grains go rancid faster than you would think, and if you’re anything like me, you won’t use them up as fast as your good intentions tell you that you will. They most likely should be purchased in smaller quantities and stored in the freezer, unless you’re really dedicated. Evidently rancid nuts, grains, and oils don't just taste bad, but contain compounds that are really unhealthy for you, so toss ‘em if they smell or taste funny. I’ve seen it claimed that some people can’t taste the rancidity, so if one family member tastes it but others don’t, you may want to go ahead and toss these items out of an abundance of caution. (Yes, I know it hurts. Gotta do better next time!)
*Don’t buy stuff that you don’t already eat, figuring “well, if it gets really bad…”. If no one eats Spam now, they are definitely not going to want to “learn to like it” under stressful conditions. There’s actually a condition called appetite fatigue, which mostly affects children and old folks, where under stress and presented with unfamiliar foods, they just … don’t eat. Not good! Comfort foods, basic things, are what you probably want to aim for.
Contrary to this idea, my DH wanted to stock up on a few cans of dehydrated emergency foods, which we obviously don’t eat regularly. I shrugged and made a few cracks about needing astronaut ice cream to go with our dried lasagna. I figure that my son will just have to serve as grubmaster for a few Boy Scout backpacking trips to get them used up, in the almost-certain event that we don’t end up needing them ourselves.
Also contrary to this, I had some canned chicken in the back of the pantry from an impulse purchase some time ago. I think it’s good to have some protein on hand in a fairly familiar form; my kids don’t like beans, and as I have found out in the past, to my great sadness, the freezer’s not a sure thing in times of trouble. ☹ But we don’t routinely eat canned chicken. So I’ve begun experimenting with it, to start to find ways to work it into our regular diet so it doesn’t seem like a “weird” item. Turns out it’s perfect for a quick pot pie, and tacos are next on the list to try. The texture is a little soft, like canned tuna (not surprisingly!), but it seems acceptable. So now not only do I have a decent protein pantry storage option, but I have an excuse to have a quick convenience meal now and then to keep it rotated. Win-win!
*Don't assume that Best-By dates are the same as expiration dates. Best-By dates generally refer to the time the producer guarantees the quality of the food. Things might get a little hard or dry or discolored or whatever after those dates, so it’s definitely good storage practice to try to use them up before that, but if you miss that date, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the food is unsafe to eat. Do a little Googling if you are in doubt about a particular item, and definitely use your eyes and your nose to weed out anything that “just ain’t right”, regardless of the dates, but I’d say don’t be afraid to try something that’s past the Best-By date, to see if it’s still acceptable to you. But do try to remind yourself of the items that tend to get overlooked and slide past their date, and the next time you are in a Costco trance, snap out of it, and just say no to over-purchasing those oddball items.
Like everything else in life, it seems, that ever-elusive quality of balance seems to be the key to storing food right. Or maybe flow is the key concept here: Not too much, not too little, match inflow with usage, keep it circulating, keep it steady. Deep breaths. Ahh, that’s better!
My DH is an emergency room physician, so there is a non-trivial chance that our family will need to self-quarantine at home for some period of time in the upcoming weeks or months. (We had a close call last week, when we waited with bated breath for a day and a half, until a coronavirus test on a patient he saw came back negative). Virus scare or no, the CDC expects all American families to store at least two weeks of food and other supplies against “normal” events. It’s not hard to imagine how widespread problems (earthquake, anyone?) might make it convenient to have a bit more than that tucked away. Some folks also might like to have stores of food on hand to balance out income fluctuations. But it can be very disappointing to find that your five gallon bucket of rice has bugs in it. (Ask me how I know…) So storing that “food cushion” right needs to become part of the routine too.
Incidentally, I was chatting with a neighbor a couple of weeks ago, whose family belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. the Mormons. Their faith encourages them to store a year’s worth of food, always. He admitted that they, like me, sometimes end up throwing away outdated food, despite their best efforts. I felt perversely better that even folks whose literal religion it is, sometimes have trouble getting this food waste thing worked out!
For a confirmed hoarder like myself, it can be hard to balance the urge to squirrel away large quantities of… everything! against the likelihood that no one in the house will EVER be hungry enough to want to eat yucky, stale food. And I really, really hate waste. It seems that the key to storing food right is… (drumroll, please…)
Store what you eat, eat what you store.
(I first encountered this bit of wisdom, along with many others, in Sharon Astyk’s terrific book about food storage and preservation, “Independence Days”.)
For us, that means choosing foods that are a normal part of our diet anyways, storing them correctly, and then cooking from those stores as part of the normal Tuesday (or whatever) routine, replacing them as needed. That way the stored foods never get too old. I know this is not genius, folks- first in, first out is pretty basic- but there are a few details that I’ve worked out that make it easier for us.
Rice, flour, sugar, etc. are great deals at Costco when bought in the big bags, but they really shouldn’t be stored in them. Moisture, bugs, bag failure- all looming disasters. Fortunately, Home Depot sells food-safe five-gallon buckets for about five bucks each. (I’ve seen the claim that you can get food buckets for free from bakeries, ice cream shops, etc., but every time I’ve asked, the employees have looked at me like I’m nuts. I think these must be reused or recycled within the industry now, instead of being dumpstered.) We keep smaller containers of each staple in the kitchen pantry for everyday use, and refill these from the big buckets as needed. I bought Gamma Seals, which are rims which attach to the top of the buckets with a lid that screws on and off, to make it more convenient to get in and out of the big buckets without prying off a lid with a screwdriver. (These run 8 to 10 bucks each on Amazon, when sellers are not gouging a vulnerable public with scare-pricing. Shame on those who are, and let the buyer beware…)
So when I get my monster bag of flour, let’s say, home from Costco, I first split it into gallon Ziplock bags. This makes it easier to deal with. You can pour your supplies right into your food-safe bucket (some people line them with Mylar bags, also available on Amazon), and this would be more space-efficient, but to my mind it’s way too messy and makes it harder to rotate your supplies without leaving a remnant of the old flour in the bucket when the new goes in. Because I have enough mess in my life as it is, I divvy up the flour outside on a card table and brush the inevitable spillage off into the grass. (Yet another advantage of living far enough away from neighbors that they don’t immediately observe my oddities- just read about them later! ☺)
Next, the gallon bags (with the date written on them in Sharpie) go into the chest freezer for a couple of days, as a magical ritual hoping to banish bug eggs, which would hatch later. I have no idea if this actually works as I’m practicing it- way too many conflicting reports about this on the interwebs, plus all the variables about freezer temperature, etc. etc.- but it makes me feel better. A 25-lb bag of flour fits into about 5 gallon Ziplock bags, and suddenly this storage thing doesn’t seem so unmanageable. When their Arctic vacation is over, the Ziplocks go into the storage bucket, and then I just have to start baking with them! If you only buy in bulk things that last quite a while- flour, sugar, rice, dry beans- and things that you will eat anyways, they probably won’t go bad on you as long as you don’t go completely crazy in the amounts that you purchase. Besides, the zombies will probably get you before you would eat through any more than one big bag, anyways.
As long as you have adequate supplies of whatever you need to make these boring basics part of your regular meals (Mexican seasoning for your beans? Soy sauce for your rice? Baking powder and yeast for your flour?), they can get you a long ways towards maintaining normalcy under weirder circumstances too.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Just a few personal bits of hard-earned wisdom:
*Nuts and whole grains go rancid faster than you would think, and if you’re anything like me, you won’t use them up as fast as your good intentions tell you that you will. They most likely should be purchased in smaller quantities and stored in the freezer, unless you’re really dedicated. Evidently rancid nuts, grains, and oils don't just taste bad, but contain compounds that are really unhealthy for you, so toss ‘em if they smell or taste funny. I’ve seen it claimed that some people can’t taste the rancidity, so if one family member tastes it but others don’t, you may want to go ahead and toss these items out of an abundance of caution. (Yes, I know it hurts. Gotta do better next time!)
*Don’t buy stuff that you don’t already eat, figuring “well, if it gets really bad…”. If no one eats Spam now, they are definitely not going to want to “learn to like it” under stressful conditions. There’s actually a condition called appetite fatigue, which mostly affects children and old folks, where under stress and presented with unfamiliar foods, they just … don’t eat. Not good! Comfort foods, basic things, are what you probably want to aim for.
Contrary to this idea, my DH wanted to stock up on a few cans of dehydrated emergency foods, which we obviously don’t eat regularly. I shrugged and made a few cracks about needing astronaut ice cream to go with our dried lasagna. I figure that my son will just have to serve as grubmaster for a few Boy Scout backpacking trips to get them used up, in the almost-certain event that we don’t end up needing them ourselves.
Also contrary to this, I had some canned chicken in the back of the pantry from an impulse purchase some time ago. I think it’s good to have some protein on hand in a fairly familiar form; my kids don’t like beans, and as I have found out in the past, to my great sadness, the freezer’s not a sure thing in times of trouble. ☹ But we don’t routinely eat canned chicken. So I’ve begun experimenting with it, to start to find ways to work it into our regular diet so it doesn’t seem like a “weird” item. Turns out it’s perfect for a quick pot pie, and tacos are next on the list to try. The texture is a little soft, like canned tuna (not surprisingly!), but it seems acceptable. So now not only do I have a decent protein pantry storage option, but I have an excuse to have a quick convenience meal now and then to keep it rotated. Win-win!
*Don't assume that Best-By dates are the same as expiration dates. Best-By dates generally refer to the time the producer guarantees the quality of the food. Things might get a little hard or dry or discolored or whatever after those dates, so it’s definitely good storage practice to try to use them up before that, but if you miss that date, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the food is unsafe to eat. Do a little Googling if you are in doubt about a particular item, and definitely use your eyes and your nose to weed out anything that “just ain’t right”, regardless of the dates, but I’d say don’t be afraid to try something that’s past the Best-By date, to see if it’s still acceptable to you. But do try to remind yourself of the items that tend to get overlooked and slide past their date, and the next time you are in a Costco trance, snap out of it, and just say no to over-purchasing those oddball items.
Like everything else in life, it seems, that ever-elusive quality of balance seems to be the key to storing food right. Or maybe flow is the key concept here: Not too much, not too little, match inflow with usage, keep it circulating, keep it steady. Deep breaths. Ahh, that’s better!
