Using your food storage
Wait!!! (insert sound of skidding brakes…) in the last post, the words “foods meant to stay on the shelf for at least several months” were uttered. Yes, food storage is meant to be STORED and SAVED for EMERGENCIES. But, hey, no food can last forever. That’s where food storage rotation comes in.
Back when I was a kid, my mom always made me place the new cans of Spaghettios behind the older cans. There they stood, like little soldiers standing in a row. We did the same thing with the canned beans, the Spam (yes, we ate Spam—it’s actually not so bad!), the tuna fish, and anything else that came in a box or can. I grumbled at the task back then, and now my kids grumble at the task now that I’m the mom. But (you know what I’m about to write) Mom was right. Food rotation is good. Very good.
By consistently rotating the cans, using up the older foods first, we always had a pantry filled with food. Some was from the grocery store, some was home canned from food we grew in our yard.
Now this bounty of food didn’t just show up. The shelves were filled gradually. We didn’t have much money, so my folks saved their grocery budget for a really good sale day. Mom had super-hero vision when it came to spotting case sales at the grocery stores. We didn’t buy a couple of cans of chili, a package of toilet paper or a box of Kleenex now and then, we bought a whole case of it when it was on sale for dirt cheap.
Now, back to successfully rotating your food storage. It takes practice. It takes commitment. It takes ingenuity (the next column will cover that). And it takes a few great web sites for inspiration. Check out a few of my faves:
www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net
www.everydayfoodstorage.net
www.idareyoutoeatit.com
www.dealstomeals.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment