Food Storage

Put meat and poultry in the freezer and/or refrigerator the minute you get home from the grocery store. If you have a long drive, take a cooler and ice packs to keep stuff cool.

To safely refrigerate food, keep the temperature of your refrigerator below 40 degrees

Label your leftovers so that you know how long something has been in there. This will also help you to keep your refrigerator cleaned out because you will know when something has been in for too long.

Make sure your storage containers are air tight. On some food items air will damage the product. Also if the containers are air tight, this will prevent things like water, mice and insects from getting in.

Make sure where you are storing your food is a cool dry place. Heat and sunlight can be damaging to the food you have stored away.

When stocking up your pantry make sure you have plenty of the basics – sugar, rice, powered milk, etc. But also make sure you have enough variety. No-one likes eating the same thing over and over and over again.

If you are filling a pantry for emergency preparedness make sure you are filling it with things you have the ability to cook in an emergency. Keep in mind that you might not have electricity or the ability to heat your food.

Make sure that someone in your family eats the food you are storing. There is no point buying and storing something if no-one is going to eat it.

There are loads of different ways to store food – freezing, drying, canning. Make sure you do the research necessary for the kind of food you wish to store. Make sure it will keep the food at its freshest and healthiest.

If you have frozen an item, or purchased an item that is already frozen, you must consume it once it has been defrosted. It CANNOT be re-frozen!

WHAT TO STORE IN THE FRIDGE DOOR: Good for jarred salsa, tomato sauce, barbecue sauce, salad dressings and other condiments that can handle a higher temperature without going bad. Not good for milk, cheese or cold cuts, which need a lower temperature. Don’t store eggs in the fridge door, even if there is a place for them there – they’ll last up to 5 weeks if you store them in the back of the fridge.

Follow the instructions that came with your fridge. For best results, buy a refrigerator-freezer thermometer and hang it or place it on a shelf in the center of the refrigerator or freezer. Be sure to allow at least 24 hours to allow the temperature reading to stabilize before raising or lowering the temperature in either compartment, and at least 24 hours after making any change to recheck your temperature readings.

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keepin' the beat goin' and passing it on!

It's also a good idea to mark the date of purchase on canned, bottled and package "staples" in your kitchen cabinet (a permanent marker will do). While virtually all manufacturers put a "Best Before" date on food packages, it's easy to accidentally shove a can of tomato sauce to the back of the cabinet after you buy a fresh supply--and not think about that other can until it's dangerously close to its expiration date.

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keepin' the beat goin' and passing it on!

Better still, be sure to stock at least a few items that can be eaten right out of the container. As Will pointed out earlier, you might not be able to heat your food.

And be SURE to have a working MANUAL can opener. While more and more products have easy-open zip-top cans, not all of them do!

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keepin' the beat goin' and passing it on!