We have all been in a home and saw someone’s pantry that we wanted to pack up and bring home with us. While it is not realistic to steal someone’s pantry, it is realistic to gather as many ideas as you can from their space and bring the ideas how to implement in your own pantry. Pantries are a great place to store the majority of the food your family eats. The real question lies in what the best way is to store the food you are keeping in your pantry. We are here to address your questions regarding food safety and how to be sure that you are storing your food well.
Airtight containers
First things first, you need to go and buy some great airtight containers to keep your food in. There are a lot of different types of containers that you can pick from, but it really doesn’t matter as long as you are choosing one that is airtight. One of our favorite places to go when we are searching for these types of items is Bed Bath and Beyond. They have hundreds of different kinds for you to choose from. Big to small, they are going to have a few great options.
Labeling
One of the biggest problems with storing food in your pantry is the shelf life of a lot of food can go unnoticed. When things get shoved into the pantry they often end up on the back shelf and they are forgotten about until your desperately need the item and you do not want to go to the store.
The best piece of advice we can give you is that you need to get into the habit of labeling all of your food the day you put it into your pantry. Often times people will separate things into individual serving sizes in order to keep track of how much they have in their pantry. While this is great, you lose the date on the packing. We would suggest you get into the habit of writing on the packages you put in the pantry the day they were bought. If you write the day that the item was purchased, you can go back and do your research as needed and determine if the item is still safe to eat.
Keeping Things Clean
Pantries can get very messy. It’s life that we can easily make messes in places where people are not often looking. However, having a messy pantry is dangerous. After visiting with a Freehold pest control employee, I learned that one of the main sources of ants and rodents inside of your home is because of messy pantries. We obviously do not want mice and ants to live and feast of our food in our pantry so we need to be sure to keep the area tidy. Making sure that everything is sealed and airtight, as well as cleaning up any spills, will help make sure that we keep our kitchens pest free.
