Tips on Using and Rotating Your Food Storage!
You may have read from articles I have written in the past that being prepared for Emergencies and having an emergency food supply on hand is very important to me. But, having these things on hand and not using and rotating them into your every day life can make your investment to protect you against emergencies turn into waste if never needed. Don’t worry! It is easy to use and rotate in your food storage items into your every day cooking and meal preparation. Here are some of my tips for keeping your food storage foods up-to-date and a part of your every day use.
Tips on Using and Rotating Your Food Storage!
1. Stock What You Use! One simple method for creating a food storage plan is to stock up on the products you use already every day. You can take a typical one month meal rotation and multiply all the needed ingredients by 3 or 6 and stock up to have a 3-6 month supply of the goods you need for your everyday cooking right on hand. Perishable products can be stored in a deep freezer. Chop of vegetables into usable portion sizes and freeze them so they are ready to add to your dish or purchase food freeze dried for longer term storage.
2. Clear Canisters With a Seal! – We purchased a set of clear PETE containers with a tight fitting lid to help us rotate and use our dry bulk food storage items. When you open up a big can of goods, you can pour out the contents in a clear container that will help keep the fresh, easy to see, and clearly label the container with what’s inside as well as how to use it if directions are needed to make it simpler to use for everyday cooking. Just by doing this simple step, we now solely rely on our food storage cans of rice, wheat, flour, oats, macaroni, powdered milk, and more for use in every day recipes! Is is a huge plus to have everything in bulk really easy to see, refill, keep track of, and grab to use!
3. Start Experimenting! Getting use to using, cooking with, eating, and understanding the products you may have purchased for an emergency food supply will be essential knowledge should you ever need to rely on those foods. Simply stocking up on long term storage foods with no idea on how to use them won’t help you much should a disaster strike. We started rotating in our food storage really small by just substituting in food storage ingredients in the place of other ingredients in recipes. For example, powdered milk works excellent in a pinch for cooked meal and your family won’t likely notice a difference at all! Rather than purchasing any special noodles when we make Tuna Casserole, in our home we just use and rotate our canned Macaroni Noodles since we are already making our own sauce this is a simple swap! You can start with just trying or replacing one or two ingredients into your everyday recipes until you are ready for full food storage meals!
Do you have great tips on how to use and rotate your food storage? Leave them below so we can all learn and improve our current methods of practicing preparedness!
I like start experimenting tip. Its good to experiment and use stocked grocery.
Great tips!! I find myself with alot of leftover foods that go to waste.
Great tips! We just bought a really nice powdered cheese from King Arthur Flour Co for all the times the kids want Mac N Cheese and I’m out of the premade stuff! Sometimes I just take a break from grocery shopping, I only buy fresh stuff that goes with all the boxed/canned goods, so we use those up. I find that too much of it just sits around.
These are great tips. Thank you I am going to share these tips with some friends.
Great tips! Thanks for sharing! My wife and I have had countless arguments over the lack of food storage space!
these are good tips and we need to try doing this. Â I can also see where you can save lots of money and buying stuff you use in bulk when it is on sale
We buy nutrition-dense foods like wheat germ and tvp and store them in the freezer.
i have thought abt doing this, but since i am the only one, it seems a little costly for just 1 person. i do keep a lot of canned foods that i can eat cold, i also keep a back up supply of food for my dogs….i checked in to the food companies that send you the freeze dried/prepackaged food, but it was very costly for 1 person….and some you still needed to be able to heat the products to eat them….if i have no electricity, i cant light my stove, and my water does not work. i live in the country.
Nice post. I also use the freezing idea. I check all containers and stuff once in a month to check if something needs to be consumed.
Often when I stock up on canned goods I end up buying larger size cans than what I can use at one time. I’ve started freezing the leftovers so I don’t end up wasting the extra.
These are great tops! I have a spread sheet I use with dates so that I never waste any food. I also store things in the order they expire so I can easily access things that need to be used.Â
Thanks for the great tips!
These are all great tips. I love the idea of freezing vegetables into usable portion sizes and freezing them to throw in dishes. Perfect idea, with no waste 🙂
We have a pantry that is a mess… My husband and I will
use your tips to tidy up and organize our kitchen pantry!
Thanks, Cindi
Thanks for the great ideas. Since the kids have grown I have slacked off on stocking up on things. But I need to I know. You have given me the incentive to stock up now!!!! I have a problem knowing how old some canned foods are. I opened a can of beans for a picnic to go with hot dogs and ick!!! They didn’t look right for sure!!!
Its fairly easy for me to rotate perishables because i try to limit the amount on hand, but the canned goods are a mess at my house. When I find a great deal on something I stock up on it before checking to see if I even need it so its such a pain to rotate when I already have an overabundance of that item.Â