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Food Storage Containers
Most of the time, you
can store your food supply right in the containers in which it’s
purchased. This is especially true of canned goods, as long as they’re
kept cool and dry. Other types of food require a little TLC if you want
to keep them fresh, nutritious and pest-free.
One of the best gadgets or small appliances you can buy for your kitchen
and pantry is a vacuum sealer. These are sold by various companies, but
the Food Saver™ brand earns consistently high marks. If you buy your
rice, beans and pasta in individual packages, pop one into a bag
designed for your appliance, draw out most of the air and then seal it.
This is the simplest way to protect these staples from weevils and other
unpleasant visitors.
Store these bags inside a metal container for additional protection. If
you’re buying grains and beans in bulk, you can seal them the same way.
You can also do this with pasta, but you’ll want to wrap a coffee filter
or a paper towel over the ends to prevent puncturing the bags and
ruining the seals.
Some vacuum sealers are also available with an attachment for use on
glass canning jar lids. Ask your favorite neighborhood hardware store to
order a couple of cases of half-gallon canning jars. Wash the lids and
place them in a shallow pan of simmering water to soften the rubber
compound around their rims. After you wash, rinse and dry the jars
thoroughly, fill them to within an inch of the mouth with small pasta
shapes, rice, beans, oatmeal, powdered dry milk, salt or whatever dry
staple item you’re storing. Dry off a canning lid, position it over the
mouth of the jar, attach the vacuum sealer’s to the lid and pump away,
creating a vacuum inside the jar. Items stored in glass last a long
time, as long as they’re protected against breakage, heat and light.
For larger quantities stored in bulk, many people use five-gallon
food-grade plastic buckets covered with specially designed gamma lids.
Grains and beans can be stored in these for years. One of the easiest
ways to remove the spoilage-causing oxygen in these pails is to include
chunks of dry ice with the contents. Pour in a one- or two-inch layer of
grains or beans, add a piece of dry ice while protecting your hands
with heavy gloves, add another layer of grain or beans, and so forth
until the contents are an inch or two below the top of the pail. Put a
gamma lid on top of the pail, but only secure it three quarters of the
way around the circumference. The open one fourth of the lid allows
oxygen to escape. When you don’t see any more clouds of dry ice fog
rising from the pail, finish sealing the lid.
These are the easiest ways to protect your stored food, a kind of food insurance against bare supermarket shelves.
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