It’s always advisable to serve your family with the freshest food every single day to ensure proper nutrition. However, not everyone has the opportunity to shop for fresh food all the time. Even the best homemakers can get caught up with the other more important tasks at home. Instead of spending precious time shopping for fresh ingredients and food constantly, learn some food storage hacks so you can keep your food at home fresh for longer.
Moreover, if you’re on a budget, you’ll find that buying in bulk is not only less costly, it’s also less time-consuming. To avoid having your food go moldy and bad within just a few days, you should master the art of proper food storage. If you’re traveling or camping, invest in storage containers like coolers or ice chests. Get more information on this website if you’re looking for high-quality food containers.
Here are some other tips to keep your food at their best:
- Air Tight Containers Should Be Your Best Friend
For whatever food items you wish to store in your home, air tight containers are your best friend. They help maintain a constant moisture level in the food.
Store food in glass jars with tight-fitting lids that have no moisture-release material in them. This prevents condensation from collecting in the jars, which can cause the food inside to spoil.
Air tight containers can be used for just about anything—from grain, to flour, powder, and all your other baking needs, cooked food, and even frozen meals.
- Freeze Milk
If you’ve got a lot of extra milk at home and, for instance, you have an upcoming trip, there’s no need to force yourself to consume or throw out all your supply.
Rather than leave it in the fridge, you can actually store it in the freezer. Milk can be frozen and made to last for at least four to six months. You’ve just got to be very mindful not to keep the bottle full before you freeze it, as it still expands when frozen.
- Wrap Lettuce In Paper Towel
If you’re a salad lover and you love to stock up on your lettuce, you finally have a solution to keep it from getting spoiled rotten immediately.
Wrap your lettuce in paper towel. This simple hack can make it stay fresh longer. The extra moisture gets trapped in the paper towel, and won’t cause the leaves to wither. This can also apply to your fresh produce you store inside your cooler bags from cooler-bag.com.au when you’re off camping.
- Best-Before Dates Are Only A Guideline
It’s a common misconception by many households that you can no longer consume any food that goes beyond the best-before date.
The truth is that the best-before date is only a guide as to the expected period when the taste of the food is at its best. Once it goes beyond the best-before date, this doesn’t automatically mean that the food is bad or stale. You can still abide by the simple visual and scent test. If it looks and smells good, then you can still use it.
However, do take note that the “best-before date” is different from the “expiration date” and the “use by date”. You have to be more cautious about “expiration date” and “use by”, as these two phrases mean that you absolutely can’t consume the food anymore after those dates. Otherwise, they could already pose risks to your health.
- Apples Live Well In The Fridge
Rather than keep your apples in the fruit basket in your pantry or table, keep them inside the fridge instead. That way, they can last so much longer. Apples kept in the fridge can stay fresh and delicious for at least a month.
- Wrap Broccoli In Foil
Not all leafy greens do well wrapped in a kitchen towel. Broccoli and celery, for instance, work better when wrapped with aluminum foil. The foil keeps the broccoli and celery fresh, as it’s porous enough to let ethylene, the hormone responsible for ripening, to escape.
- Wash Berries In Vinegar
Before putting your berries in the fridge, wash them in a solution of one part vinegar and three parts water.
This is the safest and most natural way for you to kill any bacteria that’s already on the fruit. So, as you store them inside your fridge, you can also stop the possible growth of any bacteria. This applies to strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.
Conclusion
With these tips, now you won’t have to go through that disappointing feeling of checking through your fridge and finding that the food you’ve bought in bulk is already expired. All these tips can leave you with longer-lasting and fresher items. Not only does this make you less wasteful with your food, it also allows you to shop in bulk and save money.