How To Look After Your Food
Very often we buy food and forget all about it, leaving it in the refrigerator till it starts to stink. Once you have left the food too long, there’s not much you can do about it but you can take steps in advance to make sure your food stays fresh for longer.
Of course, the obvious question is why don’t you look after your food as a matter of course? Do you buy food and throw it in the fridge and forget all about it? Obviously you do. I know I do. It seems my life is lived in segments that bear no relation to each other. Come to think of it, they’re not even on speaking terms.
To put some quality into the way we take care of things, we need to make some kind of extra effort or get advice from someone outside of ourselves. We need to read articles on how to stop our food from rotting, we need dietary advice from an outside expert, but we spend endless hours in front of the mirror looking after our appearance without any need for prompting.
The most basic thing you can do to take care of your food is keep your fridge and cupboards clean. Surely that’s not a news flash for you, but most of us have to be shamed into it. Keep a check on your food storage areas. If you do it regularly it won’t be such a big deal. In fact the more you make time for little routine checks on how you are looking after what you eat, the easier it gets.
If you get into the habit of checking your refrigerator and cupboard,s the first thing you will notice is that the food will still go bad. You need take the next step and store your food in a way that will help it keep fresh.
The weevils and other little critters that like to build empires in the flour and rice and such places will be stymied if you store bay leaves in the jars. Just remember to change them every three months. And if you store unwrapped bread in the fridge, put some raw potatoes or apples with it to keep it fresh.
In the refrigerator sometimes you will get a bad smell. If you put half a potato in the fridge it should absorb any smell you can throw at it. And while we’re in the fridge, make sure you put the eggs in the egg rack with the point down instead of up. That way they’ll star fresh longer.
As for vegetables, don’t put your apples in with the rest of the fruit and vegetables because the gas emitted by the apples will make the rest of the stuff rot faster.
Finally, the ants. Ants don’t like sand. They have great misgivings about crossing a line of it. If the sand doesn’t keep them away, sprinkle some ground cloves around the sink.
These few tips should give you some idea about what you should be doing to keep your food fresh and your pantry and fridge clean. If you give these tips a try you might find that instead of having less time, you have more because you don’t have to devote large chunks of it to weekend or monthly fridge clean outs.