How long does it last? How many times have you pulled that jar of pasta sauce from the back of your pantry, wondering when exactly you bought it (if you even remember)? For many home cook, there is a concern about both safety and wasting food. You purchase large amounts to save money, only to forget whether staples such as olive oil has gone bad.
The chart break it all down into digestible areas. It offers a visual representation of how long staples will last before they go bad.
How to Store Food Correctly
It’s all about environmental control: Moisture plus warmth equals bacteria paradise. Your goal is to maintain a dry, cool pantry. The cooler the better (ideally it’s between fifty and seventy degrees Fahrenheit). By controlling environment, you’ll extend life of your dry goods (like rice and flour), as well as slow down their breakdown. There’s no additional work involved.
How does keeping something in the freezer vs. Fridge affect its shelf life? It depends. As the infographic illustrates, for instance, all-purpose flour last for one year in pantry and two years in fridge. Those few extra months can mean baking up some fresh bread rather than purchasing more ingredients.
There’s such a thing as too cold for a fridge (most are) and there’s such a thing as too warm for a fridge (forty-five degrees instead of thirty-eight is what most household unit default to). Raw fish and raw chicken will spoils faster at that higher temperature. The book stresses keeping raw meats at the bottom of refrigerator. Why? Because if something drips, you don’t contaminate anything below. You establish a vertical order of risk inside your fridge, your salad greens get safe from bacteria.
Zero degrees or colder halts bacteria growth; frozen food stay safe forever as long as it remains consistently cold. The issue with frozen food isn’t safety, but quality: freezer burn occurs, which negatively impacts taste and texture. Trim off the affected areas and enjoy your dinner.
There’s one non-negotiable rule to successful freezing: always label everything with a date. A bag of mixed veggie will turn into a mystery food no one wants to trust months from now.
There are also certain items that don’t play by normal rules. Honey, for example, lasts forever thanks to its lack of moisture (meaning it’s hostile territory for microorganisms). So is white vinegar (thanks to its acidity). If stored tightly and out of direct sunlight, these essentials will last you forever and ever and ever. Others, such as eggs and milk, needs closer attention.
One handy tip is the egg float test: if an egg rises to the surface in a bowl of water, it has too much air inside and should of been thrown away. You should use your senses. Dates on packages are guidelines for peak quality rather than hard expiration dates for safety. Yes, we use the dates on packages as a guide for best freshness but trust your gut if it doesn’t look or smell right. Trust your sense of smell and touch more then this chart. It’s a place to begin so you know where to focus first.
Organize your food so you don’t waste it. The point is, when you open that can of sauce, you want the meal to begin with fresh ingredients. When things aren’t organized, it’s harder to do that and leads to food being wasted. Actualy, it leads to more furnitures being threw out.