Storing Dry Goods

Storing Dry Goods to Avoid Weevils

I recently had a major battle with Mealy Bugs (Boll Weevils) in my packages of flour, rice, pasta, etc., and I can't afford to purchase enough glass or metal canisters to store the many food items I had replace. Blessedly, I keep empty metal coffee cans and glass Marie's salad dressing jars and decided those would be the new storage facilities for the replacement food so those darn buggies don't infest almost everything in the cabinet again!

It just so happens that the labels are easily removable from Marie's jars and also from the brand of coffee I buy, so all I had to do is use a Sharpie pen to write the contents on the side of the glass jars and on the plastic lid of the coffee cans. In the future I plan to dress up the outside of the coffee cans with fabric and the cool thing about the dressing jars is that they already look decorated because of the contents.

Another preventative plus to doing this is that it will help keep other assorted creepy crawly critters besides Mealy Bugs from attacking your food supply too.

By Deeli from Richland, WA

Use Drink Pitchers To Store Dry Foods

Drink pitchers with tight sealing lids make great containers for dry goods like sugar and cereal. The top is wide for easy filling, and pouring out for measuring is less messy than scooping. I like the kind that have a lid that twists open to one position, and twists again to close.

By Diane from Wonder Lake, IL

Keep Bugs out of Flour

Use a bay leaf in your flour canister to keep bugs out all year. I make a lot of bread and use a lot of flour. This works. The more flour the more bay leaves.

By Sue

Storing Food for Emergencies

Everywhere I read about how we should be storing food due to fires, water shortage, etc. I store dry foods like rice, beans, oats, pasta, bulk foods and noodles by leaving them in their packages dating and storing them in plastic snap lid buckets.

Smaller foods like dry onions, etc., I store in glad storage snap lid boxes. They stack nice in the pantry and can be labeled and dated on the buckets. This keeps the foods from getting bugs in them.

Don't like the labels on the buckets?, Decorate them with wallpaper in patterns to match your kitchen colors or decor. Makes a fun craft project. Nice buckets are available from restaurants and ice cream parlors for free, they are glad to get rid of them. Some charge 50 cents for the buckets and lids. I use the same system for my sewing room for lace, trims, ribbons. etc.

By Jane from Otis, OR

Stocking Up - Storing Dry Goods

Living in the country we try to keep a ready supply of food, especially when winter's coming. For more space to store foods we use new 5 gallon paint buckets cleaned and dried really well, then store our sugar, flour, oatmeal, dry milk, rice etc. in these stored under our raised bed. We add in about 5 oxygen pads for longer storage.

By Melanie