Plastic free food storage

greenbee

Caterina wrote: »

OMG thank you greenbee! I knew that it would be worth it posting here, there is always someone with amazing advice! I was seriously considering galvanised bins so without your kind advice it could have been nasty, I am really grateful.

I only knew because I'd been looking at storage myself and remembered the thing about not burning rubbish in a galvanised bucket, so thought I'd find out more - and then discovered the food issue. There's lots of enamelled stuff about at the moment though - try TKMaxx.

Most of my food is stored in old Kenco coffee jars. My parents obviously drank a LOT of it at some point! :cool:

Caterina

Will pop into tk maxx in my next trip to shopping centre, thanks. Also will try the local kebab and fish and chip shops again in case some of them have spare large glass jars.

thriftwizard

I keep my oats & rice in an old chest freezer out in the garage. They come in paper or fabric sacks anyway, which they stay in; the freezer (non-working!) is more to protect them from vermin and extremes of temperature. I keep the lid weighed down to be on the safe side too. Not at all a stylish solution, but it works for us, and has for years.

Caterina

All the stuff I bought in my last stock up came in thin plastic bags, not very nice at all, so I will move most of it into fabric bags, of which I have loads and can always sew a few more. I wish I had the space and container like yours, Thriftwizard, it sounds ideal!

jackyann

Thanks - very interesting. I thought your reasons might be to do with the general toxicity of plastic. Personally, although I look to be careful with plastic, I am happy to recycle plastic containers, and don't store anything fatty in them.

Some of these worries can be addressed by using the fabric bags that Caterina suggests, but then stored in bins (or thriftwizard's old freezer). The fabric bags themselves will not protect against mice /rates for long as they gnaw through. I might use them if I was storing in a modern house, in say a room that was well used so mice /rats were unlikely. But an older house, a room rarely used - I wouldn't.

I also wonder if good thick bags would be OK in a galvanised container? I am sure that the problems only arise if the food is in direct contact with the metal.

As I was looking for something else, I came across 2 litre airtight storage glass jars in IKEA for £3: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/cookware/food-storage-organising/korken-jar-with-lid-clear-glass-art-90213549/

Caterina

Wilk-o got the same jars but on offer at £2 which is a good option, especially because I know someone who works in one and might be able to use their discount for me.

These jars are OK to decant the day to day rations in, but I still need to store the 10Kg rice, 6Kg oats etc! I would have to have a huge pantry if I were to decant all the bulk groceries into 2lt jars, and I don't, sadly.

Some women dream of a walk-in wardrobe, "Sex and the City" style, I dream of a walk-in pantry!

moneyistooshorttomention

Just not quite sure about storing such bulk items Caterina personally. Voice of experience time - having bought a huge sack of rice once and found it had got "visitors" some time before I finished it:eek:. So that was half that sack duly thrown out then and I've stuck to smaller quantities since.

Guess that depends, to some extent, on how many one is feeding - but for a single person like myself - that didnt work out.

BTW - Have you tried freezing things in glass containers - rather than freezer bags or "tupperware" type containers? If so - how did it go?

Caterina

It's two of us, DH and myself, plus regular visits from the kids, at least a couple of meals per week. The groceries are meant to be stock for the year, so I don't have to bother restocking the dry goods on a regular basis, and I get a much better price for the organic goods if I buy in bulk.

10 Kg of rice is not very much if you think if it, at 100g per person, it makes 50 meals, even if we don't use the whole 200g in one go, I use leftover in soups, rissoles etc. Same with oats, we eat porridge every 2-3 days, I make muesli with it, granola, top up crumbles, make oat flour, oat milk. Same with beans and pulses.

I have frozen stuff in glass jars, I do that regularly, because I cook pulses in large batches and freeze in portions in jam jars. If you use a liquid, you need to be careful not to fill to the top because liquids expand when frozen and the lid might pop up or if very tight the glass might crack.

Katzen

Following this thread with interest. I too would like to reduce plastic use, intry not to buy things with unnecessary packaging and yet we still half fill the landfill bin with stuff that can't be recycled . As we are only a small family we don't get through a lot of good sized jars but I hadn't thought to use them for freezing. I shall be doing that more from now on!

Caterina

Update: I am getting a walk-in pantry! No, let me repeat that: I AM GETTING A WALK-IN PANTRY!!!

DH has finally started putting shelves into the garden shed and in the next few days he will transfer all his DIY stuff and junk from the understairs cupboard into the shed, so I get that to store food! This means that I will be able to decant my dry goods into 2Lt glass jars, because I will have plenty of shelving.

A dream come true and I can't wait to see it happen! Please rejoice for me! :T:):j:beer::cool::money::D:rotfl: