Could you live for a month on what's in your pantry?

[marla]

One of the biggest problems I have is that food that I buy gets placed on back shelves and ends up expiring before I get the chance to use it. I'm thinking about trying to live a month without buying any groceries to whittle down the stock and make sure I use everything before the due date. Has anyone done this before and is it difficult to do? What problems do you see happening if I attempt this?

[JBinKC]

You have to have a system that rotates stock and know what is in inventory. Another thing to add I wouldn't put a iron clad emphasis on due dates. Those dates are there guaranteed for freshness. If the appearance of the food look and smells normal it is edible.

I figure I have a 2-3 months supply of food and that is down from 6 months- thanks to food inflation.

[Hot dog]

It is definitely doable. You will just have to buy perishables like milk, bread and eggs. I try to do that often and now with food getting so expensive is a good time to try. It is helpful to get to the stuff at the bottom of the freezer that you forgot was there

[mbongwe]

It's pretty doable. Even eggs can stay for quite long time especially boiled. If you eat more rice, potatoes, beans and frozen vegetables you'll end up with pretty frugal meals. And you can just discover a healthier diet than your everyday's one (just a guess of course)

[Gailete]

We have a large walk in pantry plus a large freezer. Things are getting somewhat low now because this is most of what we used during the winter. Living with a disability and in an area with heavy snowfalls, etc. The only common sense thing to do is stock up as much as possiblebefore winter. If an opportunity to go shopping presents itself, I'll restock items, but we live out of what is in the pantry or what my son picks up on his grocery trips at times.

Most of those use by dates can be very much extended except for fresh items which you shouldn't stock up on anyhow unless you can eat them quick. Although, when I found green and red peppers on a great sale, I stocked up and went home and chopped them up and threw them in a freezer bag and then into the freezer and have been using them all winter. Same with onions when you don't need a whole one, chop it up and freeze it until you need them. No blanching or anything needed.

[mom-from-missouri]

We could go for 4-6 months. easy. But, I would add fresh milk (bought), although I do use powered for cooking, and I would add eggs (but we have our own chickens for those)

[LuxLiving]

Yes we could.

We date mark our cans, boxes, bottles w/a permanent marker on the item - no tape. I also usually list the price paid.

Looks like this:

4/08 .33

Newest purchases go to the back or bottom while pushing on-hand stuff to the front or top.

Food Storage Lesson #1 - Buy Only What Your Family Will Eat.
Food Storage Lesson #2 - Rotation, Rotation, Rotation.
Food Storage Lesson #3 - Keep Restocking.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I'm not sure if we could eat for a month on what we have on hand. We don't have a large freezer. We don't eat much in the way of canned goods or boxed goods. We have a lot of tea, tomato paste, beans, lentils, rice, flour, carrots, and spices. Oh, yeah, and right now we still have maybe thirty pounds of sweet potatoes from last year's garden. Perhaps we do have enough to live on for a month, but it would be repetitive.

[disneysteve]

A month might be pushing it. At the very least, we'd get pretty bored. There is some stuff buried in the basement freezer that might not even still be good due to freezer burn.

Much of our diet involves fresh veggies, so we'd still have to buy that stuff as well as milk and bread. We could live without eggs. A dozen lasts us weeks as it is.

I really should make an effort to use up what is in the house and cut back on some buying until I do.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yes, but I would not like it.

[Aleta]

A month would be pushing it, but it certainly would make us all more creative in what we're cooking.

As soon as I buy a product (can or package), I take a sharpie and write the date that I buy it on the front of the can. That has been so much help in rotating food items.

When I clean out my pantry, I also put items to expire in the front of other items. I usually find some surprises back there.

As one other poster said, by eating a lot of different kinds of beans, pastas, and rice dishes; you could use alot of your food products up. I also cook a couple of batches of food and freeze it. I also will make a roast and use it in 3 - 5 different variations including a soup.

[LuxLiving]

LivingAlmostLarge, if you wouldn't enjoy it, then could you try putting a few extra items into your cart on the next few shopping trips that would make it more enjoyable? Say, maybe a few packages of pudding mix, or jello, or canned fruit, or some chocolate bars or whatever ya'll consider a treat that is storable - something that would bring a bit of pleasure to your family if you were forced to eat out of the cupboards?

A few other suggestions for a family with children might be maybe some fruit juice concentrate, chocolate syrup for milk, koolaid, some hard candies, even the storage canister type of chips, etc.

That is what people who promote food storage suggest. Making what you have in your cupboards be something that you ENJOY eating.

Nope, those aren't all that healthy, but in a crunch time you want your family to be comfortable and not climbing the walls because they normally have a candybar a day and there's nothing remotely like that available!

[marla]

Thank you for all the replies. I think I need to get a better system of rotation. Things get bought and get pushed to the back never to be seen again until they are no longer in date. How do you keep the rotation going so that things don't disappear into the unknown dark reaches?

[Aleta]

marla: For instance, if I buy canned beans, I date them on the front and put them in the back and bring the older ones to the front. Dating the cans is the only way that I know that this can work.

[Gailete]

Part of rotating food in a pantry is to do exactly like the grocery stores when they stock their shelves. They pull the oldest stock out front and put the newest stuff behind. Also for a family pantry, you have to buy the things your family will and does eat so it becomes automatic to be using your stock. There is no point stocking 10# of dried beans if no one in your family eats them.

You also have to have a viable reason for you and your family for why you are keeping a pantry stocked. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm disabled and live in an area with heavy snowfalls. I stock up my pantry especially well in the late fall so we don't run out of things during the middle of a blizzard while I'm also having a flare-up. I also use my pantry to take advantage of sales on items we use. I also use my pantry to keep ingredients on hand to make meals out of the canned and packaged goods (easy meals when I'm not feeling well). We keep dry milk powder and canned evaporated milk so that we have alternatives to fresh milk when cooking. Also things like spices that we use frequently we always try to have a spare bottle. When we open the last package of say cocoa powder, I make sure it goes on the list to buy more. A while ago there was a great sale on walnuts which I use a lot in baking. I think I have 5-6# in the freezer and know they will be good for the next couple years unless I use them too quick and run out.

Some things I try to keep at least a 6 month supply on hand such as toilet paper (I have a phobia about running out). You know you are going to use it so if you get a chance, stock up. I also stock up on detergent, soap, toothpaste/brushes, etc.

Part of my 'pantry' also involves baking when I'm feeling up to it and freezing baked goods in small batches to pull from the freezer as needed when we want a treat or muffin and I'm not feeling up to making them. Quicker and cheaper than running into town for a donut and the other 10 things that find their way into your grocery cart during a quick trip. I also try to keep chocolate treats on hand and feel I have more control about eating them now that I 'allow' myself to have them in the house as opposed to feeling like I was sneaking them.

To help get a grasp of what kinds of things I wanted to stock up on, I found the pantry/shopping guide in the book Dining on a Dime Cookbookby Tawra Keelam invaluable. It reminded me of all those odds and ends that I used to forget to buy. I also keep an ongoing list in the kitchen and write down what I need when it is getting low or I used the last one. Much easier than facing grocery day without a list and your head goes empty.

Most of all try to be organized. Keep all like things together instead of 2 cans of tomato soup in one cupboard, 1 in another and another one still rattling around in the trunk of your car because it fell out of the bag and you forgot it. Rethink your places for where you store stuff. If you have a black hole in your kitchen, think about something else that can be stored there like old tax files and find a new place for food so you will see it and use it. At one house I lived in the pantry was in the garage so I would basically go shopping in the garage and bring stuff into the kitchen as needed. Most of all try to develope a system that works for you.