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

[ThriftoRama]

I'm not sure if I could do it. I have a very small cupboard not a big pantry, so not much room to store extras. Plus, I have a feeling we'd e eating lots of ramen by week 3! I have thought of installing a bigger pantry in the basement laundry room, just so I could take advantage of bulk purchases and such.

[DebbieL]

I probably could, but wouldn't want to. I'd get bored in a big hurry. I'm a real fan of fresh fruits and veggies. I buy canned, but I use those in a pinch, not for everyday.

[Aleta]

Speaking of finding space; I have a friend that has a spare bedroom that has a walk-in closet in it and she uses it for her pantry. She has all kinds of shelves in it. She said that she came up with that with the Y2K scare. I also know another lady that uses her linen closet as a pantry. She just stores the linens in the respective rooms.

[clubneary]

I might be able to but I am sure my kids wouldn't enjoy it! I don't have a fancy system of rotating and labeling my food and have probably eaten something past the expiration date that was in my panty. Do canned foods really go bad after the date printed on them?

[zooracer]

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.

Great info...thanks for the ideas
I always wondered what it would be like if there was no more toilet paper
Not a nice thought....

An old jamacian thing is to keep soap bars throughout the house. It acts as a pest deterrant. It really works! We keep them in the closets, kitchen cabinets, under the bed...we have hundreds of soap bars in the house.

No spiders, no roachs, etc...
Plus, we will have plenty of soap in times of trouble.

[Gailete]

An expiration date on a can is more like a suggestion that an absolute. It isn't like a time bomb that goes off the day after an expiration date and now your food is poisoned! For best quality, etc. it is good to use before that date, but not always essential. The thing to watch for is bulging cans, way too high pressure come out of the can when the can opener is applied. Don't even think of eating that stuff. One of the reasons that picking up dented cans isn't a good idea as they are more prone to developing problems as the can integrity has been compromised.

Most people don't have large pantries like I do, but that doesn't mean you can't have a pantry. Most of us are storing too much clutter. Decide if you want the clutter or more food storage or toilet paper storage. So many things come down to choices and that is one of them.

[marla]

I'm usually so exhausted after shopping that the things get thrown into the pantry in no particular order. I guess I'll have to summon more energy and actually keep things in order to make this work.

[Aleta]

The only way that I buy dented cans is when the store manager lets me know that the cans that are dented happened within a couple of days. One week isn't a problem. I usually will eat those items from dented cans in a hurry as to not have a problem.

[LuxLiving]

I'm a long time food storage person. Meaning I've been at it awhile. I don't pay a lot of attention to use by dates.

I've never had a problem w/dented cans. YMMV. Use at your own risk.

The one thing I do watch more carefully than others is with tomato products in cans. Tomatoes being acidic can cause problems and they will spurt on you when they've been let set too long. I'm not sure of the scientific explanation for that but I do buy the majority of my tomato/spaghetti type sauces in a jar for long term storage. For shorter time plans I'll buy the cans.

[pjmama]

I've been digging deep into the depths of my cupboards to try and find the things that I have not yet used, and using them. I'm trying to use up as much of my food as possible before I move out of state (dont want to have to move it all), so for the most part I've been living on what's in my pantry, so to speak, only buying a few things here and there.

[Pollyanna]

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of foods in my pantries/freezers; that helps a bit.

My big pantry is actually a closet - it has deep (3') shelves on one side, and shallow (12-18") shelves on the other side. The deep shelves hold mostly home canned foods and my bulk food jars - oatmeal, beans, pastas, flour, tinned milk (used in cooking), gallons of vinegar, etc... The shallow shelves are all purchased items; and they are arranged on the shelves by type of product - salmon and tuna are side by side, fruits have one shelf, condiments another, canned veggies on those two, toiletries and soaps, etc...

I rarely buy one of anything - it's more like 8 cans of salmon, 24 cans of tuna, 4 bottles vanilla extract, 5 cases tinned milk - I catch a good sale, I stock up. When I bring groceries home, only the perishable items get put away right away. The others get carried to the pantries, and are put on the shelves and added to the inventory sheets as I get time.

As far as living for a month on the pantry; yes, easily; especially now that the garden is starting to come in for fresh foods.