If you are like most people, you probably have a stock of dry food in your pantry or kitchen cabinets. While dry food keeps fairly well– lasting on a shelf for months or even years– under the right conditions, it is still possible for dry goods to expire and go bad. If that happens, you risk poor quality food and foodborne illness. These dry food storage tips will help keep your stock fresh and nutritious for as long as possible.
Rotate Your Items
Dry storage areas typically store baking supplies, grains, dried beans, cereals, and canned goods. These types of foods keep for a long while so that makes it possible to purchase them even months before you need them. But if you stock dry food in your pantry, kitchen, or storage room, it is important to rotate your items regularly. When you restock on these items, place the new ones behind the older ones to ensure you will be using your existing stock. It is also helpful to write the expiration date on all containers so you can easily identify and throw out expired items. One of the best ways to avoid getting sick from spoiled food is by rotating your dry food.
Cooler is Better
Even if dry food lasts a long time in the right conditions, it also spoils quickly in the wrong conditions. This can happen if you keep your dry foods someplace where the temperature is not controlled or is too hot, even just part of the year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, dry food is ideally kept in temperatures between 50 degrees and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. If your storage area is colder or warmer than that, your dry goods are likely to go bad faster than they should.
Drier is Better
Along with cooler temperatures, it is also important to keep dry food dry. Climates with high humidity make this particularly challenging. Humidity damages even the packaging your dry food comes in. Cardboard and even some cans get damaged when there is a lot of moisture in the air. Mold and bacteria tend to grow on wet boxes.
In humid climates, it is advisable to store dry food in airtight glass containers instead of in bags and boxes. If that is not practical, you will need to use a dehumidifier or air conditioner to keep your dry foods safe during the humid parts of the year.
Keep it Centered
You must remember that temperatures and humidity levels can vary even inside the same room. This is important when deciding where your dry food storage will be. For instance, the temperature at the edges of a room will be different from areas near windows and doors and up high. Exterior surfaces are also more prone to condensation problems and can serve as an invitation to bugs or rodents.
Dry food is best kept if you put it someplace centrally located and up off the floor. Areas with direct sunlight are also not good for food storage, as well as anything against an exterior wall. If you are using a basement or cellar for storage, make sure you don’t store food along any unfinished exterior cement walls. This will ensure that your dry food is dry and clean, ready to use when you need them.
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