How to Keep your Food Alive!

With everyone stocking up on groceries and trying to minimize the trips to the store, it is more important than ever to keep your food alive for as long as possible in your fridge.

Food waste is a major issue in North America, and a major contributor to carbon emissions, water consumption, and often pesticide use. But we all need to eat, so the best thing we can do is make sure we don’t waste the hard work of our farmers, and your hard-earned cash to pay it.

 Here are a few tips for storing your food to last:

Bees wax wraps are the best thing I have even invested in. I use Abeego beeswax wraps, but there are several brands out there.  (This is not an ad I just LOVE their product). Beeswax wraps let your food breathe like a normal peel would, so your food doesn’t dry out, and it doesn’t go mouldy like it would in plastic wrap.

You can use beeswax wraps to cover up half used fruits such as lemons or apples. They are also great for wrapping up fresh herbs so they don’t wilt, covering up a bowl, keeping cheese fresh, or making a pouch with it to carry snacks. So pretty much they can be used everywhere in the kitchen!

 A pack of Abeego wraps will cost you $18 and can be used for at least a year (I’ve had some of mine for 3!). Conventional cling wraps cost about $5 and lasts on average about 2 months ($30/year). Obvious saving of $12 on the minimum lifespan of a year for Abeego. But don’t forget the added savings you will have from the food you will save! (This could be hundreds!)

Make sure you keep your fruits and veggies in the crisper drawers in your fridge. Other veggies can be stored in jars with cold water such as carrots or celery will also keep them crisp.

Onions should be kept separately from your potatoes because onions emit a gas that will make your potatoes go back quickly. I also store my tomatoes in my counter because once you refrigerate your tomatoes, they will lose their plumpness.

Keep foods that need to be used up first at the front of the fridge so you are reminded to use them. Lost and forgotten items left at the back are destined to turn into science experiments.

Many foods can also be frozen if you don’t think you are going to use them up in time. Check out my post on how to store frozen food. I often make broth or soups with leftovers, divide it up into individual portion sizes and freeze those as well for a quick meal later on if I don’t have time to cook.

I keep all of my dry goods in glass jars, to minimize the risk of moths. You can also keep grains such as flours, oats or quinoa in the freezer to prevent them from going bad. I also like to use glass jars so that I can see what I have in my pantry!

Last but not least, bread. Bread is the one area I am a fan of storing on plastic. I keep a large freezer bag for storing bread in that I was and reuse over and over again. If I don’t think I’m going to eat the bread before it goes mouldy, I will slice it and freeze it for toast or dice it and make croutons with it.

Save your money, and your groceries. And if there is one thing you buy for your kitchen, let it be beeswax wraps!