Do you find those go quickly if they’re left in the pantry?
Does it last longer kept in the fridge?
my ex
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No, except for the whole wheat flour. But I have a lot of space in the freezer I bought during the pandemic. And there are two benefits to keeping flour in the freezer. One is that moths never hatch in the freezer, and sometimes do hatch from flour in the pantry. The other is that it helps maintain the thermal mass of the freezer. That is, I like to keep stuff in it, so if I put a warm thing in, it doesn’t warm up the freezer too much.
Also, I have all this space, so why not use it. It’s nice to keep a spare sack of everything around, and never run out.
Thanks, my freezer space is at more of a premium, was curious if I was losing out. We bag our flour bag in a giant Ziploc to deter insects.
Already-brewed coffee in my case (cold brew).
But to answer your question, I believe the answer is yes. Freezing it will result in it keeping even longer.
But I think you’re trading a rapid bump in degradation followed by extremely slow degradation in exchange for smoother but more rapid deterioration.
So if you’re going to use it up quickly it’s probably not worth it to freeze the beans. But if you just keep it on hand for the occasional guest then it’s best to keep it in the freezer.
Yeah, I keep flour and sugar in Rubbermaid containers to keep out the bugs.
I only put the whole wheat flour & brown rice in the fridge. White flour & white rice doesn’t need refrigeration.
But the brown rice / wheat flour contains a little oil, which can go rancid. White flour / white rice does not.
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always prepared for the end of the world! (or another pandemic)
I think the insects are already in there.
Last year we had some hard crackers that had been sitting around longer than they should, and when we opened them, there were bugs in it. We noticed that on the SECOND day we ate them, so that was nice.
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Eggs
Butter
Seltzer
Unsweetened iced tea
Lime juice
lemon juice
Pretty much always have different cheeses and veggies too, but varies.
I keep flour and rice in glass jars and metal tins to keep our the bugs. (Or to keep them in, and our of the rest of my stuff if that stuff came with viable insect eggs ) i guess i have a matching jar for sugar, but sugar doesn’t come with insect eggs.
Related, We had bugs twice last year. Once with the cracker incident, once with my homegrown spinach. I love fresh spinach. Boiled, add some butter and vinegar, and I go all popeye.
So my spouse brews me up a big bowl of spinach right out of my garden. I’m starting to dive in, and I see a white bug, like a maggot but smaller. Gross, but I must not have washed one off. Surprising, but OK. Then I start seeing more. There wasn’t one, there were many.
Turns out there’s a type of bug that sits inside spinach leaves and wanders around eating it from the inside (and beets too, they were eating my beet leaves). They don’t come out when you wash them because they’re inside the leaves. Boil them, and out they come. In my bowl. While I’m eating.
Less a fan of growing my own spinach now.
that’ll make me not eat spinach for the rest of my life
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What do the commercial growers do?
I know when you buy spinach it’s packed in some kind of gas. I always thought it was to slow down the deterioration process, but maybe it also kills the bugs???
I suspect pesticides, which as you can imagine, not something I use.
The only time I’ve used pesticides was on my apple tree to try and get a crop. But that’s not a problem because my spouse made me cut it down last fall because it was growing crooked, the trunk was on an angle. Nevermind that I planted it as an emotional thing because I grew up were the apple originated and am still good friends with someone who lived on the farm where the apple originated. Oh no, the base of the trunk is crooked, so SL get the chainsaw.
Anyway, probably pesticides.
Hmm, I guess there are organic pesticides for the organic spinach.
I don’t think that’s a thing. Maybe predator bugs.
I thought there were…. Googling…
Yep… Organic pesticides. I didn’t read the whole thing; this was just the first hit. My recollection is that it’s somewhat political on which pesticides one can use and still claim the “organic” label.
https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2019/07/are-organic-pesticides-safer-my-garden
Brie, pickles, sour cream, heavy cream.