Food Storage Friday #4 – Storage Products

I can remember as a young boy playing hide and seek in my grandma’s basement and finding, what I thought at the time, was the perfect hiding spot. It was a small unfinished room that had the water heater on one side and built in shelves with my grandma’s food storage on the other side. I remember looking up in amazement at the rows and rows of canned jars that seemed to hold every type of food imaginable. For my grandma, food storage meant canning her harvest from her small garden every year in ½ gallon jars.

My oh my how storing food has changed. While many of us still enjoy canning many fruits, vegetables, jams and jellies in mason jars, the ability to increase our food storage needs has grown because of the advances in the products we use to store that food. Today we’ll highlight just a few of those products and how they can greatly increase your food storage capabilities, as well as the conveniences they bring to your everyday cooking.

Let’s start with our favorite storing product here at Honeyville, the #10 can. You can find almost every product we sell in these safe, sturdy, storable containers. And just look at the benefits! They add that stack-ability for storage that we’ve grown to love since our jarring days, and gives us a much longer shelf life when sealed (10-15 years with most freeze driedfruit and vegetables) than we could ever imagine. And the best part? Honeyville does all the work for you! No more worrying about buying the products, the cans, and the tools to seal them. Just stop by one of our retail stores or shop.honeyville.com and pick up the food items you want already sealed and ready for your food storage needs. Simple is always good, especially with food storage.

If any of you store any dry products in buckets, you’ve come to dread the difficulties of sealing and opening the bucket lid properly. I can remember watching my mom struggle with the plastic can opener wrench to get the lid off, then try to muscle the lid back on after she was done. And all for a few cups of flour? The thought of using buckets seemed far too much work for me, but then I found Gamma Lids. These incredibly simple lids have an outer ring that snaps onto the bucket, creating a seal, while the top simply screws off and on. You get all the benefits of a long term storage bucket with all the conveniences of a jar. Because they are so simple to use, there is no need to tuck those big buckets out of the way in the basement. In my house, we have our 6 gallonHoneyville bucket (which holds an impressive 30 lbs of HoneyvilleAll Purpose Flour) slid under the bottom shelf of our kitchen pantry. Anytime we need some flour, we just screw off the top, take a few scoops, then screw it back on, keeping our flour sealed and fresh. Even our little girl thinks the bucket is the perfect stepping stool anytime she wants to help Momma bake some cookies!

Anyone who has ever sealed a bag or canned some vegetables will tell you one thing: Oxygen is a food storage killer. It doesn’t have to be anymore thanks to Oxygen Absorbers. You’ve seen Callie, Tenille, and Chef Tess all use oxygen absorbers in their various recipes and food storage needs, and why wouldn’t they? One of these packs can help absorb oxygen for up to one gallon of storable space! These are essential for anyone who is using cans or mylar bags to store different types of food products. Check out this great tutorial Tenille posted all about Oxygen Absorbers.

Not a fan of canned, jarred, or bucket storage? Have you checked into Mylar Bags? These amazing bags are great to store some of your favorite food products or even help to keep whole meals stored and ready to go, such as the recipes Chef Tess has shown us in her Mylar Bag Meal post. These bags come in a variety of shapes and sizes and work off of a vacuum seal, along with help from Oxygen Absorbers, to keep your food fresh and storable for years to come. Whats even better is that you can pick up these bags at any of our retaillocations.

These are just a few of the fun and amazing products that are out there to help with all of our food storage needs. What are some products that you use in your own food storage?