Photos of Food Storage?

Does anyone share photos of their food storage. Or, is this a no-no? I am constatnly going to youtube to see what others are doing. It is a huge encouragement to know I am not alone and I get so many great ideas.

Would love to see what others are doing.

 

OPSEC paranoia forbids me, personally, from sharing too much information. Others, however, are far less paranoid...

 

Just continue to check you-tube and use the google image search. Lots of info/ideas there.
I'm sure if someone on the SM came up with a revolutionary way to store/rotate food they'd share.

 

Don't blame you for the paranoia! My husband thinks I'm obsessed, I check youtube so much! I'm afraid I've seem all the good stuff. I'll wait for more and work on getting my own up, too.

Thanks!

 

Heck, I don't mind showing mine:

 

Looks like steak and roast beef to me. Wish I had some about now.

 

Ok IndieMama.... I'll be brave because it's not like I'm sitting on more than a month's worth of pantry items.... I just started a pantry about 2 months ago so slim pickings if somebody gets into this house expecting to live off the fat 'o the land. I don't normally take photos like this but.... I actually did because I'm putting together a little workshop on food prep and storage and these photos are going to go into my "Stuff It Anywhere You Can" segment. I'm NOT an expert on this.... not even close but I do care very much about humans and have been trying to educate myself and will happily share what little I've learned so that others might be in a position to better their lot in life. The 1st photo is my pride and joy. It's my metal storage shelving that I picked up from the curb.... to my husband's horror. I had bungie cords in my trunk so I was able to get it home without it landing on the road for a car behind me to crash into. It was bulky and I did struggle getting it out on my own but.... I got it out and only banged the bumper to my car once.... you can hardly even notice the little dent in the bumper. The shelving unit was rusty and it did take me a while to clean it up but it was freeeee!!! And please don't anyone give me any grief about the Spam.... I did NOT know when I bought it that pork was a main ingredient. I understand there's a turkey Spam out there.... anyone want to trade.

 

These are my glass mason jars.... I started picking them up from garage sales and estate sales last summer.... half of them had old food in them with popped lids so when I saw them in houses sitting on shelves I'd offer x# of dollars for the batches of botulism and my offers were always accepted.... who wants to empty them out? I dug a trough in my largest composter and emptied the contents into it then covered it with fresh compost. This spring I'll take a power mortar mixer and go through that composter like it's cake batter to mix it all in. All I did after I emptied the jars was stand outside with the hose pre-washing them before running them through my dishwasher. I stack the loose mason jars on these shelves because I can "stuff" em and stack em better. Almost all of my storebought boxes of mason jars with lids and rings are stacked in a corner of the basement but there aren't too many of them left because I've been dehydrating my brains out. Soon I'll be taking from the area in the 1st photo which will leave me more space to "stuff" more dehydrated foods like you can see in the 2nd photo.

adding- check the rims of mason jars with your hands when buying them. If there are any rim chips or cracks... you don't want them. They will not hold up when high pressure canning or even canning using a hot water bath and it's unlikely they'd be able to keep out oxygen if used for dehydrated foods.

 

This is the L shaped island in my kitchen... please reserve comment. It's loaded like this pert near every day for the last coupla months since I started dehydrating and.... the days of the island having nothing but one bowl of fruit, a napkin holder, and a cookie jar are long gone.... Martha Stewart vacated the premises long ago... she fled for the hills not wanting to risk tripping in my kitchen and breaking her neck. Anywho... I'd been getting my 5-gallon buckets for free from WalMart until two days ago. WalMart cut me off.... those pooheads. Doesn't matter.... when one door closes another opens. The buckets in the photo are from a local Piggly Wiggly and they're free and they were happy to have somebody willing to come pick them up on a regular basis. Once I fill a bucket, I stack it somewhere down in the basement and it's my intent to keep all like items together. I also store all the empties down in the basement too after I clean them with warm soapy water then bleach them. Empties are stacked about 20 deep and the lids are stacked on top. I don't have many buckets filled yet but I'm working on it. Once a bucket is filled, I'll only stack them 3 deep to avoid placing too much pressure on the seals. The buckets in the photo have the whole wheat flour I ordered and some pearled barley and split peas mostly. You can sorta see on the counter where I've got mason jars filled with oxygen absorbers.... they're to the right of the dehydrated oranges and to the left of the bag of Quaker Oats. Be sure to get oxygen absorbers into an airtight container once you open the pack they come in because they begin activating within 15 minutes.

 

These are photos of bedroom furniture we pulled from a kid's bedroom. The kid flew the coop a while ago. We almost hauled the whole set over to Salvation Army.... almost. Thank God I didn't do that because the shelving units are sturdy and the dressers were stackable so into the basement they went for me to use for storage. Much to my husband's chagrin.... I hauled home an old microwave cart recently. I haven't cleaned it up yet and don't have anything to put in the base of the thing yet but I plan on loading the base with canned or jarred items and then I'm going to stack up the top with boxes of toilet paper.... the free curb find will go down into the bowels of my basement where everything else seems to end up these days.

 

I've been talking to folk who have been prepping for years who have a lot more than our measly month's supply. What I'm finding is that people are literally stashing it anywhere they can. I mean under beds.... in corners of their family rooms.... in boxes under coffee tables.... in boxes in front hall closets beneath jackets and coats and.... some people are converting rooms that they don't use much like dining rooms into pantries. I don't think it really matters much where we store anything as long as it's stored properly.... protected from Mr Mouse.... we know where it is and.... it's not screaming out to anyone who sees it that it's food. Who really comes into our homes anyway>>>? Personal friends and family is all so if it gets a little cluttered.... who cares. These are our homes.... they're meant to be lived in and that includes "stuff" strewn everywhere.

 

Thanks for the tour, Equilibrium. Currently, I have a full indoor pantry and a 10x10 temp controlled shed. No basements here and we don't have a garage either, unfortunately.

I have enough grains, beans, powdered milk, etc., for a very long time packed in mylar bag line buckets with gamma seal lids, oxygen absorbers and bay leaves. My shorter term food is what I am trying to keep in stock. I have a large family and it tends to get depleted over the winter when I don't get out to shop much.

Our plan is to re-organize our shed. And when we do that, I will post photos then, when it is not so embarrassingly disorganized.

We really should utilize the space under our bed, too. It's a tall one.

 

You might want to consider placing a peace of plywood or osb about 1/2" thick between buckets. That will keep them from punching through to the bottom buckets due to weight. Learned this one a long time ago. Then you can pile them up higher if you wish. Just cut or have them cut at the local lumber store about 12" square. This will give you about 32 pieces per 4 x 8 sheet.

 

IndieMama>

In my dreams would I have that much!!! You're doing great.... much better than me.

Eeesh...I feel like a total slob now.... my L shaped island is beyond embarrassingly disorganized..... my basement floors were scrubbed and clean.... hope that counts for something since there was flour all over my kitchen floor. Please do show your photos... after the photo I posted.... I don't think it matters if your shed is disorganized or not.
--
Nadja>

Thanks for catching that!!! Right now it's only the whole wheat flour that's been stacked because that's the only stored item I had enough of to stack but a month from now.... who knows what I'll have enough of to stack. I'll run downstairs and "un-stack" them. I would have been in tears if I discovered a year from now that even one of those buckets had punched through. We've got scrap plywood around here and I'll have my husband cut me four 12"x12" squares. That's really all I need right now since I have so little in our "pantry". We'll pick up a sheet of plywood for future stacking. Thank you thank you thank you for mentioning a "fix" when you saw my photos.

 

Don't worry about how your photos look. Currently, my living room floor has stacks of wheat bags and other sutff piled up from my food co-op order I received yesterday. Complete mess! Waiting to receive my mylar bags and oxy absorbers from a different vendor.

 

My family room has dogs sprawled out all over it with a few cats here and there.... I don't know which creates more of an obstacle course.... dogs/cats with legs everywhere or stacks of wheat bags and other "stuff". Which vendor are you trying may I ask? I've been buying 7mil from the LDS site and oxy absorbers from Honeyville but I'd love to get better pricing if it's possible and you seem like you're more "with it" than me and that you've been "at it" way longer than me.