When to use your food stash

How are you preparing
Lemne
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When to use your food stash

Post by Lemne »

When or how do you use your food supplies when you have stocked up for shortages.

I've built up my food supplies considerably since the first lockdown. I've always kept extras in but am now stocked for at least three months plus. Everything at the mo has good dates on and I intend to cycle through it later when the dates are coming up if I can still buy things in the shops. I was going to use it to buy things when they were on offer and then use my supplies when they weren't but I've become a bit obsessed with not touching it in case we run out and can't get anymore.
grenfell
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by grenfell »

Simply answer is continually and then replace what we've eaten. That way stuff stays predominately fresh ( if that's the right word for tinned and dried) and stock levels remain more or less the same.
jansman
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by jansman »

We use our stash.Keep it rotating,as if it is wasted it is a waste of food and good money.The adage,Store what eat,eat what you store,rings true.

During Lockdown#1, we USED our stash. Replaced as we could. It was there for that very purpose,after all. When I was made redundant ( the first time!)8 years ago,The Stash came in very handy.Saved our skin.

It's why we prep.
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pseudonym
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by pseudonym »

jansman wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 8:25 pm We use our stash.Keep it rotating,as if it is wasted it is a waste of food and good money.The adage,Store what eat,eat what you store,rings true.
This.
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piglet
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by piglet »

The method I use is only to store larger amounts of the most regularly consumed items and just one or two of the less frequent.

I have a reasonably large food store, but rarely do I get close to a use by date. And on the odd occasion that does happen I have no qualms about eating tinned or dried food well past dates.
ain't settlin'
jennyjj01
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by jennyjj01 »

Lemne wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 6:42 pm When or how do you use your food supplies when you have stocked up for shortages.
As others say, use your stash constantly. First in-first out. (No need to obsess about it)
I treat my stash as my go-to local supermarket, and then treat the Asda delivery and other buy-ins as wholesale top-ups to the store.
Write expiry dates big and clear on cans and packs with a marker pen to simplify rotation. Worst case, the shelves in my 'store' get a bit depleted and then I make extra effort on those items next time I order in.
Accept that some non-staple items, like maybe spam and powdered milk, might not fit into that rotation.... But with a bit of adaptation, they can.
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ForgeCorvus
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by ForgeCorvus »

Others have basically said it all.

Shop normally and put the food in the stash.
Pick the items you're going to use from the stash, but make sure they're the shortest dated examples.
Use good deals, coupons and other offers or any spare/extra money to increase stock levels.


Stuff that isn't in regular use needs to be rotated through (for example in our house UHT milk, when it gets close to its date I take it to work rather then topping up my little bottle with normal stuff), but most things shouldn't really be any extra work to rotate.

If you buy bread mixes you really need to keep on top of their BBE dates, I recently found one two months over and it was the worst loaf I've even made :oops:
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DeadStick
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by DeadStick »

Reading this is timely reminder for me, I usually dont bother with organising by date as the size of my stash was small enough till recently that I didnt think anything would go out of date before it was consumed and replaced but lately its increased in size I guess I should go through it and sort by date.

Not looking forward to such a boring task but I hate to waste stuff
Arzosah
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by Arzosah »

DeadStick wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 1:45 pm Reading this is timely reminder for me, I usually dont bother with organising by date as the size of my stash was small enough till recently that I didnt think anything would go out of date before it was consumed and replaced but lately its increased in size I guess I should go through it and sort by date.

Not looking forward to such a boring task but I hate to waste stuff
I don't think it needs to be done with every shop: eg if something has dates towards the end of 2022, it doesn't matter if you use the stuff thats dated November before you use the stuff that's dated October. YMMV :)
GillyBee
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Re: When to use your food stash

Post by GillyBee »

As others have already said I use my stash as my in house supermarket. I also do a "stock take"about once a quarter and use this to spot anything going out of date and find a way to use it up. This can involve Googling for new recipes to try.
Some foods are challenges to rotate. We now have the onion, tomato & milk powder in regular use but I seem to have gone a bit mad on dry beans and we are not eating through these that quickly. Likewise the tinned fish and meat is not very popular for general meals and tends to only get used if we are camping.

PS.Does anyone have any ideas about what to use Spinach powder for apart from adding to curries?