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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how to shop without bringing home so much packaging. One of the best ways to begin, is to manage your pantry. Pantry management is a great way to reduce packaging in the house and also to reduce food waste.
Here are some quick tips on how to effectively manage your pantry:
Slim down the ingredients. Identify your store cupboard staples and stick to those. This helps you purchase items in bulk such as rice, oats and nuts.
Invest in some clear, vacuum-seal containers (preferably glass) to store your ingredients and buy a labeller or, much better still, a washable pen to label the jar’s contents. Sharpie make water-based marker pens in a variety of colours that you can use and wipe away.
Assess what you have in your pantry on a weekly basis to avoid re-buying what you already have in stock.
Keep your pantry clean and tidy. This helps to avoid pantry moths and helps to keep you up-to-date with what you have in stock and what you need to use before it expires.
Meal plan. Be organised with meal planning and where possible cook in bulk and freeze. This allows you to make your meals go further and also avoids the need of too many supermarket visits. Ikea sells some wonderful glass baking trays with lids that you can put in the freezer. These can then be removed from the freezer and used to cook the contents at a later stage.
Stick to these easy steps and no longer will you have lots of half open packets of rice or food that has passed it’s sell by date lurking in the back of your cupboard. You’ll have a pantry that not only helps you in your aim to reduce waste in the house but it looks stylish too.
