Food cupboards a mess pic included.

[Getitdone247]

How do I organise my food cupboards they are in a real mess. I have included pictures because visual helps me explain better.

I can't reach the top shelves. And I can't reach the cupboard with the spices in. Well I can reach the front of it if I over stretch. So it's not great. As its in the corner above work top.

I feel like im not seeing food that can be used. I opend the cupboard and go blind

Is it worth me add some type of storage or something. For the crossants etc . I need them to be in sight thought . When I use a bread bin we forget anything in it and it gos moldy.

I have never bought containers containers/jars gor all my adult life abd have never been infested.

Get a step for all your spices and gather them all together. Ours was about a fiver in the Range.

I can hardly bring myself to type this as just the thought of it makes me shiver in discomfort but when we have odds and ends of different shapes left, my DD cooks them all together and eats them in one bowl with sauce.

We also have really big containers so there's never an overflow of half empty bags (and big family so high turnover of food).

I might actually start my own thread on how wrong it is to eat different pasta shapes together. I'd disown DD if she wasn't so useful.

One she had normal straight spaghetti and the fancy mafalda (sp?the linguine with frills type spaghetti) together in the same bowl.

Store like thing together - if you have two opened packets of rice, pop them into one storage container, labelling it with the earlier use by date - that sort of thing

Step stool - I have mine folded and hooked up on a wall when not in use

Store the less used and brand new, unopened stuff on the top shelves

Store the most used, opened stuff within your reach

Go through everything and get rid of anything that's past its use by date and anything that's been opened past recommended times (use within three days/seven days/three months of opening)

Maybe you are on top of food rotation? Easier to do with tidy cupboards.

Years ago, i found little flour mites right through flour that had been sitting months in a cupboard. Flour had spilled out of the bag and the mites were all over the cupboard. Got my flour in tins (this was 20 yrs ago, never happened since)

Years later, something got into some dried pasta (i think what happens is you buy a bad batch and it's fine if you use it up right away but if it's sitting at the back of a cupboard for months, the weevils will multiply) So that was my pasta in jars.

Then, only 2 years ago, heard mice in the loft. Checked food cupboards and find they had been at the breakfast cereal boxes!!

So that's all that now boxed. Steel wool in all holes. New cats in the house (we did have a man in to sort the loft)

Hopefully that is us pest free.

If you are on top of tidying, cleaning and food rotation, it is less likely to happen. But in a messy cupboard, open things can spill and a problem can fester unchecked!

Oh yeah. I'm a big family so the stuff gets used quite fast. I don't have things for months. apart from tins