Fan Of Bulk Food Purchases? Frugal Pantry Cookers

Fan of bulk food purchases?

notyourmomma 16 years ago

What do you do with enormous packages of food? Do you use a food saver system? I freeze good buys in meat in smaller more manageable packages, but I haven't managed the dry goods without having bugs get in some or humidity ruin other goods. Have you spent the money on a food saver?

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linebb956 16 years ago said:

I have a food saver... I love it. There is just the 2 of us, but I buy bulk at Sams Club. The pasta, long goods, I suck it up! Keeps forever. If your going to do flours I put in a ziplock then in a foodsaver bag.. the flour can go through the machine. I do rice, noodles, pasta, seasonings... EVERYTHING. I do the meats the same way... and sauces, if you put in a zip lock first, push out the air ,,, then foodsaver. Saves tons of $.
The only draw back is, time... it does take time to do all this. I have to have the rest of the day to do it. But if I plan it right, I usually have someone around to help!

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kilby 16 years ago said:

I too have a food saver. As for Flour and Rice, I have a 5 gallon tupperware container I won YEARS ago, when I was in that world. They have kept my rice and flour bug free for more than 9 years now. As for pasta, I have found when I look at the unit price, the smaller packages are sometimes less than the larger bulk packages, so I just buy the smaller packages and leave them wrapped. Now when we open a package, of course we pack into jars. With the meat, we do spend a large part of the day re-packing into foodsavers. Oh, yes, we bulk purchase pinto beans as well, I have found the gallon size pickle jars, work really great.

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pressurecooker 16 years ago said:

I find it interesting that Kilby uses gallon size pickle jars because that is exactly what my family uses as well. We probably go through one jar of pickles a month, though if I let the kids, they'd probably eat that many pickles in a week. I'm slowly building up my stock of jars to be able to hold enough food to last for several months. Unfortunately, you can no longer purchase gallon-sized canning jars unless you find them at an antique place, so pickle jars are the only substitute I've found that are of a large enough size to hold bulk items, yet still small enough to be handy.

If I have really large purchases (i.e., a 25 or 50 lb bag of something, I use 5 gallon buckets for at least part of it. I used to reuse my laundry soap buckets after scrubbing them out and letting them air in the sun long enough to remove the odor. I then lined the bucket with a plastic garbage bag before putting food in it. This works also for filling with individual packages of stuff like pasta or sugar.

Now I have been able to purchase some buckets that are made for food. Just don't go the route of buying restaurant/grocery store buckets that had frosting or some other deli-product in them. Most of them have thin, weak lids and lousy handles, so if you stack another bucket on them or they get a little banging, they will collapse or break or the handle will fall off, which makes them difficult to carry, to say the least about the loss of your food.

I have to use two packages of beans at one meal and probably two packages of pasta most of the time. There are usually some leftovers, but usually it is only enough for me to pack a lunch or two for my hubby and maybe a meal for the baby so he doesn't have to wait for us to cook something if our lunch is not baby-friendly.

I never thought foodsavers would be cost effective for me since our family is so large and the rolls of plastic are quite expensive--so my other packaging friend is ziplock type freezer bags, but I do use some Tupperware or the high-quality Rubbermaid food containers.

For freezing meat, we wrap it in plastic wrap, then put it (or several plastic-wrapped packs) into freezer bags and try to get out all the air. I just suck out the air with my mouth at the corner of the bag--YEAH, I know that sounds gross, but the meat is already packaged and no one is going to eat the bag I had my mouth on! ((I'll probably never live that disclosure down....HA! And nobody will want to eat at my house if they see that I've been sucking on all my food...{:-(}...)

I just bought one of those little handheld devices that is suppose to get air out of bags somewhat like the foodsaver machine does, but it is made by Glad, I think. I haven't tried it yet, but maybe I can report back when I have.

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pressurecooker 16 years ago said:

I meant to also say, with 5lb packs of flour or pasta or items like that, put a fairly airtight container in your freezer, like a medium sized Sterilite or Rubbermaid container or a 3-5 gallon bucket, and drop those items in it. Or you can put them individually into ziplock bags and freeze them. If you live in an area that is bothered with grain moths or mice, you have to have a package that they cannot chew through, and they can and will chew through lightweight plastic. Once when I got a batch of moths from some contaminated food at Aldi, I even had them chew through plastic freezer containers--tiny little holes. I had to go through my kitchen cupboards and throw nearly everything away. For a while I kept all grain products in the freezer until I was sure they were gone.

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invisiblechef 16 years ago said:

It keeps our salmon fresh until the next salmon season.

The first year I learned a lesson, as I didn't wrap it first in freezer paper and a lot of the fish got ice on it after a month or so. But since then I wrap them in freezer paper and then place in the food saver bags to vacuum seal them and when I open the package the fish is still as red as the day we brought it home. No ice, which is a GOOD thing.

The only thing I buy in bulk really is oatmeal and flour. Oh and toilet paper.

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themechams 16 years ago said:

I but some items in bulk, but only if they are really cost effective. I have fopund that sometimes I can find better deals just buy watching sales and saving coupons. I am careful to buy when the price is right. I keep a notebook of prices and jot down my buying prices. If the item i am looking for drops to that price I buy and I buy a lot. I am getting help from a friend in finding the most wonderfu coupon deals. She is the queen of coupons and has made a job of finding the savings for her family. I am the lucky recipient of her finds as well!

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wynnebaer 16 years ago said:

Just a quick note to Pressurecooker....I too suck the air out of my freezer bags but have found that using a straw at the end of the bag is very useful.....Love the pickle jar thing....would have never thought of that....Thanks

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linebb956 16 years ago said:

Go to a local restaurant and ask them to save a couple for you. We do that at our American Legion... I like the glass ones, I can spray paint the lids and they all match. I also got stencil spray... looks like frosted and put flour, sugar,,, etc on them... Cheap storage.

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linebb956 16 years ago said:

http://www.containerstore.com

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pressurecooker 16 years ago said:

Wynnebaer--thanks for the straw idea! I don't know why I never thought of that except that sometimes I'm too penny pinching to buy straws! (Yeah, I know they're cheap.) Actually, I "forget", or really never even think of items like that unless my spouse or kids are with me and point out that we need something that to me seems unnecessary. I guess I lived for so long with no frills and no niceties in life that I have a hard time thinking of them unless prompted.

And Linebb, the stenciling idea is a great one. Maybe color coded lids would work, too. Thanks for the link!

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plot_thickens 15 years ago said:

Herbs and spices are so expensive. I buy organic, unirradiated, etc seasonings at ameriherb dot com (no I don't work from them) and freeze them to get rid of any pests. Ameriherb may be clean, but UPS is not. Then they come out into tupperware, segregated according to smell so that the garlic powder doesn't make the cinnamon weird. Example of savings:
$5 for 8 sticks of cinnamon at supermarket
$6.50 for a pound of cinnamon at ameriherb

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rhondalynne 13 years ago said:

I buy in bulk, especially flour and oatmeal (50 lb. bags) and spices.
I do have a foodsaver, but we use it primarily to bag up our chicken pieces on slaughtering day, and to seal up things like coffee when we buy that in bulk.
I store the flour & oatmeal in bakery buckets, purchased for $1.50 each from a local grocery store's bakery (they get things like frostings, icings, fillings in these buckets). For daily use, I have 5 quart ice cream containers to hold sugar, flour, and oatmeal.
I buy honey in large 1/2 gallon jars and use those to hold my rice, dry beans, cornmeal & lentils. Keeps out the bugs.

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