Now that the winter clothes are stored and the garage is organized, it's time to spring clean the kitchen. If you're not careful, what's behind your cabinets and inside your fridge can undermine your healthy eating efforts. Our nutrition expert, Leslie Beck, is here to help us de-clutter our pantry and tell us what to keep and what to toss out.
The Fridge
Spring cleaning begins by emptying the whole fridge. Wipe out the entire fridge with hot soapy water. As you return items, throw out any condiments or foods that you don't intend to finish or foods that you have not used in the past 3 to 6 months. Check the expiry dates for salad dressings, sauces, mayonnaise and margarine and pitch anything that's past its prime.
Tips:
- "Best before" date indicates how long the unopened product will retain its freshness and high quality – it's a quality indicator, not a safety indicator. Once vacuum-packed packages are opened, the ‘best before' date no longer applies. The product's storage life is now the same as if it were a fresh product.
- "Packaged on" date tells you the day the fresh food was packaged in the store. Use this date as the starting point for how long you can expect the food to stay safe to eat.
- "Expiration Date" – it is safer to discard products after their expiration date.
- "Use By" date is more of an expiration date. This should be treated as a slightly less formal expiration date; it's also the last date that manufacturer is going to vouch for a product's quality.
If you have more than one jar open of the same thing, resist the temptation to combine the ends bits in one jar since the expiry dates will be different depending on when you bought the jars and how long they have been open.
Here are some general guidelines for how long to keep open condiments:
- Ketchup: 6 months
- Mayonnaise: 6 to 8 weeks
- Mustard: 12 months
- Salad dressing: 3 months
- Salsa: 3 months
- Barbecue sauce: 4 months
- Jams, jellies: 12 months
- Leftovers: 2 to 4 days
- Deli meats: 3 to 4 days
- Milk, Yogurt: 3 days
Remember, you're not saving any money on Costco sized bottles if you don't use them quickly.
- Check the temperature of your fridge. In order to keep your foods safe when they are being stored, make sure your fridge is set at 4„aC (40„aF) or colder and the freezer at -18„aC (0„aF). And don't crowd contents – air circulation is key for keeping foods cold.
The Freezer
Items with heavy freezer burn are ready for the trash. Frozen leftover that are more than 3 months old also have to be pitched. Make sure everything that goes into your freezer is labeled with a date as to when it was purchased.
When it comes to quality, here are some general guidelines for how long to keep frozen foods (frozen foods remain safe indefinitely):
- Ice cream: 2 to 4 months
- Meat, uncooked: 8 to 12 months
- Chicken pieces, uncooked: 6 months
- Salmon, fresh: 2 months
- Bacon: 1 month
- Casseroles: 3 months
- Frozen dinners: 3 to 4 months
The kitchen cupboards
Sort through your non-perishable food items. Although canned goods have a long shelf life, keep in mind that canned and packaged foods can lose 5-20% of their nutritional content every year.
Tips:
- Label your canned goods with the date they were purchased.
- Rotate your stock. Move older cans to the front so they are used first' keep newer ones in the back. And the safest place of any can that is leaking, bulging or cracked is in the garbage.
- Store canned foods in a cool, dry, dark place and use within 1 year of purchasing.
When it comes to quality, here are some general guidelines for how long to keep non perishable foods:
- Peanut butter: 9 months
- Dried pasta: 2 years.
- White rice: 2 years
- Brown rice: 6 to 12 months
- Breakfast cereal: 6 to 12 months (check expiry date on the box)
- Breakfast cereal (opened): 3 months
- Flour, white: 6 to 12 months
- Flour, whole-wheat: 1 month (6 to 8 months in fridge)
- Brown sugar: 4 months
- White sugar: 2 years
- Vegetable oil (opened): 2 to 4 months (olive and canola oil last longer than corn and safflower oils)
- Dried herbs: 1 to 3 years
- Spices: 2 to 4 years
The potency of dried herbs and spices does diminish over time. Signs of freshness include colour, smell, and taste. If you're not sure how long it's been in the cupboard, check to see if the colour has faded and lightly crush spices or herbs in your hand, they should release an aroma.
