Buying Pasta & Rice in Bulk?

[digitS']

This isn't more than half of it . . .

There is more pasta on the top shelf of the kitchen food cabinet and more rice behind the kitchen door.

Back from a visit to the bulk food section with more pasta. Variety, you know . . . There is Costco or Cash & Carry where we can go for things but a supermarket chain here, Winco, also has bins with lots to choose from.

All in all, these kinds of purchases really keep our food costs low and, because of what we do with them, contribute to a diet fairly high in fresh vegetables.

Steve
a meat & potatoes guy, with options

Edited to change topic title . . . perhaps, food appeal doesn't include terms like "carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen ."

 

[journey11]

Steve, have you heard of oven canning? I learned about it last year and they say it will make your dry goods last 20 years or so. You can use recycled jars and lids for it too. It causes the jars to vacuum seal and helps keep dry goods from going stale or getting buggies in them. Prior to that I had been buying my flour, pasta and rice in bulk and putting it in the freezer when I had extra space.

ETA: Not that we'd take 20 years to eat it though!

 

[thistlebloom]

I buy stuff in bulk too. Mostly my favorite basmati brown rice, and dried beans, Also flour and some grains. It's good to have staples like these for when we have to make the groceries on hand last while waiting to get paid for a job.

I used to buy in bulk from those bins....until while shopping one day, someones unattended child was playing in one, the open lid propped up by her head, her nose needed the application of a tissue, and her grubby little hands happily stirring the contents.....it umm, gave me pause....

The image was burned into my brain, and now I buy in bags, blissfully ignorant of who or what has been touching my food.

 

[journey11]

LOL, certainly a case of what you don't know won't hurt you...

 

[digitS']

I remember being in a restaurant one time. Or, someone told me later, I disremember . . . and, a lady looked at a plate served to her and said, "It sure looks like that had a lot of hands on it." One thing I learned by running a combine in wheat fields is that Americans sure do eat a lot of grasshoppers in their bread!! Sorry, I hope that's all right - I'm really certain there is more wheat than grasshopper in that sandwich you are holding right now.

Journey, I was kind of hoping that someone would bring up the "bug issue" - see, I was prepared with my grasshopper anecdote . More to your point, however: I am going to knock on every piece of wood in reach and then go outside and bang on a 2 by 4. I cannot remember a single problem with weevils or whatnot in the kitchen in the last 20 years!

It may have to do with the environment, altho' meal worms will show up near the chicken feeder where the chickens can't get at them until I'm in there stirring things up. I've had weevils in my saved pea seed . . . I guess it could be that we just keep the pasta & rice moving quickly enough to the stove. There isn't a day goes by, I suspect, that we don't have one or both. Believe it or not, we still have bread on the counter. I have to pay close attention not to allow it to mold, however.

We aren't survivalists. I think it is mostly that we are all about cutting up veggies and getting them into our meals. Frozen dinners and those sorts of thing are almost unknowns.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

I've heard statistics about the allowed bug content in prepared foods, it's pretty high, but I don't remember the details.
For some reason that doesn't phase me, snotty noses and grimy hands do tend to dampen my appetite though ( hey! an new way to lose weight...!).

I stay away from open bags of chips and finger served type foods at potlucks too. I'm not an especially fastidious person, I share apples with horses and goats, and used to drink from the horse troughs on hot days.

That reminds me of a story..., we were having dinner at a friends house one evening, and she and I were chatting in the kitchen while she cooked. As she tossed some vegetables into the pot on the stove one dropped on the floor. Without missing a beat she picked it up and tossed it in to the pot, then suddenly stiffened and looked at me wide eyed and stricken. "Ack!!! What did I do??"
We had a good laugh about that. It was our little secret.

 

[897tgigvib]

Do all those bugs in the food count in the nutrition labels, or is there actually 3 times the protein that the label says?

 

[digitS']

Well now, since those bugs - & there must be some in my pasta, too - are living off wheat: they ARE the wheat protein.

Rice, I used to buy in 25# bags. With years of successful storage (knock, knock), I have bought 50# bags the last few years. And, that isn't all of the rice. It is nice to have some variety. Notice the little 10# of Niko Niko.

I've even got some Uncle Ben's !

(Oh Gosh, Thistle', I'm sending you a thunderstorm and probably snow where you are! I think I've just hammered my last nail into a 2 by 4 for the day.)

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

A thunderstorm? We had snow for a few hours this a.m., then a bit of rain, then it looked like it might clear a bit, and now it's misting.
Glad you got down off that roof with your hammer! No point in attracting attention!

 

[897tgigvib]

Oh! I see a patch of blue sky up among the clouds, about 5 feet by maybe 6 feet!!! Should I send that patch of blue sky north to you all?