Knowing how to store food properly is just as important as knowing how to cook it. Being able to store food helps free up lots of your time during the week as you can cook a meal on one day then eat it for several days after, this also leaves you with a lot less washing up to do too. If you want to take it a step further many people have mastered meal prepping and prepare or cook all their meals for a week on one day, The key to doing this is ensuring you have the correct storage tools and know-how to store your food. Storing your food correctly helps to preserve the nutritional value of your meals and ensures the food still tastes like quality food. Storing your food incorrectly can cause your food to spoil and this can even lead to foodborne diseases. On top of this, it makes your grocery shop more costly as you’re having to rebuy things that have spoiled. That’s why we’ve found all the most important tips and tricks to make sure your food is properly stored.
When storing your food in a fridge most people use Tupperware as they think this is the best form of storage to preserve your meals but really you should preserve your food with a vacuum sealer. Using a vacuum sealer instead of traditional storing methods vastly increases the amount of time food can be left in the fridge before being consumed. When using the standard storing methods food only lasts between 1 and 3 days before it’s no longer safe for consumption, with a vacuum seal food can be left in the fridge for up to 3 weeks, this is a significantly longer time and is extremely helpful if you like to prepare your meals in advance. Where you store your food in your fridge is a big factor in how to store your food properly and keeping it safe for consumption. The food you prepare needs to be kept in a separate part of your fridge from raw meat. This is because raw meat contains harmful bacteria, if raw meat mixes with your pre-prepared food you could get food poisoning. Meal prep and leftovers should be kept at the top of your fridge, dairy products should be kept in the middle, and raw meat should be kept on the bottom as this is the best place to prevent any cross-contamination, the drawers are where vegetables should be stored.
Similarly to the fridge, food that has been vacuum-sealed lasts much longer in the freezer than it does with the traditional storage methods. With other methods food lasts around 6 months or up to a year in the freezer, when vacuum sealed it can last on average 2-3 years which is amazing news for food prep lovers. The freezer poses different threats to food preservation than the fridge, one of the biggest problems with leaving food in the freezer is food dehydration, this is less likely to happen to the food that is stored in air-tight containers. Meat again can cause problems due to the bacteria, to make sure your meat stays safe to consume make sure you use freezer wrap on it before storing it in the freezer. It is also not advised to refreeze meat that has completely thawed, whilst it is safe it ruins the quality of your food as a lot of moisture is lost. The best temperature to have your freezer at is –18 degrees Celsius.