MOMPROVEMENT

Cleaning Out Your Cabinets

Posted by admin on January 15, 2009

It’s confession time, ladies.  How many will admit that they have outdated food in their pantry or cabinets?  Cleaning out your medicine cabinet of expired medicines is also a good idea.  You probably realize that removing old food and medicines when cleaning out cabinets can get you extra space.  So what’s stopping you from doing it?

Cleaning out your cabinets on a regular basis will do more than provide you with much needed space in your cabinet. Depending upon how old food stuff and medicines are, getting rid of them could also keep you and your family healthier.

Recently reports have circulated around the internet about a young man that died because he ate pancake mix that was expired. Old food can grow mold spores that are hazardous to your health, especially if you have certain allergies. Since you want your family to stay healthy, cleaning expired foods from your cabinets can go a long way to keeping them that way.

How do cabinets get cluttered in the first place? Many grocery stores have “buy one, get one free” sales that are too good to pass up. The next time you go to the grocery store they have more of the same items on sale and so you buy more. The newer items are placed in front of the older items. Later, after you’ve used the newer ones, you reach back for the other box. Unfortunately, because you didn’t use the older box first, you could be opening a box that has expired.

Be sure to go through your cabinets often to remove old, opened boxes of cereal, crackers, or baking mixes. Besides opening up space in your cabinets, it could also save the life of someone you love.

Take everything out of your cabinets when you clean them, going through each item to ensure it is still good. Throw out anything that is old, expired, or opened that hasn’t been used in a while. Organize the food in your cabinets by moving the items with the nearest expiration date to the front and use those items first.

Go through the cabinet to see what’s still inside that’s good and make a list of the items you need to replace. When you come home and begin to put groceries away, be sure to put the new items behind the older ones. This way you’ll use up the older food before it has a chance to expire.

It is important to clean out your medicine cabinet as well, since expired medicines lose their effectiveness. Some medicines could also become more concentrated the longer they are past their expiration date and could cause serious problems for someone taking them.

Cleaning out your cabinets – food and medicine – is a great way to dispose of things that have expired. Not only can you make more room in your cabinets, you may also keep yourself or someone you love from getting sick.