Being in Florida, where parasite, insects, lizards,humidity, and over regulation were invented, I often find that I had to throw out food due to infestation. Roaches in the pancake mix, ants in the sugar, ect. The cure was setting right there! In the form of 2 liter beverage bottles, delabeled and washed. However, things like rice, crushed corn flakes (for breading), ect resisted my kitchen funnel so what I needed was a larger funnel, not finding this practicle, I went to plan "B". If you take two screw on caps, remove the center core of the tops, attach them with duct tape, super glue, whatever; with treaded ends being 180 degrees apart; you now have the laargest funnel available when you cut one bottle in half and screw them together. Cutting the cores I found was hard, but with a heated over a candle hobby knife this was easier.

Now with my brain still warm and glowing from accomplishment I though, what other use can be found for these bottles? The answer was to put freezable beverages in them, freeze them overnight (leaving room for expansion and don't try this with carbonated beverages)and then slap their little hinies into my good ole boy size cooler to hang from the tractor seat to use while mowing the neighbors 480. Carry one unfrozen because they don't allways melt at the same rate that thirst occures.

Now when I go grocery shopping, it takes just a minute to take a visual inventory of all the dry goods stored in plastic.

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), May 31, 2001

Answers

The folks always used the 2 liter bottles for popcorn. Said it was easier to dispense too! People are gonna frown on what I use but here goes... I use the buckets that cat litter come in for larger amounts of stuff. I use a kitchen trash bag (also not food safe I know. I work in Food Service at a major university) inside them (clean the buckets well). I store corn, beans, and wheat. Also sugar and flour. The big white buckets (like from Sam's) hold these items well and stack nicely. I figure it's clay with deoderizer in it.

-- Gailann Schrader (gtschrader@aol.com), May 31, 2001.

I buy the laundry detergent (powdered) in 4 to 5 gallon sized buckets. When they get empty I clean thme out and use them for rolled oats, corn meal, flour, potatoes. The covers snap on tight to keep out the bugs. Great idea about the soda bottles, but up here we get 6 cents for em so I never do have any extras. We do use the small one for drinks at work and little league games though.

Have a great day!

-- michelle (tsjheath@nci2.net), May 31, 2001.

I put lots of things in cat litter buckets, and sams got cat food in good size buckets, I go one step further, I freeze flour and corn meal bisquit, rice, wheat,etc. as the eggs are aready in a lot of stuff. 2 weeks is good, and then store. doesn"t change the product. Irene

-- Irene Orsborn (tkorsborn@cs.com), May 31, 2001.

I do the same kind of storage with the glass gallon wine bottles. The mice can't chew through them like they can the plastic bottles.

-- debra in ks (solid-dkn@msn.com), May 31, 2001.

Thanks Mitch for a great idea. I am always looking for new ideas on food storage. I have a collection of 1 gallon glass jars with lids. I use these for everything, but sometimes things dwindle down to smaller amounts and this will work great.

-- Ria in Ky (MinMin45@aol.com), June 01, 2001.

A.T. Hagan, the fella who wrote the Food Storage FAQ, really got me to thinking about how I was storing food. I've used 2 liter plastic bottles for years and they worked fine so long as there weren't any rats. I've gone over to the one gallon glass jars that you can often get for free from delis and the like. Must has fifty or sixty of them full of this and that now. The really bulky stuff is in five gallon buckets. Highly perishable foods that I don't want to have exposed for a long time I keep in quart canning jars so that a container doesn't sit opened for months before I use it all up.

That FAQ I mentioned can be found at his website: Food Storage FAQ

={(Oak)-

-- LiveOak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), June 01, 2001.

I use silica gel in brown paper packets, which I make to size, in all my 5 gal. buckets, trace the inside diameter at the bottom, cut two circles of heavy brown paper and glue them into a 'pillow' fill with the silica gel, the kind used for drying flowers from a hobby store, and then glue it shut. They can be 'recharged' in the oven on low, all of my grains keep until used up.

-- Thumper (slrldr@aol.com), June 01, 2001.