Food Waste Friday--December 9, 2011

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money.

Here it goes for this week.

We did better than last week with no current waste and fewer times eating out. Hooray for us! 

Therefore, I decided to tackle the spice cabinet that has been annoying me for a while. I seem to get it all organized and then somehow the jars multiply to the point that when I'm reaching in for one another falls out. I don't cook with many spices, so I'm not sure how this happens unless I never get rid of any. I have a feeling that may be what is going on.

The whole cabinet was too overwhelming to tackle at once, so I started with eliminating spices that I knew were very old. Some of the containers didn't seem to have dates on them (a clue right there), so I did a bit of research. I had several tins of Astor spices and after a call to the company, I learned that they were a store brand for Winn Dixie. I haven't shopped in a Winn Dixie in over 20 years. A safe bet to eliminate all of them.

 

Next, I visited the McCormick site that discusses spice freshness. According to the McCormick chart for freshness, most spices have lost their effectiveness after 4 years or less. There I also learned that McCormick packaged spices in metal tins in the 70's and green lid bottles in the 60's and 90's. All of those dates make them pretty old so those containers are leaving too.

In addition, I found French's spices with a date of 1983--definitely past the 4 year limit. I think those may get incorporated into some holiday projects, but they are definitely leaving the cabinet.

The final clue that some of my spices are older than the hills is that I found them being sold on Ebay as vintage merchandise.

What would you do with all of these old spices?