How to store Co-op bulk food-orders w/o a cellar

[wurzelkind]

x-posting in Nutrition as well as Decluttering, Organizing & Simplifying


Hi mamas~

how and where do you store your bulk food orders? I am in the verge of ordering lots of food, canned/dried/bagged but am stumped on where to store everything. Maybe one of you can help me?

We are living in a small flat with neither a pantry nor a cellar. The only thing that we use as a storage is the attic, accessible by a pull-out ladder. The attic is insulated but not insulated enough to live in IYKWIM? There are no animals like mouses or rats and enough room to build shelfs. Could we store the foods there? I plan on getting flours, beans and lentils, canned goods (tomatoes, apple sauce, agave sirup), breads (flatbread, toast), bulk teas and spices, cleaning supplies, etc. I personally think that the attic is too cold to store potatoes, onions and apples but that might be false - I dunno.

Is it worth ordering everything and store it up there or will the foods go bad?

TIA!
Valerie

[root*children]

Can you store things under a bed? Or in a closet? I don't know about attic storage. It's certainly fine for canned, boxes, etc. I just have no idea about the veggies & apples. You do need to freeze all your grains before you store them, remember

[velochic]

We used to live in Munich (Haar... dh worked in Garching). I think the two biggest problems you are going to have with the attic are heat and moisture. On those rare hot days, the temperature fluctuation isn't going to be good for especially the grains. Then there is the humidity, especially in the fall months when it's cold, but humid. That will cause the grains to get moldy unless you have them airtight with oxygen absorbers. The humidity is also going to be the culprit for making onions, etc. go bad. Dry, dry, dry is the key. I don't know if places like Obi sell oxygen absorbers, but you might try there for those and for airtight containers. I didn't ever stock up when we lived there because our flat was only 45m².

You might ask around the toytowngermany.com forums to see if anyone there has ideas.

[CarrieMF]

Do you have room to buy a pantry? they're about $80 here & would solve some of the issues. You are not going to want to deal with a ladder while moving foods up & down.

For perishables like fruits & veggies. Freeze what you can. Some can be stores in the fridge or under the sink.

If your attic IS cold then it's fine to store produce up there. We store ours in the Cold Storeage Room. It's in the basment. In the winter that room is as cold as the fridge. DH keeps his drinks in there. In the summer it's not that cold but it still does fine in there.

[Vanessa]

Temperature fluctuation is not good for food storage. I actually store a lot of our bulk food in the extra closet in my sons' room. I'd look around for storage space in your house.

[pitter_patter]

Could you possibly store things like clothes, shoes, vacuum, rarely used appliances, etc. in the attic and then put the food in the place where you stored those items previously? I think canned goods would be fine but I'm leery of storing veggies there.

[LEAW]

How about adding a shelf above your doors? Our back entry is in a little alcove, and we added a 2' deep shelf that goes fromone side of the alcove to the other, and I can fill it all the way to the ceiling w/o worries.

Shelves over windows and doors in any room, under the bed.

We happen to have a 2nd bathroom here, and don't need/use it, so we have put lots of things in the shower/tub for storage, and draw the curtain.

Can you put canned goods in a trunk and use that as a coffee/end table?

I have no advice on the veggies, dry is #1, cool is #2, you can always chop and freeze onions.