How important is proper food storage?

It can help you:

1. Preserve food quality, including nutrients, flavor and texture;
   
2. Make the most of your food dollar by preventing spoilage; and
   
3. Prevent food-borne illness caused by harmful bacteria.
   

To store food properly, you need to know not only how to store foods, but also how long
they will be safe and of high quality.

Remember that:

"stored foods are never fresher than when first put into storage".

When grocery shopping, choose perishable items last, go straight home and store them properly in the refrigerator or freezer.

A good policy to follow is:

"first in, first out"

meaning that you rotate items so that you use the older items first. Also, buy foods in reasonable amounts so that you can use them while they are still of good quality. Excess food may become waste.