Cluttered Kitchen Cupboards

Do you ever reach for something in the cupboard and end up finding something you haven’t seen and/or used in years? This isn’t an uncommon occurrence in our home.

If you have ever tried to grab something and then were unable to close the cupboard door, you might have a problem. Last year I tried to put a box of Red Rose Tea away for summer Sun Tea making and realized that something was blocking the path, and that something turned out to be a box of crunchy taco shells. Let’s just say the expiration date on the box was before we even moved into the house, and we moved here in 1997.

Now, this isn’t to say that I’m an expiration date Nazi; I happen to know that a majority of those are arbitrary numbers put on packages to make people feel better and prevent lawsuits. Flour tortillas for instance will keep for months in the refrigerator after the date on the package, and canned goods will usually keep for years. Food has a way of telling you when it is either unsafe to eat or past its prime: Milk smells sour; chicken puts off an abhorrent odor and discoloration; bread, fruits and vegetables will turn moldy. Heck, even crackers and cereal show their age by going stale, but at least they can be popped back into a moderate oven for a few minutes to rejuvenate and draw out the moisture to make them crunchy as new again.

So what are the signs you need to throw some stuff out? Well, the biggest head-smacker is if you haven’t eaten it in the last decade or so, but more than that, will you eat it in the next decade? Chances are you’ve been buying new stuff and using it, while keeping the older product in the back of the cupboard where it hasn’t seen the light of day (or the glow of a fluorescent light) in years and has probably gone feral like my Furby I had years ago and forgot about it under the futon in my craft room until I lifted the mattress and a grumbling noise came from its mouth, “Nah-ta comma, yooooooooo.” If anyone tells you those things don’t have a mind of their own, they’re lying! I removed the batteries from it’s behind and gave it to my partner’s sister just to get the evil little creature out of the house. Anyway, back to food. If the can has rust on the bottom, throw it away. If there are unidentified floating objects in your coffee flavoring product you haven’t used since you stopped flavoring your coffee six years ago (which, by the way, was more for coffee drinks made with espresso, not the regular brew, which I drink black), throw it away. If the packaging looks retro, keep the package and try to sell it, but throw out the product if it has a funky odor to it.

There are exceptions to this, as with anything. Spices for instance, while experts say to replace every six months, I’ve found that some keep their potency for years. Even the ones that start to lose some of their flavor can still be used, just a little more is needed. Plus most spices don’t take up too much room, so I usually don’t toss them out. Sometimes I have more than one open spice container and will do the sniff check to make sure they are both good before combining them into one to keep the spices in the spice cabinet as accessible as possible.

So please, take a look at what’s in your kitchen cupboards, and if you have the same problem I do of trying to keep the doors closed because the products inside are trying to escape and cause undue bodily harm to whomever happens to be on the other side, do a quick inventory and toss what you don’t want anymore. For myself, I think I’ve finally got to throw out that opened box of petit fours I got as a gift back in 1999, assuming it isn’t permanently attached to the shelf now.