The Case of the Case of Macaroni

I have several cases of elbow macaroni. Some I bought ten years ago, some six, and some less than a year ago. Why do I have ten year old macaroni? That is a really good question. The truth is because I haven't been rotating. I don't really like elbow macaroni as much as some of the other shapes; so I buy my mini fuseli (or other cute shape) at the store when I need it and my elbow macaroni sits in my storage room awaiting some kind of catastrophe. The label says it lasts 30 years, so I figured I had at least 20 years left!

Well, a few weeks ago I thought I had better start using my stored macaroni. I got out my six year old macaroni to see how it tasted. Ummmm. Let's just say it is a little rancid. ( It is not terrible and my family didn't say anything, but I know it is old. I can't even imagine how my ten year old macaroni tastes. It makes me feel stupid to think of all the money I have wasted over the years buying cute pasta when I should have been using the elbow macaroni before it went bad.

Or, better yet, I should have bought a ton of the shape I like when it was on sale and stored it in PET containers (my favorite way to store stuff). You can buy 1 gallon PET containers or I save all my 2 and 3 liter pop bottles, wash them out really well and let them dry. Then I can pour small dry stuff in them, add an oxygen packet (you can store extras in a jar in the freezer). It is cheap and I can reuse them as many times as I want.






Back to the macaroni. Please use what you have!! Don't let it go to waste like I did. What a shame. The storage life estimates are not for Arizona. Things don't last as long here. I have beans that will NOT get soft and they are not very old at all (maybe 5 years).