Another great resource about stockpiling and food storage

Stockpiling, that is, buying quantities of items that you can get for a very low price or for free, is a tricky business. It's hard to determine what items you can store, how to properly store them, and for how long. If you buy six bottles of a favorite name-brand barbecue sauce, normally $2.50 each, for $0.25 (they are on sale and you have stacked coupons), you have saved $13.50. If those six bottles of barbecue sauce go rancid because you've stored them in a hot, un-air-conditioned garage, or because they expired last year, you have wasted $1.50, plus the effort to clip the coupons, shop for the item, etc.

I've posted before, here and here, about stockpiling and storage. Just to recap, here are three great resources that talk about how long you can store food and drug items, and how to properly store them:

• This "Real Simple" article on 77 Surprising Expiration Dates
• This Harvard Medical School article on Drug Expiration Dates - Do They Mean Anything?
• StillTasty.com, a website with an extensive "Keep It or Toss It?" database

Here's another good resource, this time on freezing and refrigerating foods. It's from Ziploc, and it's a handy two-page printout that summarizes some conclusions about the shelf-life of various foods from the Food and Drug Administration as well as the Federal Government's Food Safety site.  I've printed it out and hung it up on the side of my fridge.

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