Several years ago, I started ditching kitchen plastic. I slowly began acquiring glass storage containers, and these days pretty much all of our leftovers are stored in lidded pyrex dishes. For dry goods, I have a huge assortment of glass jars, most of which would otherwise have been destined for the recycle bin. Any time I use up a jar of coconut butter or olives or salsa or whatever, I soak the jar to get the label off, run it through the dishwasher, and then let it dry thoroughly. After that, it finds itself in my pantry, ready for its second life. Ever since we started buying food in bulk at the co-op, we’ve been using a lot of glass jars. I bought five pounds of dried gogi berries, and they filled about a dozen odd-sized jars. I’ve gradually been filling jars with rice, beans, and lentils, although my 25 pound bags end up filling a lot of jars!
I always keep an eye out at thrift stores for glass storage containers. Last week, for $1.50, I found a great sun tea jar (the kind without a pour spout at the bottom). I brought it home, ran it through the dishwasher, and now I have a gallon-size glass jar for holding rice. Perfect! I will definitely keep watching for more used sun tea jars – they have nice wide mouths, and hold a large amount of bulk food. I also recently found a set of pyrex storage jars with screw-on lids a the same thrift store, and paid six dollars for a set of three jars, the largest of which holds nearly a gallon. So I’m slowly adding to my glass storage container collection. I’m not quite to this point yet, but I’m getting there. Hopefully we’ll have lots of food from our garden to preserve this summer, so I keep saving jars.
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