What is your family’s go-to breakfast every morning? For a lot of us, it’s some type of cereal. Cheerios, Rice Crispies, Fruit Loops, Raisin Bran, Corn Flakes, and Life Cereal are popular cereals that so many of us turn to when we are hungry and need to get out the door fast!
Countless American families rely on cereal to get their morning started. In fact, a 2020 survey conducted by Statista shows that in the US alone, about 283 million people eat a cold bowl of cereal in the morning.
Considering cereal is a staple for so many households, we want to show you how to efficiently store your favorite cereals long-term! Whether you want to include cereal in your emergency food storage plan, or you simply want to stock up on an essential you and your family can’t live without, we highly recommend you keep on reading.
In this blog post, we will share 5 ways to extend the shelf life of your cereal.
5 Ways to Store Cereal Effectively
These methods will always keep your cereal fresh and crunchy, and they will help you save money and reduce waste by preventing your cereal from getting stale or going bad before you finish eating it.
Use Bag Clips to Keep Your Cereal Fresh
Bag clips are an ingenious invention! They are a more basic, short-term option for storage, but they are still one of the easiest, most effective ways to keep your cereal fresher for longer.
Using a bag clip will effortlessly increase the shelf life of your cereal by one to two months! After you open your box of cereal, it is so easy to use a bag clip to keep the remaining cereal fresh. All you need to do is push any extra air out of the bag and then secure it tightly using your bag clip.
Bag clips come in different sizes, shapes, and clipping mechanisms. You can purchase them online or in local stores at a relatively low cost.
Store in a Cool, Dry Place
If you want to maximize your cereals shelf life, then you should store it in a cool dry place. For example, if you have a designated pantry space, that would be the best place to store your cereal effectively.
A pantry space is helpful because it is cooler and dry with ample airflow. In addition, it tends to be dark which is ideal because exposure to light will also decrease the shelf life.
No house is the same, but often pantries tend to be far from the stove. If you are lucky enough to have a pantry that is not near your stove, you have the added advantage of your cereal not being exposed to heat, gas, or excess moisture.
Everyone lives in different climates, so you also need to consider where you live and how that might affect the conditions of your pantry. Do you live in an area with high humidity? Or maybe you live in an area with dry weather? Your answers to these questions will affect how well your cereal stores in your pantry.
If you live in a more humid area, we recommend that you use bag clips to seal the opening and then store it in the original packaging to prevent spoilage due to moisture.
Store in Mylar Bags
Mylar bags are another excellent way to extend the shelf life of your cereal. Storing food in these bags has been a popular long-term food storage technique for quite some time.
Food storage and prepping go hand in hand. If someone is taking measures to be prepared for an emergency, they know that food and water are essential to survival. For this reason, many preppers focus primarily on long-term food storage.
Bag clips can help you efficiently store food short-term, but Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers are the best option if you want to store food long-term. Depending on what you store, these bags can keep food fresh for up to 30 years!
Although we recommend Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for anyone who wants to store their cereal long-term, these bags can also be used effectively for short-term storage.
A high-quality Mylar bag will be strong and sturdy enough to where it can protect food items from oxygen, light, and moisture. This helps you keep food items, like cereal fresh for much longer than it would with a bag clip.
Use Separate Storage Containers
An easier way to keep your cereal fresh and crisp is by using separate storage containers! This method is so easy, and it is much more effective than using a bag clip. All you need to do is open your cereal box and empty its contents into a separate storage container.
You should purchase a container made from BPA-free plastic with a silicone seal, as this type of container is both air-tight and food safe.
Check the Expiration Dates
A tactical way to avoid wasting your cereal is to check the expiration dates when you buy it. Although cereal is often a dry good that has a naturally longer shelf life, a lot of time has already passed by the time it hits the shelves and gets into your cart.
So, we suggest that you check the expirations date on the boxes of the cereal you plan to buy and then choose a box that will expire the least quickly.
Monitoring the expiration date won’t extend the shelf life of your cereal by itself. Your cereal will likely last about a month after you open it up either way, but checking the expiration date is certainly an additional preventative measure that might help anyone reading this.
Bottom Line
Cereal is a staple food item in most US households, so knowing how to store it effectively can help anyone avoid wasting food and money.
If you want to save yourself money and trips to the store, there is no need to eat stale cereal! By following these tips, your cereal will remain fresh until you finish the box.
Storage containers and bag clips are the best options for anyone who eats cereal daily and only wants to keep a box or two fresh, but Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers are the best way to keep cereal fresh if you buy numerous types of cereal or purchase your cereal in bulk.
You can find more tips and tricks to store food long-term and short-term on Wallaby’s food storage blog! Explore more of our blog posts, or contact our expert staff to keep learning more about food preservation.
