Kitchen Pantry Pest Prevention 101
A well-stocked kitchen pantry is a thing of beauty. Everyone in the family knows exactly where to go for cereal, snacks, and ingredients for your next homemade gourmet masterpiece. Do you know who else loves your pantry? Bugs!
While pests are always on the hunt for the latest pantry snack, all hope is not lost. There are several simple steps you can take to make your kitchen pantry less attractive to tiny intruders:
- Keep the pantry spic and span
- Put all food in tightly sealed containers
- Clean up spills ASAP
- Toss out old food
- Organize organize organize
Read on for some helpful tips on low-tech pest prevention.
Cleanliness is Next to Pestless-ness
The kinds of pests that are likely to inhabit your kitchen all share one quality: a love for messy pantries. This can be frustrating because even a clean-looking pantry can still be vulnerable to invasions from annoying little critters.
That’s why it’s wise to get in the practice of regularly cleaning your pantry, drawers, and cupboards. Because insects are more active in warmer weather, you can make it part of your spring cleaning ritual. Periodically, remove all food and wipe down your kitchen surfaces with nothing more sophisticated than soap and water.
You never want to use dangerous chemicals around your food, so bug sprays & insecticides are strictly forbidden. Regular household detergents are all you need to keep the bugs away.
Seal Up Everything
There’s nothing more convenient than an open bag of chips that you can just dig into any time you want. The local pest community will thank you for your efforts, so it’s a far better practice to make sure all food is securely put away.
Instead of leaving chips, flour, and cereal in their opened bags and boxes, consider putting them into sealable glass jars instead. This will make your cupboard far more attractive and practically impervious to most kinds of intruders. Invest in an inexpensive label maker so you’ll be able to easily recognize every ingredient for retrieval at a moment’s notice. You can find more food storage tips here!
Don’t Let Spills Sit
It feels like common sense, but we’ve all seen a few grains of sugar or a couple of random oats on a shelf and just figured we’d get to it later. If you want to keep your pantry clear of ants, weevils, & tiny beetles, however, this is a bad practice. The moment you spot any stray bits of food anywhere in your kitchen, clean it up with soap and water right away. Even if the spill is a small one, it doesn’t take much to bring out the critters. This goes for spills anywhere they occur.
Insects may like to reside in your pantry, but they’ll go wherever the food is, so if there’s a spill on the counter or you’ve discovered a sticky patch on the kitchen floor, clean it up as quickly as possible.
Don’t Let Food Go Bad
Nothing’s more startling than going into your pantry to make something and then realizing the item you’re looking for expired sometime during one of the Bush Administrations. When you’re going through the spring clean discussed above, take time to check the expiration dates on everything you have so you can toss out the old stuff.
In fact, get in the habit of always checking dates every time you need something from the pantry. This will ensure that you’re never storing anything that could be bad for you (but delicious for pests). If you’re storing everything in sealable jars, make sure the labels you create include each item’s expiration date.
Also, beware of old fruit! A pile of delicious apples and oranges may look like a horn o’ plenty, but decayed spots and insects could lurk beneath. Reader’s Digest points out the horrifying fact that a female fruit fly typically lays approximately 500 eggs at a time on old, rotting fruit.
If you’ve already got some fruit flies buzzing around, fill a small bowl with a mixture of apple cider vinegar and a dash of dish soap. This is a safe and surefire way to drown the little jerks before they get out of control.
An Organized Pantry is a Safe Pantry
Cleaning out your kitchen pantry is a great opportunity to take stock of what you need and don’t need. Not only can you use the time to remove old food and repackage and seal all that remains, but you’ll also get a good idea of how the layout works best for your needs.
No one wants to be confused by their pantry, and there’s nothing more frustrating than thinking you’re out of something only to find it three months after you needed it. One way to better organize a pantry is to make use of labeled pullout bins. DIY Network recommends separating items into different departments such as “snacks” and “pasta," so you’ll always be able to find whatever you’re looking for when you need it.
Put a little light on the subject! All your efforts at organizing won’t do much good if you can’t see what’s going on. The good news is that upgrading the lighting situation in your pantry doesn’t involve any kind of kitchen rebuild. In fact, Food & Wine fell in love with a simple string of LED lights known as the Luminoodle. There are similar products out there that will keep your pantry well-lit without needing to call an electrician.
By having a pantry that’s well-lit and organized, cleaning will be easier and you’ll be able to spot pests and spills more quickly, allowing you to address them as they occur.
Conclusion
Most pantry pests aren’t dangerous, but they can be extremely unpleasant. Thankfully, you can avoid their presence in your home with some regular chemical-free cleaning and maintenance. Throw in some extra organizing and airtight containers, and you’ll have a pantry that’s cleaner, more organized, and bug-free!