Lessons learned from storing foods

[iggy]

At one time, in one of the many forums I am on I wrote about buying and using only Velveeta Shells & Cheese. Less water, zero milk & butter to turn into palatable food. Then some of my boxes went past the one year mark. When I opened the foil pouch of cheese it was N A S T Y. The 8 boxes all had bad cheese. Salvaged the pasta shells. So- I bought a jar of Cheese Whiz. 1/2 a jar worked for dinner. Hubby & I really like Mac & Cheese, so fixed more for lunch the next day.

For a bit I was buying 4 jars at a time of Great Value knock off of Cheese Whiz. 6 months past the Best Buy date and the stuff turned N A S T Y. So I bought less at a time, used it up within 6 months of it's BB date. THEN the smell of it cooking was more than either of us could stomach.

Ragu started making a cheddar sauce that works great for mac & cheese. AND then Velveeta came out with a box of three cheese sauce pouches. Again, don't go longer than 6 months past the BB Date. One box costs the same as a jar of Cheese Whiz.

Since my last trip to the hospital for Acute Pancreatitis I was put on a LOW fat diet. 10 grams of fat per meal. In short, no more butter, cheese, milk, cream, cheesy sauces, most pork, all lamb, burgers and fatty beef, etc. Hubby eats the Mac-N-Cheese, hot dogs, etc. So, our food storage has changed too.

As a diabetic I can adjust my insulin according for the amount of pasta, sugar aka carbs I eat. But there is no adjusting insulin for fat.

NOTE: If you are going to boil up some pasta and are going to have canned vegetables that will be nuked; empty the liquid into the pan you will be cooking your pasta in. You don't need 6 quarts of water to cook up enough pasta for 2-3 people. 3 quarts of liquid is plenty. Add water to the liquid from your can of vegetables, and cook the pasta. I finally did the beet juice added to the water in a 3 qt pan. Did spaghetti noodles, made spaghetti sauce sans the hamburger. Guess what? Hubby didn't complain about the sauce disappearing into the noodles. Yeah it was beet colored, but he didn't seem to mind. Just asked if I was 'Spearmenten' on him again?