Food Pantry End of Week Report 4/22

Here is what we did with the items we received from the food pantry this week. 

Sunday: Ate one of the Torta rolls. Meals have been off today due to me being sick thanks to the milk

Monday: Yogurt for breakfast. Discovered the Torta rolls molded over night. We are getting to that part of summer where I can't leave bread items out on the counter or they mold very quickly. Daughter had a can of Steak and potato soup last night for dinner. 

Tuesday: Discovered the remainder of the banana bread pieces had molded as well. Daughter had yogurt for breakfast.

Wednesday: Used some of the milk I traded for to make Mac & Cheese. I drank one grape fanta to try to settle my stomach. Daughter drank 4 or 5 of the small orange juices. 

Thursday: Daughter had a yogurt for breakfast. She is tiring of them so I need to figure out how to use them up. Had one package out of the case of Nestle Delightfuls - they make excellent rewards for math problems. I ate the can of green beans for lunch with leftover chicken {from the chicken thighs from a previous trip}. Daughter ate two more of the burritos {previous trip}.

Friday: Fries from the bags, served along with hamburgers {non-pantry item}. 


Traded the items marked with * to another family for a gallon of milk. I also added 2 heads of the cabbage to that bag. 

The rest of the cabbage got chopped up and put into the compost. When I began to look at it, there was quite a bit of decay on the leaves so I deemed it not edible. 

All of the chocolate milks ended up being sour. They were 3 days past their date, and they just don't keep well. I am assuming the white milk will be sour as well as well since it was the same dates. I ended up drinking part of a chocolate one before I realized it was sour {I don't drink milk often} and it ended up making me sick. So I am instituting a new rule when it comes to milk / milk products from the food pantry. IF it's milk, and it is out of date, unless it obviously has been frozen {one pantry I go to does this}, it goes straight to the trash. It is not worth risking my health over. 

Unfortunately I see spoilage being a big problem the further we go into summer. Temperatures here often are 100+ in summer, and things like milk, bread and produce simply won't keep at those temps. Plus I have up to an hour on the bus to get items home as well. Add in that often the Food bank items get warmed in transport, and it's a recipe for spoilage. I probably will ease back on the weekend pantry trips in summer and focus more on pantries that give out shelf stable items.