If you are having trouble making sure that you rotate your food you may want to reorganize your system. It can be difficult to plan meals around what you have. This can be even more difficult if you have food stashed in various places throughout your house. You may want to consider different ways to stock your food in order to make it easier to find and use.
1) You may consider storing items to make each meal together. If you make homemade chili you may want to consider storing the beans, tomatoes and other ingredients on the same shelf. You can plan out several different meals that require specific canned foods and store them. When you are ready to cook you only need to go to one spot to get all the items for your meal.
2) You may also want to store different types of the same item together. You may have one spot where you store all of the canned meat, a different spot for the canned vegetables, and a third spot for dried goods items. This way you will know where to look when you want a particular item.
3) You should have a list of the food that you have, and where it is stored. This can help cut down on confusion, and will help you to use the food you have.
4) Plan to store foods that you will eat. If you will never eat Spam, then don’t buy it. It will be a waste of space and money. I do not buy and store canned peas or canned carrots. I don’t like them, and I won’t cook with them. If you find a great deal on a new canned item, buy one, try it out, and if it passes muster stock up.
5) Another easy way to rotate is to actually go shopping in your food storage first. You can pull out the items, which you will use that week, take them to your kitchen and put them away in a cupboard. When you go grocery shopping you will take your new items and replace the ones you have already bought. This one way to make sure you are truly rotating your food.