Every gardener needs good food storage systems. From canning and fermenting, to cool storage and dried goods, good kitchen pantry storage bins are an important staple of a well stocked pantry.

At least once a year a mouse or two… or three—or a family of them—will find their way into our house. The cat is oblivious… she was a feral rescue who now prefers to spend her days indoors and fed from her cat bowl. The three dogs don’t seem to notice either.

So recently we saw a mouse inside and then went on a hunt to look for signs. Nothing can mess up your food storage, kitchen cabinets and drawers faster than a mouse or two.

Our pantry is regularly stocked with stores of dry food goods. Fortunately, our pantry was fairly well mouse proofed using some acrylic restaurant style bins that have easy on off lids for dry storage. We keep our nuts, grains, legumes, flours, cereals and dried fruits in those.

Our Pantry Staples

• Raw Nuts we keep on hand (listed in order of staples first on to some of the more exotic varieties
  • Pecans
  • Walnuts
  • Almonds
  • Hazelnuts / filberts
  • Pumpkin seeds
  • Sunflower seeds
  • Brazil nuts
  • Pistachios
  • Hemp seeds
  • Cashews
  • Macadamia nuts
  • Pine nuts
• Grains
  • Brown and/or basmati rice
  • Wild rice
  • Quinoa
• Legumes
  • Black beans
  • Kidney beans
  • Chickpeas
  • Pinto beans
• Flours and Meals
  • Gluten Free Varieties
    • Bob’s All Purpose
    • Almond flour
    • Chickpea flour
    • Oat flour
    • Hazelnut flour
    • Chestnut flour
    • Buckwheat flour
    • Cornmeal 
• Dried Fruits
  • Raisins
  • Goji berries
  • Golden berries
  • Apricots
  • Dates
• Breakfast Foods
  • Oats / oatmeal
  • Buckwheat / buckwheat groats
  • Hot cereals – other than oatmeal
    • rice
    • quinoa 
• Green Juice & Smoothies Powders – we’re currently using:
  • Naked Whey
  • BioTrust Protein Powder
  • Quest Vanilla Milkshake 
  • Athleta Greens

Having the right kinds of storage bins (and using them properly by replacing the lids securely) has saved hundreds of dollars in lost foods.

Protect Your Food Investment

It only takes one mouse to ruin hundreds of dollar worth of foods. One mouse can infiltrate a food bin without a proper fitting lid and chew through each bag, while leaving behind droppings and pee, such that the foods can only be tossed as not consumable.

It’s happened to us. And of course they got into the most expensive bin of all: the nuts and the gluten free and nut flours. You just need to lose lots of investment in foods once before you get the lesson about securing the pantry lids. Oh… until you have kids… and they still need to get that lesson! 🤔 

But, if you use these properly… just remember to tap the lid back on, which is super easy to do, the work. We’ve had our same favorite pantry storage bins for around 15 years, and they’re the best. 

Kitchen Pantry Storage Bins

The storage bins we’ve used for over 15 years are Rubbermaid’s commercial food box. These food “totes” are made of clear, break-resistant clear polycarbonate with visibility, durability and stain-resistance.

The Rubbermaid food box also features date control panels on the sides and reinforced corners. These are sturdy, stackable and the lids locks down effortlessly without a clasp, with just a solid tap on the lid. The food box is commercial dishwasher safe, but these 2-5 gallon sized ones we have are too big for ours, so we just wash by hand.

Rubbermaid Polycarbonate Commercial Food Storage Bins

FEATURES

• Sturdy – break resistant
• Clear polycarbonate
• Stain resistant
• Easy to see interior contents
• Date panel on side
• Reinforced corners
• Lid locks easily without clasp
• Available in multiple sizes from 2 gallons to 16 5/8 gallons
• Stackable and nestable when empty
• Same lid can be used for all sizes*

*NOTE: The lid is sold separately on the Amazon listing so be sure to get that too.

While our stored foods are in bags, for those that aren’t, the risk is so incredibly low that we’re not concerned about BPA with these storage bins. If want to be sure, you may want  to do your own research, so we’ve linked to that here as well.^[1]https://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/polyplastics.html

Our Latest Mouse Infiltration

So I was inspired to write this up this Sunday afternoon after spending the weekend doing extra laundry and cleaning thanks to a family of mice that decided to set up residence in a couple of my clothing drawers. 😮  

Humane Mouse Traps

We’ve used HavAhart mouse traps for years, but have done better recently with the TomCat mouse traps. We caught three mice: a large, a medium and a small one.

Next time we’ll try these clear mouse traps by Catcha because it will be really helpful to be able to see if you’ve actually caught a mouse. Otherwise, you have to try to test the weight of the trap in your hand and guess. Just because the door is tripped doesn’t mean that you’ve got the mouse. 

Catch and Release – AKA Mouse Relocation Program

We call it “catch and release”, and “the mouse relocation plan”. We walk out an acre or so into the woods and let them go. It’s always gratifying to see the poor petrified creatures scamper out, free at last and no long in our house!

This time the “woods mice that discovered “a good thing” in our home, couldn’t access the foods, but they did discover the cats food. We have a really cool cat feeding “box” that we got to keep the dogs from raiding the cat food, and because you know… the cats like to have their crunchies whenever they want.

Apparently the mouse family found that the cat food. I found kitty crunchies and mouse dropping in my winter woolies drawers along with a few shredded socks they were making into a nest. So… that’s one way to get a jump start on spring cleaning!!

Let us know your favorite food kitchen pantry storage bins and we’ll add it to this article!

Let’s keep on growing!