Baking Tip: Keep Your Pantry Pest-Free

It happens to the best of us. One day you open your pantry and find uninvited guests—ants, weevils, and other sorts of creepy crawlies. If you're like me, you hesitate to treat the problem with dangerous sprays and pesticides that may seep into the food you eat. That's why today I'm sharing a couple of my favorite natural tips to keeping your pantry pest-free. 1. Every time I bring a new bag of flour home from the store, it goes directly into the freezer for a week. It's believed that microscopic eggs or larvae (harmless at the microscopic level) may already be in flour when it is purchased. Freezing the flour kills any eggs or larvae, preventing them from growing and starting an infestation. This is an especially good practice if you buy large quantities of flour at one time. Once my bag of flour is removed from the freezer, I transfer it to an air-tight container in my pantry.

2. Another tip I love is the use of bay leaves to keep bugs away. Every time I clean out my pantry (about every 3-4 months), I wipe the shelves clean and place a dried bay leaf on each shelf and on the floor near the corners where ants or other bugs could creep in. Apparently, the scent of the bay leaves is a natural repellent for most small pests who might come seeking the jackpot of a pantry. I tried this once years ago after noticing ants and have never had a problem since! Those are two of my favorite tips, but what about you? Do you have some natural remedies for pest-free pantries? Share them in the comments section!