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Letter Re: A Possible Blunder with Bulk-Packed Storage Food

Mr. Rawles,
We have recently found that we have also made a food storage blunder and hope to prevent someone else from doing the same. Following the eat what you store and store what you eat advice, we store a good bit of rice. We purchase buckets at the local big box home store and thought we were doing ourselves a favor by adding one more thing to keep the rice fresh in our humid climate. We put the rice in the “clean” looking white kitchen trash bags, using them as a liner, and then in the buckets. We did this more than eight months ago and just found out from routine internet reading and education, that all trash bags are coated with pesticides. I guess this is common knowledge in the food storage arena, but even after doing this for years, we somehow missed that one. We are not sure what to do with the rice now, whether we can just take the rice out and remove the liner or if we need to pitch it. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you. – Lori

JWR Replies: You should contact the manufacturer to determine whether that particular type of trash bag is “food grade”. Be sure to ask if they are treated with pesticides or any other toxic chemicals. If not, then the food in question should be fine.