This week I was thinking about COVID-19 and when I was talking with my sister, we got to discussing how to best prepare food storage during shelter in place orders. Yesterday in New York, we were told that this Sunday (tomorrow March 22nd) a lockdown of the city would be effective. This means we will shelter in place and only go out only for essentials (food or medical care, or outdoor exercise as long as you practice safe social distancing). California has already enacted lockdown and more states are likely to follow.

While I am happy to cooperate with these orders to help protect all of us, practicing social distancing and being prepared for extended periods of time in isolation or quarantine is overwhelming.  If there’s one way to help alleviate the stress it’s knowing how to store and use food that you’ve purchased for a longer isolation period. I’ve written out for you and I’m sharing the video below COVID-19: Tips for Food Preparedness During Quarantine. These are useful ways that you can use and store fresh produce, meats, and fish to preserve everything you have for as long and as fresh as possible.

Reach out in the comment section below if you have any questions or ideas to share regarding food storage and preparation.

1. COVID-19: Tips for Food Preparedness During Quarantine Freeze, Freeze, Freeze

   One of the best ways to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables, and proteins (fish and meat) is to properly prepare them for freezer storage. If you have bananas peel them and cut them into 1” pieces and place in an air tight zip lock bag. Use the frozen bananas for smoothies or desserts (cookies, banana bread, cake). Raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries tend to ripen and go bad quickly. They’re a great source of antioxidants so you want to have them around. Wash, seal and freeze.

2.  COVID-19: Tips for Food Preparedness During Quarantine Transform

   Some ingredients, like fresh herbs, don’t necessarily freeze well as is. But, you can still transform some ingredients in a great way to get them freezer ready. Take your fresh herbs, combine with olive oil in a blender, and blend to create a nice pesto or green sauce. The oil in your sauce will help protect against water and crystalizing your herbs. Depending on what you’re making you might add some garlic, lime, or  jalapeño. Whatever it is you make, again put it in an air tight zip lock bag, freeze and you have some delicious ready made sauces for meal time. Purée is another great way to prepare fresh foods for freezing. When my kids were babies I would purée squash, portion it into ice cube trays and then place the cubes after they froze into zip lock bags. You can purée and freeze a lot of useful items this way, including potatoes, cauliflower, or broccoli.

3. COVID-19: Tips for Food Preparedness During Quarantine Portion

   So when you’re in sheltering in place or exercising quarantine, the good thing is that you know how many servings per meal you need to be prepared for. Whether it’s one person or six people, you’ll want to separate and portion out your meat and fish to the number of servings you need per meal. This is important because your proteins will freeze together. Once you take the whole block out, the whole block will thaw and you don’t want to be freezing and thawing beyond what you want to prepare for one meal. For instance, if you several pounds of ribs divide them by the number of servings you need per meal. Then, store the serving size per meal in separate ziplock bags.

4. COVID-19: Tips for Food Preparedness During Quarantine

   Label

   Labeling is very important and super simple. Just grab a sharpie and include the name of what is in the bag—once frozen, the difference between pesto vs. verde sauce may not be immediately obvious. Include the date that you placed the item in the freezer. And it’s as easy as that.