[AngelaBarbara]

Hi Funky Monkey,
I really like frozen veggies, and we do keep a chest freezer to store a variety of other things as well.

We like it for keeping spices, which we order in bulk from Penzey's. We also buy beef by the side that is locally grown and grass-fed. We also freeze butter for storage. We also store yeast cakes for baking bread, nuts, and gallon-size containers of frozen homemade soups. Instant lunch! Our house has a backup generator that runs on natural gas, so as long as we have that, we're fine.

If you are concerned about power outages, you may want to consider a chest freezer rather than an upright. It is said that these keep the cold in longer during a power interruption. People sometimes are critical of chest freezers because they are hard to organize (remember your childhood toybox?) but Frigidaire makes models (GLFC2027F and others) that have really nifty dividers for the bottom of the freezer so you can actually stack things neatly, even irregularly shaped stuff. I love it!

Technically, I guess freezers aren't good for long-term storage of veggies (about 9 months) or meat (about 1 year) or fish (about 6 months), but they are good for long-term storage of yeast, butter, nuts, and spices. I like the convenience of not running out of stuff (hmmm....like the time last month when I was having a large group for dinner, ran out of arborio rice (!) and found out the store was out of it, too! Ack, ack!) and not having to run to the store just because I need some butter and forgot it at the grocery store last week. Plus, you can buy stuff like butter when the stores have it on special.