diff --git a/lib/foodsoft_config.rb b/lib/foodsoft_config.rb
index bbc37527..e19acaf5 100644
--- a/lib/foodsoft_config.rb
+++ b/lib/foodsoft_config.rb
@@ -60,5 +60,11 @@ class FoodsoftConfig
       }.merge(config))
     end
 
+    # reload original configuration file, e.g. in between tests
+    def reload!(filename = APP_CONFIG_FILE)
+      APP_CONFIG.clear.merge! YAML.load(File.read(File.expand_path(filename, Rails.root)))
+      init
+    end
+
   end
 end
diff --git a/lib/tasks/rspec.rake b/lib/tasks/rspec.rake
index a7d67ae5..4ebbe191 100644
--- a/lib/tasks/rspec.rake
+++ b/lib/tasks/rspec.rake
@@ -3,5 +3,11 @@ begin
   task(:spec).clear
   RSpec::Core::RakeTask.new(:spec)
   task :default => :spec
+
+  # Use `rspec` to run a single test. When a test fails in rake but not
+  # with rspec, you can use the following to run a single test using rake:
+  #RSpec::Core::RakeTask.new('spec:foo') do |t|
+  #  t.pattern = "spec/integration/foo_spec.rb"
+  #end
 rescue LoadError
 end
diff --git a/spec/spec_helper.rb b/spec/spec_helper.rb
index c27ce50f..865e926f 100644
--- a/spec/spec_helper.rb
+++ b/spec/spec_helper.rb
@@ -37,6 +37,12 @@ RSpec.configure do |config|
     DatabaseCleaner.clean
   end
 
+  # reload foodsoft configuration, so that tests can use FoodsoftConfig.config[:foo]=x
+  # without messing up tests run after that
+  config.before(:each) do
+    FoodsoftConfig.send :reload!
+  end
+
   # If true, the base class of anonymous controllers will be inferred
   # automatically. This will be the default behavior in future versions of
   # rspec-rails.