Tips for Building a Healthier Pantry

Last week, we discussed finding an accountability partner. This week, to keep you on track, we will talk about building a healthier pantry by cleaning all the foods that may be a temptation out of your cupboards so you can fill it with healthy ones instead. Let’s look at some ways to make these changes.

Reasons to get rid of temptation foods:

It is too easy to give in if it’s there. Keeping foods that are not in your healthy food plan or diet in your home is like purposely tempting yourself to give in. Out of sight, out of mind.

Helping your whole family live a healthier lifestyle is as important as living one yourself. Try to get as many people in your home on board with you so you not only can keep ‘bad’ foods out, but so you have extra support as well.

There is no point in holding onto foods you won’t be eating. They can be donated or given away before they go bad and are wasted.

Tips for Building a Healthier Pantry:

Be honest with yourself, which foods are you like to overindulge in? Remove them from your home. Consider all of the food items in your pantry – even the ones that may seem slightly healthy. If you stress eat a whole box of cereal while working on late night projects, remove that cereal from your pantry.

Now think about those foods again and try to find healthy alternatives, so that when you want to snack or a treat, you have a healthy substitute (otherwise you will just drive to the corner store!).

If you tend to overeat even healthier foods, consider packaging them in servings to help yourself eat a more reasonable amount.

Wash fruits, so you can just grab some when you need something sweet.

Wash and prep vegetables, so you can easily grab some from the refrigerator when you need something crunchy.

Keep “ingredients” in your pantry rather than packaged foods. During the depression era, very few folks had pre-packaged foods. This can be much healthier! Here are some tips for creating a depression era pantry.

Happy Healthy Mama has some tips on how to create a healthy pantry including snacks.

Houzz has some tips on how to set up your kitchen for healthy eating.

I love Real Simple’s checklist for healthy pantry staples.

Here are some ideas on what to do with the food you are getting rid of:

Feeding America has a place where you can find local food banks in your area to donate to.