Is anyone else like me and can not focus or think when you’re sitting or looking in a place that is messy?! Well that’s basically why I need to clean my bedroom before commencing anything or remove myself from it (ignorance is bliss). Getting back to pantries, I did this during the first round of covid restrictions and it ultimately helped me start eating and cooking clean. I removed refined sugars, junk, expired foods or ingredients we never used and chucked them in the bin! Being able to see what we had post cleanse was amazing. Plus it also indicated to me that I needed particular staples to help me along this new and improved healthy diet to implement in my every day life. This was not going to be something I did for a month or so and dump. This was a life change for the better. Mark my words, its been amazing. I also did not have to deprive myself of all the the foods I loved.
Rather than making this a research paper, I thought I would give you a procedure of sorts to get you started!
Please note you need to ensure you have about half a day to dedicate to this because it takes a while if you want to do it right!
Decide for yourself what you want this detox to achieve - cleaner space, turfing old and unused products, or to cook and eat cleaner
Once you’ve determined this, remove EVERYTHING from your pantry and clean them thoroughly
Next, make two piles: keep and turf
Dispose of the products you no longer require (or better yet see if anyone wants the non-expired ones!)
Now you want to organise the products you are keeping into groups. I did this by spices, flours, baking, asian cuisine, cereals, crackers, nuts & seeds, cleaning/storage (glad-wrap, foil, baking paper, paper towels etc)
While you have everything in piles write a list of products you need to buy i.e. alternate flours to self-raising and plain
Work out how you’re storing everything. I personally like clear storage choices preferably glass otherwise I use Tupperware. Note: If you have differing size storage would be ideal if your pantry is like mine and its deep so you can put them that way you can see the labels.
Label each container/jar in bold and capitals so its easy to read even from the back of the pantry.
I generally put the expiry date label on the lid or at the bottom.
Whatever is excess and does not fit in storage containers, I place in a big box at the bottom of the pantry labelled EXCESS. If you don’t have the luxury put it in another storage area i.e. the garage OR buy according to the size container. I like buying in bulk so I am not constantly having to buy and fill up, especially because we use them a lot so we don’t need to be too concerned about them expiring.
Now to organise all the food in the clean cupboards - yay! A suggestion of this step, if you have high cupboards I would consider getting a foldable shelf. We used these for the spices and condiments so we could take advantage of the space.
Voila you’re done! Heres mine for a point of reference.
I can’t tell you how valuable this process was because I now snack on nuts and seeds when I am hungry and bake/cook healthy. I’ve got a new lease on life and I love it!
Hope this helps you. This is perfect iso exercise especially if you are bored.
Enjoy!
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