Part One Of Our Three Part Mini Series Keeping Up With Your Your Kitchen
Cleaning the kitchen is serious business. We’re talking about ridding ourselves of old habits, foods and organizational techniques. Organizing the entire kitchen could easily take up the whole day, so let’s start small and focus on the pantry.
First let’s take a look at what might be hiding in our pantry and throw away all expired foods, as you might be surprised as to what is hiding in the back of it! Then, take a look at your packaged goods and anything having more than five ingredients or excess sugar and additives should also get tossed out. We also encourage you to use mason jars and fill them up with any flours, oats and sugars so we can stay away from plastics.
It is so easy to overfill the pantry with convenience foods that we can actually forget everything that is in there! A lot of pre-packaged foods contain soy, gluten, dairy or corn and most women have sensitivities to these and it is more beneficial to consume foods with a very short ingredient list.
Here is a infographic which shows you exactly what you toss and what to replace it with.
Something to be aware of is that many of the containers for ready-to-eat foods include a chemical compound called bisphenol A or, as commonly abbreviated, BPA. BPA effects our hormones, mimics estrogen and poses a threat to our reproductive system. Avoiding BPA can be done by using a glass water bottle, such as the one’s sold from Lifefactory, or placing leftovers in glass storage containers. If you do use a plastic water bottle, avoid leaving it in the car because the heat from the sun will allow the release of toxins. While it might be inevitable to completely eliminate BPA from our daily lives, it is not too late to start avoiding it.
Here are some simple, quick tips to clean out your pantry
- Start by taking everything out of the pantry and tossing anything with an expired expiration date. We usually put the newer items in front and forget about the food we already have.
- Throw away anything with more than 5 ingredients. Consuming foods with a short ingredients list will ensure that the product is as natural as possible. As always, remember to be smarter than the marketer. If your less than 5 ingredient product has sugar as the first ingredient it might not be as healthy as you think.
- Remove herbs, spices and nuts from plastic wrappings and place in glass containers/mason jars. As stated above, many plastics contain BPA and transferring these food to glass containers will reduce exposure to BPA.
- Extra bonus for keeping these items in an air-tight container, the lack of oxygen keeps them fresh for longer and allows it to keep its’ nutritive value
- Organize pantry to optimize storage space.
- Label each glass storage container so you can always know what product is in each. I love the chalkboard labels
- Use a magazine rack to store your canned goods. This is perfect for space utilization and making sure the older foods get used first.
- Add an over the door organizer to make additional space for your pantry
- Use a basket for all of your snacks.
- Make the majority of your grocery purchases fresh produce. Cooking with whole foods is a great way to give your body more energy and a natural remedy for hormonal balance. The healing power natural foods have on our health is too beneficial to pass up!
Revamping your kitchen is very simple. Starting with very small changes can transform your kitchen before you even know it and trust us an organized kitchen space makes cooking just a little more enjoyable too.
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