Fruit snacks, goldfish crackers, potato chips, granola bars, and more… these are common snack foods found in a typical American pantry. Even though these convenience foods are quite common, they aren’t good for your health. In fact, many of the popular snacks and packaged foods are actually quite dangerous for your health.
Taking Assessment of Your Pantry
If you want to improve your health, then you need to consider the types of foods that you are eating on a daily basis. The first step is to examine your pantry and fridge, to ensure that you have plenty of healthy food options available. It might seem like a simple task to clean out the pantry, but many people get overwhelmed at this idea because they don’t know how to identify the healthy snacks from the junk food.
Don’t stress though, because there are a few simple steps that you can use to identify if you have healthy foods in your pantry. With a little bit of practice and the right shopping list, you can get rid of the junk and fill your shelves with healthier options instead.
Getting Rid of the Junk Food
The best way to clean out your pantry is to take everything out and examine each item before it is put back onto the shelf. You need to take the time to look at the ingredients label, so that you can make sure that natural, real ingredients are being consumed.
Most junk food packages will have a long list of ingredients, and the majority of those items are things that you should be avoiding. As you read through the ingredient list, look for items that you wouldn’t normally have as an ingredient to cook with. For example, a few red flags are preservatives and chemicals with long names that are difficult to pronounce. You wouldn’t buy a container of Monosodium Glutamate to add to a recipe on your stovetop, so why are you buying packaged foods with these types of ingredients?
If an ingredient list includes unnatural items and things that you don’t recognize, then toss that package into the garbage can instead of putting it back in the pantry. Go through each item one-by-one to identify the healthy things that should be kept and the junk that needs to be thrown away.
Healthy Snacks for Your Family
Just because you are getting rid of the junk, doesn’t mean that you can’t stock the pantry with healthy snacks for your family. We have a variety of
tasty snack recipes that you can try at home, or you can find pre-made
snack foods that were created with whole food ingredients. By taking a proactive approach to stock your pantry, you can make it easy to support your health and feed your family healthy foods!
