What you have in your pantry is a reflection of your habits and your health. It's what fuels you, interests you, and maybe shows what type of cuisine you like. The Optimum You (yes you!) has a pantry with no refined foods, just nourishing disease-preventing foods. Delicious healthy meals are always at your fingertips. Look at your pantry now. Does it say that you are too busy to prepare healthy meals and lack the knowledge of what to do with whole food ingredients?
Building a healthy pantry can be and probably should be gradual. As you learn about a whole food, buy it and use it. But you can replace common processed foods such as white rice for brown rice, white flour for whole-wheat flour or gluten-free flour mix, Salty mixed nuts can be traded up for for unsalted raw almonds, walnuts, and/or sunflower seeds, etc.
Elimination is part of the building process. Throw out processed foods; they are toxic to your body, and most contain foreign materials which cause adverse reactions at a cellular level. True health runs deep.
Strangely many people do not know what processed foods are. Any food that is not in its original state has been processed somehow. Minimally processed is okay most of the time such as when whole oats are turned into rolled oats, or flax seeds are milled (which is a good process), beans are cooked (although sprouted is better), the germ is removed from the wheat for nutritional purposes, or nutritious whole grains are milled into flour. The processed foods in grocery stores are not so simple. aisles are filled with fried crackers, potato chips, prepared sauces, pre-cooked and breaded meats, seasoned frozen foods of all kinds, ice cream, breakfast cereals, bakery items, and juice drinks to name a few. Not only are the foods altered and/or chemically changed, there are preservatives, additives, salt, sugar, artificial colors, artificial flavors, hormones, genetically modified ingredients, and more. Be aware that there are organic foods that are processed also, but at least do not contain artificial ingredients or preservatives.
Begin replacing fried snack foods with things like woven wheats or rice cakes which have only one main ingredient, the other being salt. Replace fried nachos and chips with baked corn chips. That's a start, but even these foods should not constitute much of a percentage of your diet. For example, reserve baked nachos for an occasional taco salad. The Optimum You store front is available to select and purchase items through Amazon.com marketplace. A small percentage of the sales help keep this website going. These items are valued in The Optimum You diet to support endeavors in the kitchen, and help bring "you" to a new level of health. For more information to to get help cleaning out your pantry, Email: [email protected] I will help for a donation to my cause to help prevent chronic conditions! Get going on your new pantry!