Lightweight Eats

Pantry, to be more specific.

We've tried to commit to eating primarily non-packaged goods. It's cheaper and healthier. It also makes me appreciate the food I'm eating a bit more--for example, we just ground our own sunflower seed butter. The works that goes into it (admittedly not much) makes me think twice when I grab a giant spoonful.

We'd fallen off the bandwagon a bit, though. We hadn't gone to buying chips, crackers and sodas again, but suddenly jars of peanut butter, bags of crystallized ginger and chocolate covered cherries found their way onto our shelves.

So last weekend, we raided our pantry and tossed almost all of it. The dried fruit went into a cabinet for treats if we are having a particularly difficult week, along with the honey. But the brown sugar and the JIF peanut butter got the axe.

The original plan was to use and not replace, but I've found myself to be more of a cold turkey kind of girl, rather than gradual changes. I'm sure we can find a hungry stomach to consume these for us.

Our pantry is back to its original intention: whole grains, legumes, and a few nuts and seeds to snack on. The rest of it lives in the fridge--fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked grains and beans, roasted veggies for snacking, condiments/dressing, tofu, non-dairy milk and the occasional egg.

For now, we've kept the sliced bread in our freezer. We still have vegetable and olive oils, both of which come in packages. And we are working our way through our collection of cold cereal

I would like to commit as strongly as possible to only buying non-packaged goods. This might mean bringing my bulk containers with me to the Food Mill to stock up on grains. It will probably also mean grinding our own nut and seed butters; maybe even making our own hummus and salsa.

I think, for now, I am ok with canned goods--tomatoes and corn, especially--as I'd rather eat a healthy meal with canned beans than go buy burritos from the store. Our limited freezer space also makes canned soup incredibly convenient--there just isn't enough space to store frozen meals. (Perhaps taking the sliced bread out of the freezer and baking our own would help...)

Have any of you given up packaged foods? How far should we go? What about flours and rolled oats? Cold cereal? Hot cereal?? Where do we draw the line on "acceptable"? And how do we draw a line that makes the choice at the grocery store easier?