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Pantry Pain: Time to take stock and toss
Feb. 15th, 2020 02:20 pmSo here’s a fun fact for you: 21% of the food we Americans buy at the store gets thrown away, uneaten. This (from the USDA) swirled through my head this week as I faced down one of my most hated household chores- the pantry sort-out.
I periodically go through the two pantries at my house, chucking out the worst of the worst. I have a closet in my kitchen where I store frequently used and already opened food packages, and what we call the “gantry” (a name my DH was so proud of inventing, combining “garage” and “pantry”), which is not actually in the garage, but closer to the garage door, where I stock the unopened packages and larger storage buckets for bulk goods. This already tells you something of what you need to know about me- in today’s modern economy, with a family size of only four, I feel the need for offsite storage. And buckets. (This is not to mention another shelf under the stairs, which holds home-canned jars of food.)
It’s true that I live in the boonies, so running to the grocery store for a forgotten meal ingredient isn’t feasible, and buying in bulk can make sense to save money or excess packaging, and [Insert other increasingly implausible justifications here…]- the fact is that I store too much food. Something buried deep in my psychology tells me that I need to hoard food, and that unexamined urge also makes it hard, almost physically painful, for me to throw out food that maybe, just possibly, should be. Also, cleaning the pantry is boring. (Don’t you agree, Imaginary Reader? Any normal people have probably stopped reading [if they ever started], perhaps because they fell asleep, or perhaps because they actually died of boredom, which is what I felt I might do somewhere around hour two of The Great Pantry Decimation.) But taking stock and tossing is a crucial step in my household food waste reduction plan, so it was time once again to face the demons lurking in those back corners, and acknowledge my many food-procurement mistakes.
The tossing part may sound counter-intuitive, since my goal is to reduce waste, but sadly, things on my shelves get old before I use them. Also, those darn pantry moths, which seem to emerge once or twice a year, can sneak into way too many packages when I’m not looking them all over regularly, spoiling more food. And finally, when the shelves are overstuffed, it’s hard to see what’s there and think through how to use it up. And bonus reason: It’s so @#%! annoying when mostly-empty bags of chips are avalanching off the shelf.
So this week I welcomed the pain, and the shame too, throwing out:
*Those nuts and whole grains that had gone rancid;
*Stale cereal and crackers that didn’t get finished before a new box was opened;
*Ancient, dark, hard dried fruit that no one will ever, ever eat;
*Far-past-date boxed goods that I forced myself to honestly evaluate and admit that they will not one day suddenly seem like a good idea to base a meal on;
...and so much more. I won't entertain you (or perhaps horrify you, depending on whether you've ever eaten dinner at my house) with the oldest item I found, but suffice it to say that I was mentally comparing it to the age of my children, one of whom is now learning to drive. It added up to a lot: over a full garbage bag’s worth, much of that bulky packaging, but definitely not all. Looking at the results of failure, a lot of them all at one time, will (I hope) help memorably impress upon me why I’m trying to reduce our waste. I'm intending to use the shame to stop me from buying more weird, hard-to-use-up ingredients, going Costco-blind for too-large quantities, not planning ahead and then buying fresh ingredients to make a quick dinner without surveying what I already have, buying things that I hope we’ll learn to like (as if!), not storing things properly (nuts and whole grains in the freezer! Not the pantry!)… So many mistakes that I’m going to have to try to learn from.
Some notes from the process:
It’s harder for me to let go of (once) healthy ingredients than the junk food. I keep rationalizing, sometimes for years after the best-by date, that I really will use that nutritious but not-so-yummy and rather aged ingredient in some family-pleasing or self-flagellating dish, (whichever), some day real soon… Meanwhile, I'm embarrassed that I bought the junk in the first place, and thinking “We shouldn’t be eating this garbage anyways!” makes it much more comfortable to dispose of the evidence. But I need to remember that the junk food, being generally much more processed, has high embodied energy. This is the total quantity of energy that it took to grow, harvest, process, package, ship, advertise, display, etc. etc., those year-old Girl Scout cookies. So empty calories do not equal guilt-free tossing. (Sniff…)
I keep thinking that I need systems, pantry rotation schemes, lists… but the fact is, those elaborate, Rube Goldberg -style plans are never going to work for me. Why don’t I write it all down? Well, you see, this ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve done the thing in the past where I wrote down all the items I needed to use up, and tried to keep a written inventory of what was actually in the fridge, freezer, and pantry, and then tried to meal-plan around that. While this seems like such a brilliant idea, I have to confess that it hasn’t been that useful for me. I never manage to keep the lists updated, and usually end up losing the list itself. So I’m not going to advocate a strategy that I haven’t been successful with. I’m at the stage in my life when I finally am getting to realize that I am who I am, and I can’t count on some of the basics of my personality actually changing. Fabulously organized, I am not. I’m going to try to keep it simpler and just not buy so much stuff. And what is here, in the house, is what I’m going to try to use up.
While I didn’t quite go all Marie Kondo on my kitchen shelves, I did create some daylight between the survivors. The results of all that tossing are a practical benefit too, not just a psychological growth opportunity, since now I can actually see what I have left in my pantry. I also should have an updated mental list of what I don't need to buy when I’m at the store, and hopefully my subconscious will work away at good use-it-up ideas for the odd bits and pieces I came across in my shelf management process. I’m going to take a deep breath, celebrate by tying on a fresh pantry-moth trap, and go figure out what’s for dinner. Again.
I periodically go through the two pantries at my house, chucking out the worst of the worst. I have a closet in my kitchen where I store frequently used and already opened food packages, and what we call the “gantry” (a name my DH was so proud of inventing, combining “garage” and “pantry”), which is not actually in the garage, but closer to the garage door, where I stock the unopened packages and larger storage buckets for bulk goods. This already tells you something of what you need to know about me- in today’s modern economy, with a family size of only four, I feel the need for offsite storage. And buckets. (This is not to mention another shelf under the stairs, which holds home-canned jars of food.)
It’s true that I live in the boonies, so running to the grocery store for a forgotten meal ingredient isn’t feasible, and buying in bulk can make sense to save money or excess packaging, and [Insert other increasingly implausible justifications here…]- the fact is that I store too much food. Something buried deep in my psychology tells me that I need to hoard food, and that unexamined urge also makes it hard, almost physically painful, for me to throw out food that maybe, just possibly, should be. Also, cleaning the pantry is boring. (Don’t you agree, Imaginary Reader? Any normal people have probably stopped reading [if they ever started], perhaps because they fell asleep, or perhaps because they actually died of boredom, which is what I felt I might do somewhere around hour two of The Great Pantry Decimation.) But taking stock and tossing is a crucial step in my household food waste reduction plan, so it was time once again to face the demons lurking in those back corners, and acknowledge my many food-procurement mistakes.
The tossing part may sound counter-intuitive, since my goal is to reduce waste, but sadly, things on my shelves get old before I use them. Also, those darn pantry moths, which seem to emerge once or twice a year, can sneak into way too many packages when I’m not looking them all over regularly, spoiling more food. And finally, when the shelves are overstuffed, it’s hard to see what’s there and think through how to use it up. And bonus reason: It’s so @#%! annoying when mostly-empty bags of chips are avalanching off the shelf.
So this week I welcomed the pain, and the shame too, throwing out:
*Those nuts and whole grains that had gone rancid;
*Stale cereal and crackers that didn’t get finished before a new box was opened;
*Ancient, dark, hard dried fruit that no one will ever, ever eat;
*Far-past-date boxed goods that I forced myself to honestly evaluate and admit that they will not one day suddenly seem like a good idea to base a meal on;
...and so much more. I won't entertain you (or perhaps horrify you, depending on whether you've ever eaten dinner at my house) with the oldest item I found, but suffice it to say that I was mentally comparing it to the age of my children, one of whom is now learning to drive. It added up to a lot: over a full garbage bag’s worth, much of that bulky packaging, but definitely not all. Looking at the results of failure, a lot of them all at one time, will (I hope) help memorably impress upon me why I’m trying to reduce our waste. I'm intending to use the shame to stop me from buying more weird, hard-to-use-up ingredients, going Costco-blind for too-large quantities, not planning ahead and then buying fresh ingredients to make a quick dinner without surveying what I already have, buying things that I hope we’ll learn to like (as if!), not storing things properly (nuts and whole grains in the freezer! Not the pantry!)… So many mistakes that I’m going to have to try to learn from.
Some notes from the process:
It’s harder for me to let go of (once) healthy ingredients than the junk food. I keep rationalizing, sometimes for years after the best-by date, that I really will use that nutritious but not-so-yummy and rather aged ingredient in some family-pleasing or self-flagellating dish, (whichever), some day real soon… Meanwhile, I'm embarrassed that I bought the junk in the first place, and thinking “We shouldn’t be eating this garbage anyways!” makes it much more comfortable to dispose of the evidence. But I need to remember that the junk food, being generally much more processed, has high embodied energy. This is the total quantity of energy that it took to grow, harvest, process, package, ship, advertise, display, etc. etc., those year-old Girl Scout cookies. So empty calories do not equal guilt-free tossing. (Sniff…)
I keep thinking that I need systems, pantry rotation schemes, lists… but the fact is, those elaborate, Rube Goldberg -style plans are never going to work for me. Why don’t I write it all down? Well, you see, this ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve done the thing in the past where I wrote down all the items I needed to use up, and tried to keep a written inventory of what was actually in the fridge, freezer, and pantry, and then tried to meal-plan around that. While this seems like such a brilliant idea, I have to confess that it hasn’t been that useful for me. I never manage to keep the lists updated, and usually end up losing the list itself. So I’m not going to advocate a strategy that I haven’t been successful with. I’m at the stage in my life when I finally am getting to realize that I am who I am, and I can’t count on some of the basics of my personality actually changing. Fabulously organized, I am not. I’m going to try to keep it simpler and just not buy so much stuff. And what is here, in the house, is what I’m going to try to use up.
While I didn’t quite go all Marie Kondo on my kitchen shelves, I did create some daylight between the survivors. The results of all that tossing are a practical benefit too, not just a psychological growth opportunity, since now I can actually see what I have left in my pantry. I also should have an updated mental list of what I don't need to buy when I’m at the store, and hopefully my subconscious will work away at good use-it-up ideas for the odd bits and pieces I came across in my shelf management process. I’m going to take a deep breath, celebrate by tying on a fresh pantry-moth trap, and go figure out what’s for dinner. Again.
