Snack. 

The word itself gets you excited, no? I think we all perk up imagining grabbing exactly what we want, to eat anywhere we want. Another pleasure field, the charcuterie board or a wedding buffet. The freedom of picking and choosing exactly what I want to nosh on, with no formal dinner time rules or table manners is near orgasmic. Me, just sitting on my kitchen counter, nibbling on a few things in peace, thrills me beyond belief.

I am not alone in this.

What if I told you I was coming over in 5 minutes to take photos of your pantry and fridge? Are you beaming with pride of your Pinterest worthy kitchen or is the blood building in your face because it’s looks more like an abandoned, crack house?

As a health and cooking coach, I’ve looked into plenty of pantries and most of the kitchens have the same, common issues:

• Chaotic mess of expired items- old cans, boxes and packages of food like substances. Wheat Thins are not food in case there is some confusion on the subject.

• Overstocked Fridge- the refrigerators are always overfilled, not only making the food hard to see, but not as cold or fresh as long either

• Excess of everything- we just don’t need that much stuff. We don’t use it all and it goes to waste. For some reason we’ve been led to believe we need every inch of the fridge and pantry occupied to feel like we have food.

I detoxed and restocked my kitchen over a decade ago, and it helped change the way I cook and eat. There is no doubt most of us don’t have the expertly organized, healthy ingredient pantries, but if we did, it would change our health and our lives. Not an overstatement.  Decanting is one way we can dramatically change the way your kitchen looks and feels.

Making and packing the lunchbox. This chore is on the top of most parent’s hate list. That everyday task that’s cutting into your precious (hot) coffee drinking time, with the looming pressure that this lunchbox has to hit all the “supermom” marks. And by marks I mean, it has to be in cute shapes and cut outs that get them excited to eat, packed in a sustainable container, include a vegetable or two, be nut free, maybe even dairy free, oh and foods your kid might actually eat while sitting through a highly distracted, 20 minute lunch rush.  It’s amazing they get any food down without chocking, to be honest. 

I was tired of this task even before lunchboxes existed for my kids. My kids were just in preschool and once they started having opinions about what goes in their little snack box, I said great, you can help pack it. Some people were appalled when I said my kids filled their boxes. How did you get them to do it? Well first, as I just mentioned, I asked them. Did they just fill it with cookies? No, but I’m sure they wanted to.