At first, I was testing the waters slowly, but the more I read and the more I do, the more I feel the need to dive in. So, here goes! I will be getting rid of preservatives and other nasties. My first target was HFCS, which I've almost completely eliminated from our diet. I doubt I'll be able to do 100% at first with preservatives, but I am definitely going to be much more strict about what I allow into our home. I probably should have done this at the beginning, but I don't know if we could have gone "cold turkey" off our old diet onto a completely different diet. Instead, slowly using up the old and replacing it with better has been a good route overall for us. I just feel a need to step it up.
So, we finally made the plunge today. Remember all that stuff I posted about last week? That and more went to one of two piles today: trash, or for my brother.
Why am I getting rid of all of this food if it's still good? Because they each contain things that I've decided aren't good for us. I mentioned it to my hubby and said he was fine with it, so away it goes. I will have to find tasty substitutions for some of it, especially the salad dressing and the pickles because we both really liked it. I'm also kind of sad that some of my canned goods had preservatives in them. (If you're asking why I am giving some of it to my brother if it has things I wouldn't eat in it, the answer is simple: he's pretty tight on money right now and I'm sure he could use the random boost of food to eat. And this food is still better than fast food or nothing at all.)
In a way, I think clearing out all this garbage will be like starting over. I think it will make it harder for me to buy more crap, since I'm getting rid of so much. The sting of wasting so much money and food will drive me to consider each purchase more, and to make sure I am not buying junk!
To my brother:
3 cans of olives
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 box of chicken helper
6 boxes of jell-o mix
1 box of stuffing
4 boxes of mac & cheese
30-ish packs of kool-aid
10-ish packs of ramen
2 containers of bacon bits
3 bags of microwave popcorn
3 boxes of rice-a-roni knock-off
2 sleeves of crackers
1 bottle of salad dressing
5 cans of condensed soup
random pasta
2 shakers of popcorn flavoring
To the Trash:
1 jar each of chicken and beef bullion cubes
1 jar of opened jelly
1/2 a ramen package
2 open salad dressings
1/2 bottle of Worcestershire sauce
1/2 shaker of sprinkles
1/2 large jar of banana peppers
The two things I don't if I can bear to throw away is most of a bottle of white cooking wine (who knew it had preservatives in it) and what's left of our soda stash. The soda I am keeping for hubby and it's better than normal soda because at least it's made with real sugar instead of HFCS. Just last week I cut out caffeine so I will not be having any more of it myself. If I can get him to agree not to drink soda at work, I won't care of he has a soda once or twice a week from our stash. Plus we can keep it for company.
I feel good about this, although I am a little apprehensive about this final big change.
What do you think? Did you go through a cupboard cleansing to eliminate bad ingredients from your house? Was it hard to throw away so much money?
I am trying to upgrade our pantry for health's sake as well, but as food waste kills me slowly, we are eating our way through the stuff now on my no-no list. I figure we've been eating it thus far so it won't kill us, but I do feel RELIEF every time we use the last of, say, a cereal that wasn't organic, etc.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my blog! Stay a while. :)
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel. I really struggled with my decision to throw so much away. I was able to give away a lot of it to my brother, which helps, but yeah, it's hard to waste so much. I had to tell myself that it was a one-time thing and that from now on, I'm just not going to let any of that stuff in my apartment.
And I can completely relate to the relief / joy when I can replace something with a much healthier version.