We Did A Pantry Clean Out Challenge - Here's What Happened

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Amidst the chaos of the global pandemic—with the uncertainty and safety of public places under question—we found ourselves less likely than normal to venture out for routine grocery trips. Both my husband and I had prided ourselves on being relative food minimalists, that is, we went to to the grocery store 2-3 times per week to stock up on staples and fresh meat and produce. We ate out occasionally each week. We didn’t keep surplus in pantry cabinets.

However, with a grocery trip now requiring a bit more forethought and intent, we decided it was the perfect time to avoid any unnecessary grocery trips and try a pantry clean out challenge—here’s what happened.

What is a Pantry Clean Out Challenge?

It goes by many names: empty fridge challenge, pantry purge, pantry freeze. Simply put: how long can you go without grocery shopping? Could you go for a 30-day no grocery freeze?

We decided to put this idea to the test — how long could we go?

Here are some of our favorite pantry challenge tips:

Start by Organizing What You Have

How much food do you currently have in your pantry? Is it mostly canned goods, boxed items, or frozen foods? Is any of the food expired?

Start first by pulling the items out of your pantry and organizing each item. If you prefer spreadsheets, create a checklist or an inventory of every item that you currently have in your pantry.

If your pantry area is disorganized, a food clean out is a great time to invest in pantry organization items that make seeing and storing food items much easier.

Read More: 10 Fridge Organization Hacks To Maximize Use

Throw out expired food stuffs, but make sure to note which items weren’t used in your pantry! Differentiate between the products that spoiled because they were simply forgotten or which products you didn’t use because you didn’t enjoy. You want to make sure that you don’t end up purchasing those items again.

Surprisingly, we had very little food that was expired. Anything that we threw out was a result of party leftovers or the occasional "where did that come from?” However, we were immediately struck by how much food we actually had, when we often thought we were being so careful to not keep excess in our home.

Use What You Have

The hallmark of the pantry clean out challenge is simple: use what you have.

In many cases, a fresh outlook on the supplies in your pantry allows you to rediscover old recipes with ingredients that you might have otherwise forgotten.

Cleaning out your kitchen is also an easy way to create a healthy pantry going forward. Many canned and processed pantry food items have high levels of additives and preservatives to keep them shelf stable for long periods of time. Clearing out these items frees up space to incorporate more healthy food items into your weekly meal plans.

Get Creative With Meal Planning

One of the best parts of a pantry purge are the recipes. This is a great time to get creative and expand your horizons beyond your usual meal prep.

Constantly creating healthy meal ideas can feel mundane and boring. After all, boredom eating and restriction are two of the main reasons people are not successful in dieting or continuing to eat healthy. Being “too busy” to devote to a healthy lifestyle is also listed as a culprit. Many choose, instead, less than ideal takeout choices for convenience.

What worked well for us was picking 1-2 ingredients that we wanted to use in a recipe. There are fantastic websites, such as SuperCook, that allow you to plug in ingredients and come up with quick and easy recipes that help you clean out your pantry and eat healthy at the same time.

I also thoroughly enjoy recipe creation and this was the perfect time for me to use up many of our baking ingredients from the pantry in nontraditional ways. A leftover bag of almond flour from a failed paleo pumpkin pie attempt at Thanksgiving became a delicious gluten-free chocolate cake.

We also experimented with a variety of “trashcan” style recipes, where we created bowls and breakfast bars simply by combining various leftover ingredients.

Read More: Healthy Baked Almond Butter Bars

Identify Waste

Perhaps one of the biggest ways that you can benefit from cleaning out your pantry is identifying what products are frequently going to waste. It is also a great way to target the lesser used items in your pantry that may have gotten pushed to the back.

If you had pantry waste from expiration, could you switch to buying frozen options instead to prolong their usability? If you were buying cereal in bulk and it was going stale, could you switch to a smaller option?

Ask yourself: Do you ultimately use these products? Do they end up getting thrown out or donated? In what ways could you address your future grocery trips?

For us, we realized that the vast majority of our pantry “leftovers” were underutilized bulk goods, so by placing these items—such as oatmeals and rice—in clear, glass containers in our kitchen we were more likely to incorporate them into our daily meals.

Save Money on Groceries

Of course, if you are eating from your pantry with healthy, creative recipes, you are saving money from simply going to the grocery store less. But the cost savings goes beyond a 30-day window. Now that you have had a chance to properly organize and store your food, as well as track your household’s consumption, can you create a new grocery list that is full of items that you know your family loves and enjoys? Not only does having a more comprehensive list make grocery trips faster and easier, but it prevents you from spending extra money on groceries that you may not need.

Have you tried a pantry clean out?