What does your pantry say about you?

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Humans are biologically programmed to want more. This idea rings true throughout many aspects of life and home, including the pantry. If you were to open your pantry doors and take an inventory of what’s inside, what might you discover?

You might learn you have a tendency to purchase canned vegetables in bulk when they’re on sale, and they sit on your pantry for weeks (or months or years) because there’s no plan to eat them. You might learn you should check your pantry before buying pasta because you don’t need seven half-opened boxes of dried noodles. You might learn, for all of your good intentions, the cans of peeled tomatoes you bought to make pasta sauce from scratch have lived in the pantry for the past 3 years and 7 months. You might discover bags of dried beans you planned to soak and cook yourself instead of buying canned beans because it’s cheaper to do it yourself. And these bags of beans are sitting right next to five unopened cans of beans. And, oh yeah, nobody even likes creamed corn, but yet three cans sit on the shelf.

This insight, my friends, is so valuable. It shows our disconnect between what we WANT to do and what we ACTUALLY do. 

We WANT to save money so we purchase more because each item costs less when we buy in bulk. But are we truly saving money if we’re tossing out expired cans of lima beans?

We WANT to make things from scratch because food tastes better when we know what’s in it and because we want to show our family how much we love them. But the recipe takes hours to prepare.

We WANT to make that fabulous spinach artichoke dip to bring to our neighbor’s holiday party. But we pick up a pre-made party platter from Publix because we just don’t have the time.

So, my sweet friends, what does your pantry say about you? I encourage you to ask.