Right now, I have a beautiful Ball jar filled with dried cranberries, which looks great and makes me “feel” organized. Too bad they have 30 grams of sugar per serving. That’s close to 8 sugar cubes! I would never eat 8 sugar cubes, ever, let alone in one sitting! They came in a bag with a lush illustration of fresh cranberries, designed to make me think of nature, energy, and health, and to distract me from the fact that it’s basically candy. (Marketers can be evil geniuses.)
When we organize our pantry to prioritize what looks good, we might be undermining our efforts to eat what is good. Having a ROYGBIV pantry might be pretty on Instagram, but it’s a net loss if it nudges you to buy a ton of Swedish Fish and Cheez-its.
Michael Pollan has the simplest nutrition plan in the world: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. He expands on this manifesto in his book, Food Rules, which is a slim and worthwhile read. One of his many great ideas is to avoid food that comes with complicated packaging- the very foods we typically store in pantries.
The plants we should all be eating more of typically don’t come in colorful boxes or crinkly bags. They are “use it or lose it” foods that will spoil if left uneaten, because they are fresh and nutritious. They belong in the fridge, or left out in a bowl on the counter, to encourage us to reach for them first.
Some foods that technically come from plants are actually quite processed, like the chips, pretzels, cereals, pastas, white flours, etc that have a long shelf life and look so beautiful when they’re decanted into clear acrylic drawers or OXO containers. Despite dressing like a mime, I'm not against having lots of color in your home. But color-coding our Doritos bags does not make them good for us.
Our pantries should be organized, functional, streamlined spaces considering how frequently we have to retrieve things from within them. People with organized pantries, and kitchens in general, tend to enjoy cooking at home more often, saving money and eating healthier.
But instead of fussing over our perfect pantry, we should ROYGBIV the produce in our fridge. Eating fresh plants from across the color spectrum is an easy way to get the nutrition we need. We don’t need snacks, or supplements, or meal replacement shakes, or expensive cleanses stored in our pantry. We just need real food, not too much, mostly plants.
So I’m going to use up these darn craisins, judiciously, in very green salads with spinach and more-than-the-recommended-daily-amount of goat cheese from my fridge, and oil and vinegar from my pantry.
And then, I’ll fill the jar with plain, brown, boring, nutritious almonds, or wild rice, or whatever other plant that’s actually recognizable as a plant. (Good thing I don’t bother to label.)