Many pantries around America are full of processed junk and low-micronutrient foods, making it no surprise that thirty percent of the American population is overweight and forty percent suffer from obesity. Being overweight and obese for too long significantly decreases your life expectancy or leads to lifelong and chronic illnesses. This makes it harder to live your life to your fullest potential. The best way to prevent yourself from overindulging in these foods is to not purchase or be around them.
I know that it is easier said than done so here are eight pantry swaps to make this year without noticing too much of a difference in your meals, but for a big difference in your health.
Sugar
According to Healthline, “Refined sugars may increase your risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. They’re also linked to a higher likelihood of depression, dementia, liver disease, and certain types of cancer.”
Honey, maple syrup, blackstrap molasses, sucanat, turbinado, and date paste are great options instead of highly refined sugar. Remember that the fewer times you give in to your sweet tooth, the sweeter fruit will taste to you, so the less you’ll be tempted by things that don’t offer any nutritional value, like processed sugar.
Just a side note when stocking your pantry with prepackaged items, sugar is in many of these items. Even items that you wouldn’t suspect, like organic spaghetti sauce, have refined sugar in them and it is hard to find any without it. My point here is to read the labels of the food that you buy. Decide what works for you and what doesn’t work based on knowledge without assuming something is healthy.
Breadcrumbs
Whole-wheat panko, corn starch, potato starch, oats, and oat flour -- and in some cases, depending on your goals, even parmesan cheese can substitute for breadcrumbs in a recipe. But, of course, what to use for your replacement depends on the reason for the ingredient in the first place. Although, as a binder, you can use a lot of options, as a thickening agent, it may need to be something else.
Salt
Did you know that we need salt, along with other minerals, in our diet to support normal cellular, muscular, and nerve functions? It’s true! Sadly most Americans eat more salt than they should, according to American Heart Association. This can put you at risk for many health problems including heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, kidney stones, and more.
You should eat a low-sodium diet but when you do use salt, what kind should it be? According to Dr. Axe, many salt alternatives are loaded with unhealthy ingredients, MSG (monosodium glutamate) being one of them. The best option to stock your pantry with is real Himalayan sea salt.
If you are wanting to lower your salt intake there are many alternatives to salt, such as lemon juice, garlic, or dill to flavor your food. It depends on the entire recipe. For example, if you are making soup, it’s probably not that important to salt the food until the end, while if you’re making a roast, it’s more important to use salt during the cooking process.
Here is an option for seasoning your food, No Chicken Seasoning. This recipe calls for Himalayan sea salt and by making this DIY seasoning, you can control the amount of salt you want. This is great to use even if you aren’t vegetarian or vegan. This makes a good size batch that you can store in your pantry.
Flour
Using all-purpose bleached flour is never a healthy option, but here are a few good things to replace it with. Beans, or nut powders, can be good substitutes for flour depending on what you plan to make or the point of the addition. For example, if you need flour to thicken a stew, you can easily puree a few of the veggies instead, but if you need flour to provide browning, you may want to use a different option.
If you need flour for baking, my favorite option is Organic Hard White Wheat Berries. I grind the berries that I need in my VitaMix to make fresh flour. After wheat berries are milled to flour they lose most of their food value in 5 days! For this reason, I like to use freshly milled flour. I use this flour for most of my baking needs including bread making. Nothing fills the house with wonderful smells better than homemade bread. These berries make the closest thing to regular all-purpose flour that you buy in the store that I have found and it doesn’t get more whole grain than this.
If you need pastry flour try Organic Soft White Wheat Berries to mill. These berries have less gluten content making them a perfect whole-grain pastry flour.
White or Brown Rice
While you can enjoy white and brown rice in a healthy diet, understanding how many choices you have when adding flavorful and nutritious grains to your diet is important. For example, adding quinoa, orzo, barley, or even chopped cabbage in place of your normal rice dish will increase the nutrition exponentially.
Salad Dressings
Getting creative with your salad dressings is fun and simple. Just think about the flavors you’re looking for and use a good sub. Different kinds of vinegar, citrus, other fresh fruit juices, herbs, and aromatics are always good choices, and then it’s your choice what type of fat if any, you add using seeds, nuts, or other extracts.
Refined Oils
The truth about refined oils is that they’re all highly processed. Whether it’s olive oil or coconut oil, it takes a lot to get the oil from these plants. So limiting anything processed is always a good idea. But instead of substituting with fake ingredients, always seek to replace or lower the amount to just what is needed to get the best results.
Peanut Butter
Homemade nut butter that you make yourself when you need to use them will always be superior. To make homemade nut butter, all you have to do is blend the nuts in your high-speed blender. You can choose lower-fat nuts like cashews while saving money and calories when you make your own.
Two important tips when making your nut butter:
You must use a high-powered blender- Most blenders just don’t cut it when making nut butter. It needs to be ground fine enough that the natural oils are released.
Make small batches at a time- If your batches are too large, even a high-powered blender might be unable to get the job done. Also, this process releases the natural oils in the nuts, and depending on what nut you are using it could have a very short shelf life. In other words, the oil from the nuts can go bad quickly.
Look through your pantry to see if you need to swap any ingredients out for these healthier alternatives. Making the switch will give you the tools to make healthier choices daily without stress. The idea is to use the “out of sight, out of mind” approach. If you fill your pantry full of healthy options, you won’t be able to make bad decisions in the first place.
Also, remember to take baby steps to a healthier you. If you are trying to eat healthier but are becoming overwhelmed and stressed because of it, slow down and make those important healthy swaps one at a time. Long-term success is the goal; if you are too overwhelmed, you might give up. Make sure you celebrate each small victory! I’m proud of you for each one of those small victories to a healthier you!
What is one healthy pantry swap that is a “must-have” in your pantry?
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