Monday, October 11, 2010

Cleaning out your pantry

Its approaching that time of year again when you start to see charities collect food for families in need for the upcoming holidays.  This year, I suggest you take a look into your pantry and think about what you can donate - but instead of giving away your can of beans, soup, and box of pasta and then replacing it - make it a challenge to be healthier and remove the package food that you know is not making you healthier from your repertoire for good. 

After you have made the commitment to change your food, to eat cleaner and healthier, you've probably noticed that when you're hungry you're reaching for something in the fridge or on the counter verses stored in a package in a cabinet in your kitchen.  So take the opportunity this season to say goodbye to all of the package foods that are sitting in your cabinets tempting you, and donate it to a local food drive.  If you don't have it around, then you are less likely to eat package foods.  I recently made a donation of pasta, pasta sauce, canned soups, canned beans, rice packets, and about 20 gluten containing bars to a local food charity in the Philadelphia area.  I am sad that food drives can only accept non-perishable packaged foods (which tend to make them unhealthy) but I was happy that I was able to give the food to someone instead of throwing it away.  Make cleaning out your pantry part of your commitment to becoming a healthier person or family today.

2 comments:

  1. Laura,
    I've given up eating carbs for several years now, first reducing carbs by eliminating all high glycemic carbs like cookies, crackers, chips, rice and breads and pasta, then almost totally eliminating them. So what am I eating instead? Lots more meats and fruits and vegetables.
    But, then I got worried, what is eating so much more protein doing to my cholesteral? Luckily, I have 5 years of lab tests on file to review. Five years ago, my total cholesteral was around 220. Over the years it has been dropping, low 200s, 190, 180's and last month 171. So I am making this as a challenge to all your readers, track your own numbers, change the way you eat - watch the good results on your total cholesteral.

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  2. @Friede the fear of cholesterol rising is a common concern, especially since there is a misconception that dietary cholesterol is directly related to blood cholesterol (which is not true - more information to come in a future blog post). In fact with the reduction of grains from your diet you should see a reduction in triglycerides as well because triglycerides are directly impacted by the amount of dietary carbohydrate so, the higher your carbohydrate consumption the higher your triglyceride number.

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