3 slow pantry changes to support long-term health

Stacking small changes amplifies nutritional benefits and is tied to improved wellbeing.

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I don’t think anyone gets up on any given day and feels like they’ve reached health nirvana. We always have some area to adjust to improve immunity, hormone support, or general nutrition. We can always improve sleep, whether how much or the quality. We can always learn how to best support immediate women’s health needs or life stages, from fertility to menopause. Health is life and it’s a journey. Sometimes that looks like routine rest stops, camping a little gritty in the outdoors, or checking into the Four Seasons. One might be moving from processed foods to whole foods, buying at a grocery store to local farmers’ markets, or swapping certain cooking oils for others. We’re all on a different journey. The main pillar of this blog is helping to support others in designing life around their values, so all of our pantries will reflect the variations in those values.

Health care or sick care

Food choices generally boil down to time, expense, and preference. On this health road trip metaphor, we could be running out of fuel and in crisis mode looking for the next station regardless of the price, or maybe we’re keeping the tank half full so that we can keep stress down and find the next fill-up when the price is right. Sometimes it’s not just getting fed, but the stressors of finding and prepping our own fuel. It becomes part of our lifestyle and contributes to our personal health and self-care. I heard someone say on a podcast recently that we don’t have a health care system, we have a sick care system. Maybe we could start to flip our perspective from food shopping to health shopping—or are we sick shopping?

If we start to flip the narrative, we can stack small changes in ingredient selection, cooking styles, and food sourcing to amplify nutritional benefits without feeling like we’re detouring from our usual “commute.” Layers of small adjustments have a cascading cumulative effect. It can help us move farther along in the direction each of us prefers to head with (hopefully) fewer breakdowns or flat tires.

Photo by Steven Ungermann on Unsplash

More food choices linked to greater wellbeing

Last year Gallup shared insights from the Ando Foundation/Nissin Food Products Global Study, which found that people who have food choices were 1.45 times more likely to have higher wellbeing, and people who enjoyed their food were 1.29 times more likely to have higher wellbeing. The study concluded with an “urgent need” for food variety and access to improve wellbeing on a global scale. We control our home pantries and can lean on this data to help improve wellbeing from the heart of our homes.

The intersection of food and wellbeing can also be traced back to soil. The Rodale Institute launched the Regenerative Healthcare Conference a few years ago. The event brings health care practitioners and soil scientists together to learn about the impacts of soil health on our own personal health. Understanding these connections can help others make decisions about how to source their food.

3 slow pantry changes

1. Maybe it’s not subtracting, it’s adding – Instead of thinking about what to replace or remove from you’re your pantry, think about what to add. Additions can help add diversity to our diets, which could help improve our microbiome and overall immunity. According to the food and wellbeing research released from Gallup, “Having a choice in the types of food one eats is important for several reasons, including that maintaining a diverse diet is a critical step toward having a healthy one.”
   Options: Incorporating chia seeds into existing recipes doesn’t considerably impact flavor or consistency, and it packs important nutrients, omega-3 fatty acids, and fiber. When making meatballs, add a tablespoon or two of chia seeds to the ground meat. Baking bread? Add ¼ cup of nutritional yeast for important B vitamins when mixing the dough. Make your own “liver sprinkles” or buy pre-made blends to sprinkle in tacos and other dishes. Each of these additions doesn’t sacrifice routine or flavor and provides more nutritional support in your existing dishes.

2. Take an inventory – Are there certain things in your pantry you want to consume less of or more of? This could be based on ingredient or source. Use what you have or remove it if it’s something you’re prioritizing to avoid.
   Options: Switching to olive oil or coconut oil instead of corn or grapeseed oil. This doesn’t really change your day-to-day cooking and helps reduce exposure to industrial seed oils. Swap bleached all-purpose flour from a big box store with unbleached flour from a regional miller. Or order wheat berries and grind your own flour when you need it for greater fiber and nutrients. Picking up beef or other meats at the grocer, but ready to shift to supporting a local farm? Check out local farmers’ markets in your area to see if you can buy in bulk or get deliveries of grass-fed meats, pastured pork, and other items. This is another adjustment that doesn’t sacrifice your day-to-day cooking lifestyle once your inventory is in place.

3. Pick one thing at a time – Maybe it’s one ingredient, cooking method, or kitchenware piece per year—and at another time of your life it’s one thing per month. The focus is on slow changes, not rapid-fire daily swaps that will break routines or cause deprivation.
   Options: Swap conventional table salt with a variety of cooking salts. While trendy Himalayan pink salt seems to get all of the attention, I’ve personally enjoyed cooking with Cyprus salt more. I sourced mine from Mountain Rose Herbs, but it appears they don’t carry it anymore. They do have a wide selection of other gourmet salts though. Aside from foods, replace non-stick cookware with stainless steel or cast iron. I struggle with the weight of cast iron, so I opt for smaller cast iron skillets, then have larger pans in stainless steel.

My current focus for a slow pantry change: quality olive oil. I’ve been reading a lot and listening to podcasts about olive oil and how it’s produced. Several of the companies that I’d like to support have subscription services, which I’m personally averse to. I prefer to buy what I need when I need it rather than have it on auto-delivery. I found a few farms that offer olive oil by the bottle and I’ve narrowed down my list, so I hope to move forward with a purchase soon. After this change, my next focus will be sourcing local or regional pastured butter.

I know we were rolling with the road trip metaphor, but I’ll leave you with a non-motorized one. I think of these small changes like a walking habit. I try to walk a mile (usually two) most days. On the days that I almost skip my walk I think of how that will feel at the end of the year. If I skipped a handful of days each month, that’s about 50 miles at the end of the year that I wouldn’t have walked. Under this slow pantry lens, I’d be 50 miles farther away from where I had hoped to be. Those steps add up and let’s keep putting one foot in front of the other.