The Day I Realized I Have Pantry Gluttony

After my bone marrow transplant, I was having some major gut issues. It was hard to know what was causing what, but I was and still am, fairly limited on what I can take to help heal the gut. I tried all sorts of foods (that was really my only option), and even went dairy and gluten free for awhile, to see if that would help. The problem is that I am on so many preventative medications and also heart meds, that this too, didn’t help. It got to the point that a colonoscopy and endoscopy was needed to ensure I didn’t have GVHD (graft versus host disease), where my cells fight my donors. Thankfully nothing was blatantly GVHD, but the problems were still there. Some inflammation in the esophagus, but nothing major, which was a GOOD thing. And as time moved on, things improved, even after stopping the crazy diets and eliminations of certain foods. The gut still has some healing to do, but we are making progress!

Needless to say, we have a WIDE variety of foods in our pantry. Over the past year or so, I’ve been working to provide better snack options for our family and trying to eat healthier, but we are a moderation family. And probably always will be.

The thing is, we can be an “everything in moderation” family, but when I started to buy all of these “different” foods, our cupboards exploded to the point where we had pantry gluttony.

Often we associate gluttony with food, like excessively eating or over-indulging, but I think gluttony can go beyond eating, to the point of just being greedy or having something in unnecessary abundance. That’s why I claim our cupboards to have pantry gluttony and I have no one to blame but myself.

How often do you buy ingredients for a meal you intend to make, but never do? Or you saw a deal on a specific item so you bought multiple? Or it was a buy 5/$5, but you had to buy 5 to get the deal, yet you haven’t even used 1?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think our cupboards should be empty. There is something to be said about having things on hand for when people come over, to prevent having to go grocery shopping 5x a week, or capitalizing on that deal. Everything in moderation.

But when I look at our pantry and cupboards, I’ve gotta do something about it. It’s time. So I am challenging myself to do a pantry clean-out, in attempt to use up what we have, so that what we do have, has purpose, a use, and will eventually be used. Plus, when I have pantry gluttony, I don’t realize what we have. I don’t think I needed to buy that jar of peanut butter because I already had two. Sheesh.

Maybe you don’t have pantry gluttony like we do, but maybe it’s your refrigerator or freezer that is overstocked. This week I stared at our pantry/freezer/refrigerator, and wrote down all the meals I could make, using the items in our house. Ashamedly, I came up with quite a list. I’ll have to get some perishable items to complete the meal, but it’s a start.

Are you ready to join me?