If you’re looking for new ways to go green around your home, turn to your pantry. There are so many places in the kitchen to be more eco-friendly such as your storage, cleaning supplies and even the very food that you stock on those shelves. Even the smallest changes can have a huge impact on your carbon footprint
Here are some ways to have a greener pantry:
Stock whole foods- When shopping for your pantry, go for the whole foods. You want to stock up as much as you can on foods that are not processed such as root vegetables, nuts and dried fruit. You can also use some minimally processed foods such as pasta. Anything that has little to no packaging is going to be more eco friendly and great for your pantry. Foods with short ingredient lists and lists of ingredients that you recognize are generally good food choices.
Foods that have a lot of preservatives, ingredients on the label that you can’t recognize or pronounce and lots of processed foods and artificial colors are not good for the green pantry. Try to reduce or limit them in your kitchen.
Avoid plastic storage containers- You’re going to need containers to store things in your kitchen pantry but you want to avoid plastic. Although it is cheap and lightweight, plastic also has a tendency to leach chemicals that can be damaging to your health. If you do keep any plastics around, avoid microwaving them and be sure to throw them out at the first sign of wear and tear because leaching is more likely to occur.
Instead, try to use nontoxic food storage containers in your pantry. Glass, ceramic and stainless steel is preferred over plastic. The good thing about these containers is that you can move them from storage to the fridge to cooking or microwaving and more. This makes it easier to work around in your kitchen and less cleaning for you.
Watch the canned foods -Most everyone has canned foods in the kitchen and most likely, you do as well. However, if you want to have a greener kitchen, you want to cut back the canned foods as much as you can. Just like plastics, cans can leach chemicals into your foods over time. You can reduce your exposure to these chemicals by reducing or completely removing the canned foods in your pantry. If you cannot do your own canning, you may want to purchase a few for emergency planning but don’t go overboard on them and save them for emergencies rather than eating from them on a regular basis.
These are just three simple tips to start you on your way to a greener pantry. In time, you learn more ways to live more eco friendly in all rooms of your house, the kitchen included. These are practical living tips you can pass on to your children as well.