Welcome, February! It’s the first day of the 28-day Real Food Challenge, and Jenny over at Nourished Kitchen has given me quite a challenge, indeed! Of course we would start with cleaning out the pantry. It only makes sense. Here’s a photo of my pantry right now:

As you can see, there are some very definite “contraband” items there. Lots and lots of storebought bread. Organic cane sugar. Crackers. CRACKERS?? Yup, this is the ugly truth. I didn’t even straighten the shelves before taking the photo. Five hungry kids can do a number on an organized pantry in about 30 seconds anyway.

But here’s the thing: we live in the part of the country recently paralyzed by a snow storm. We are just now (three days later) able leave the house because of ice on the streets. We were warned that power outages were extremely likely, and this is an all-electric house. I have NO alternate cooking sources, so I had to plan some foods that we could eat which would not require cooking. I planned very carefully, cooked ahead with all the advanced notice I received, and then bought some emergency food like bread and crackers. The crackers will go downstairs to our emergency food shelves in the garage where, I’m sure, they will live happily for many years, or until the next time the power goes out. (Or until I figure out how to make hardtack for long-term emergency storage.)

See the cereal there on the top shelf? That’s my husband’s cereal. He will not part with it and I’d be risking banishment to outer darkness to even suggest it again. Yes, we’ve made homemade granola. Yes, even soaked granola. It all gives him horrible digestive problems. Boxed cereal doesn’t. And being an insomniac, he relies on boxed cereal if he gets hungry at 2AM. Yes, I’ve read about the horrible things they do to the grains and how extruded cereals are awful and all that. I buy the best cereal I can find, lowest sugar, no preservatives, organic, etc. but it’s non-negotiable. It’s also the #1 reason he probably won’t go grain-free.

I need some sugar to make water kefir, so I’ll box, label and store the small supply I require on an inaccessible shelf. But I’m not willing to sacrifice the strides we’ve made with our allergies by doing without kefir right now.

What I will do, though, is move “his” sugar and “his” cereal all up on the top shelf and then put a sign on that shelf that those of us participating in the challenge may not eat anything on this shelf. I’m sure hubby will enjoy having “his” food all to himself!

Another of the challenges is to throw away any pantry item with more than one ingredient. Sorry, but I’m NOT tossing my fish sauce! It’s a recipe from Nourishing Traditions, so I call “exempt” on that one. Other than that, I think I’m okay. I’ll check in again next Monday with how I did through the week on this challenge.

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