It’s mid-January and we’re curious about how your New Year’s resolutions are going! If you committed yourself to going to the gym more often, are you still going? If you were committed to eating more fruits and vegetables this year, is your kitchen reflective of it?

In this week’s blog, walk through a simple exercise to take inventory of what’s in your kitchen, and start sweeping up to keep up with your healthy habit resolutions.

First up, take a walk through your entire kitchen to simply make observations. Open up your cabinets, pantry, freezer and refrigerator. What are the items and foods you see?

• Are your cabinets filled with durable cookware for preparing home cooked meals?
• Is your pantry full of boxed snacks, canned foods and packaged goods?
• Does your refrigerator store fresh produce, meat, and other healthy options?
• Are there items that should be tossed: old containers, souvenir mugs that go unused, expired condiments, or stale, freezer burned or rotten foods?

Next, start a “throw away” box or container for some of these items that can be tossed: from old, unusable containers to expired foods–it’s time to declutter from them! Take about 20-40 minutes doing this.

Then, evaluate your satisfaction, on a scale from 1-10, 10 being completely satisfied and happy, with the items you have remaining in your kitchen: the cookware, Tupperware, foods, snacks, beverages.

• Why did you rate your level of un/satisfaction the way you did?
• How do you think your satisfaction level is impacting your (and your family’s) health?
• What could you do to improve the satisfaction of your kitchen inventory?
• What is one action step you can take right now to move you closer to a 10?

Here are some example action steps:

• Buy new glass Tupperware and cookware for newly home-cooked recipes!
• Use up fresh produce within 1 week of purchase date or sooner – create stir frys, veggie omelettes, fajita bowls, egg roll in a bowl recipes with leftover veggies, smoothies, parfaits or fruit salad mini bowls for leftover fruits
• Limit the amount of processed or packaged goods to the bare minimum
• Research and purchase condiments or sauces that have no added sugars

Stay tuned for the next blog post on how to be a meal prep ninja and prepare meals for the week in 30 minutes or less.