Remember 1992?  Baby Got Back and I’m Too Sexy were at the top of the music charts, flannel shirts and black legging were closet staples, but do you remember what you were eating?

I was eating bagels.

Bagels with cream cheese, bagel sandwiches, bagel bites, bagel chips. My steady diet of bagels was reminiscent of Bubba Gump’s Shrimp directory.

In the 90’s, the world was a wonderful place where cupcakes were a nutritious breakfast (some people called them “muffins”), and fro-yo was a totally acceptable lunch. In 1992, The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Guide Pyramid had carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates like breads, pasta, rice, and cereals, as the most important part of our daily diet. We were instructed to eat 6 to 11 servings  A. DAY.  Insane, right?  I mean, I’d love to down a carton of bagel bites while watching Reality Bites on the couch right now, but my bloated stomach would never get off that couch.

As you know, turmeric in America is really having a moment. A very extended, aggressive, wellnessy moment. In fact, it might finally be waning on the trend cycle, but for us, it’s an ingredient we will champion long after the internet tires of it as the newest “it” fad.  

Snack. 

The word itself gets you excited, no? I think we all perk up imagining grabbing exactly what we want, to eat anywhere we want. Another pleasure field, the charcuterie board or a wedding buffet. The freedom of picking and choosing exactly what I want to nosh on, with no formal dinner time rules or table manners is near orgasmic. Me, just sitting on my kitchen counter, nibbling on a few things in peace, thrills me beyond belief.

I am not alone in this.

What if I told you I was coming over in 5 minutes to take photos of your pantry and fridge? Are you beaming with pride of your Pinterest worthy kitchen or is the blood building in your face because it’s looks more like an abandoned, crack house?

As a health and cooking coach, I’ve looked into plenty of pantries and most of the kitchens have the same, common issues:

• Chaotic mess of expired items- old cans, boxes and packages of food like substances. Wheat Thins are not food in case there is some confusion on the subject.

• Overstocked Fridge- the refrigerators are always overfilled, not only making the food hard to see, but not as cold or fresh as long either

• Excess of everything- we just don’t need that much stuff. We don’t use it all and it goes to waste. For some reason we’ve been led to believe we need every inch of the fridge and pantry occupied to feel like we have food.

I detoxed and restocked my kitchen over a decade ago, and it helped change the way I cook and eat. There is no doubt most of us don’t have the expertly organized, healthy ingredient pantries, but if we did, it would change our health and our lives. Not an overstatement.  Decanting is one way we can dramatically change the way your kitchen looks and feels.

Acai, Goji, Maca, Spirulina, Moringa, Camu Camu…the list keeps growing of foods we’ve never heard of that we’re told we must eat to be healthy. Where did these come from? Are these foods actually super? Do they have superpowers to reduce my crow’s feet, because I’ll Amazon subscription that shit. right. now.

These superfoods are trending big time and not just on Twitter. Every juice bar and froyo joint has acai plastered all over its menu. But what makes superfoods worthy of the SUPER title? Health experts define superfoods as a food that is highly nutrient dense. Meaning, these food provides a substantial amount of nutrients in very few calories. Example, you’d have to eat like ten oranges to get the amount of vitamin C in one teaspoon of camu camu powder. So, it’s superpowered, sure.

As we all know, a perfectly decanted kitchen is what happiness is made of. A glittering, glimmering collection of vessels and jars and bins in your kitchen and pantry is a visual nirvana matched only by a meticulously color-coded refrigerator, bursting at the seams with a rainbow of farmer’s market produce. 

(Instagram has reeeeeeally done a number on us.)

However! The truth is, decanting can help you change how you feel in the kitchen, create amazing efficiencies for dinner and snack time, and even help reduce your calorie intake - in fact I wrote about that right HERE. (link to other decanting post)

But first you need gloriously easy to find, effective, cheap, MOSTLY AMAZON containers to begin this perfectly decanted life you seek.

Are you more of a Postmates your favorite chopped salad, or a throw together a lame salad and then Postmates a burger 30 minutes later? Maybe you’re thinking, a healthy homemade salad can only give you drool worthy, satisfaction if it has bacon and blue cheese on it. But I’m here to tell you, you don’t need it. I can feel your eye roll, but just hear me out.

Your homemade salad sucks because of these reasons.

1. Your salad is basic. It’s basic and bland because you’re buying same basic ass romaine and out of season tomatoes you’ve been grabbing since your health kick sophomore year in college.

Everyone’s sliding into my DMs with this FAQ: What protein powder should I buy? 

First of all, since when did all of us basic bitches need protein powder?  Are we body builders for Muscle and Fitness magazine now? Maybe you’ve noticed the enormous jugs of protein powders lining the shelves of Kroger, and not just the Vitamin Depot anymore.  But it seems to me we’re in a bit of a CrossFit rabbit hole, and maybe we just need a reasonable amount of protein to stay healthy, grow our cells, and maybe a tad more if we’re super active or breastfeeding. More on that here.

So, to answer that FAQ? You don’t need a protein powder.

Here’s why.

Making and packing the lunchbox. This chore is on the top of most parent’s hate list. That everyday task that’s cutting into your precious (hot) coffee drinking time, with the looming pressure that this lunchbox has to hit all the “supermom” marks. And by marks I mean, it has to be in cute shapes and cut outs that get them excited to eat, packed in a sustainable container, include a vegetable or two, be nut free, maybe even dairy free, oh and foods your kid might actually eat while sitting through a highly distracted, 20 minute lunch rush.  It’s amazing they get any food down without chocking, to be honest. 

I was tired of this task even before lunchboxes existed for my kids. My kids were just in preschool and once they started having opinions about what goes in their little snack box, I said great, you can help pack it. Some people were appalled when I said my kids filled their boxes. How did you get them to do it? Well first, as I just mentioned, I asked them. Did they just fill it with cookies? No, but I’m sure they wanted to. 

Do you know how many times I have told my kid to “Just try it!”. I know you know, because you’ve said it a thousand times too.  We’ve pressured, and bribed and read every article on how to politely and kindly and not too traumatically, coerce our kids into anything besides bread or crackers or pasta and butter.

This is the never ending game we play three plus times a day with our kids, and we want to win. Bad. We’ll do anything.  We’ll play dirty too. We’ll think by adding spinach to those morning muffins they won’t notice. Rooky move. They have us right where they want us too, because they have no plans of eating our food trickery. They also know that with every “No, I don’t like them,'' they're one step closer to getting that toast. They know that our exhaustion and frustration from making another failed, healthy meal attempt is slowly deteriorating our brains cells and negotiating neurons. 

We can’t give up though, we want to win. We want to feel that we are doing our kids well, keeping them healthy, giving them good habits, but more importantly, we want that super parent trophy.  And by trophy, I mean we want the other parents to see us out to dinner with our kids, sitting quietly, not on their ipads, eating vegetables and a real entree meal. Not the nuggets or butter pasta off the kiddie menu. No. We want envy of all the other parents when our kids takes down that baked fish and those steamed vegetables as if it's covered in melted chocolate.

But you know what? It’s time we give it a rest. I had to. I’m even a health coach, and I had to wave my white flag and tap out.