DH and I cleaned out our kitchen pantry!!!

I go through all my cans when the kids have a canned food drives for school (around thanksgiving and before spring break). Once they are done with school, I doubt I’ll be on top of it.

I saw the title and thought...did I write this? We did the same thing this week. Our pantry wasn't filled with expired food, more like expired "stuff".
So..HE said, we are not throwing anything out.
SHE said, let's pretend we are moving and if we haven't used it in 5 years, garbage it.
Yes, we are still talking, lol. Figure it was a tie. He kept a lot of crap we don't need ( a wok we haven't used in years, lots of refillable water bottles, how many do we need? Etc).
But we filled a huge garbage bag. And the pantry looks so much better.

I’m better about this than I used to be after cleaning out MIL’s condo after she died. OMG, some of her canned goods had to be over 15 years old which meant she MOVED some of it there roughly ten years after it had expired. Some stuff was so old there wasn’t even a date on the can! 

I go go through the crackers and cereal cabinet about every 2-3 months or so, and anything remotely stale goes out into the chicken coop for the chickens. They don’t care if it’s stale, they gobble it all up. 

A friend of ours lives in her parent’s former home and there are full jars of home canned stuff down on the shelves in the cellar that are certifiable antiques.   I’m not even sure what would be a safe way to dispose of it after all this time. Her mom wasn’t much of a cook, so anything still down there had to have been made by her grandma. Mom passed away last year and she was 86, if that gives you any idea of how long it’s been down there. Scary.

DH and I did just 3 shelves at the beginning of the summer and filled up our big green monster trash can twice. I had over 20 boxes of expired cake mix! It seems I am just programmed to always buy whenever there’s a BOGO at Publix. I’m trying to train myself now to put one in the pantry and the other goes to my college’s food bank for students.

We still have 2/3 of the pantry to go, but we’ve been chipping away at it instead of doing a massive cleaning out project.

Next stop, bathroom cabinets!

This past winter I did a major pantry purge and was horrified at how much expired food I tossed......such a waste of money! I've been trying hard to be better, but still toss too many fresh fruits and veggies that go bad before being eaten.

I just did this but I dont keep to much excess stock so it only took about an hour to check all the dates wipe down the shelves and put it all back in..

I did this a few weeks ago while my husband was out of town and my dog was doing a board and train (she's a total busybody so it's tough to do jobs like this when she's around. Especially when food is involved ) I got rid of so much crap! I rearranged and reorganized and found three!!! unopened bottles of cinnamon from Costco! Apparently every time I go I'm like OMG I need cinnamon and then come home and shove it in the pantry and forget about it

I'm guessing as the film is years and years old you won't be too put out if I give a quick outline.

In the movie, the husband was very very particular about their house and the contents. He was abusive and violent to  her if anything was out of place. She planned an escape which made him think she was dead. 

In her new life, tidy and precise was her not way so when she opens the cupboard and the cans have been organized it means her husband has found her and has been in her house. I jumped out of my seat. 

I did that a few years ago and realized I bought way too much and didn't use it. I blame couponing and shopping sales to build up my "stockpile". Now I shop at Aldi where the prices are somewhat consistent so I will pick up a box of cereal instead of five like I did before. I am much more conscientious about using what we have to meal plan and that helps too.

Now the amount of fresh veggies and fruits we throw out is scandalous. We either eat it all the first day or don't touch it. I'm considering getting a compost tumbler for the backyard to at least have those things not "go to waste".

We did this recently too. The spices were especially satisfying to go through. Lots of expired stuff there.

      I'm sorry. I'm in migraine recovery mode here so my brain isn't working well at all. I was trying to quick quote, and did a terrible job of it. I wanted to say that our grocery store does this too and it is such a wonderful thing. I watched a couple of documentaries recently on the growing problem of plastic in the oceans so lately I've been looking around the house at every plastic item that has to be disposed of more critically. These plastic grocery bags are given out everywhere. Our recycling center used to take them in regular recycling but stopped. Now I put a cardboard box that was going into recycling into the pantry on a shelf and we put every plastic grocery bag in there. (We have to get rid of it ASAP in our house-our cat eats them!) When I do the weekly grocery shopping I shove all of these plastic bags into one and drop it off on my way into the grocery store into the big bin they have. 

I've been taking my own heavy reusable plastic grocery bags (like the Trader Joe's sells) for several years that stand up on their own. Also what I've found very handy in the summer months is a big, insulated bag I also bought from Trader Joe's. I put those cold, blue (can't remember what they are called) things you keep in the freezer and add to coolers in there before I head to the store. It works great for keeping frozen items a bit cooler until I can get home or especially if I make a stop before I get home. 

The reusable bags you posted zookeeper look perfect for small trips. I usually do my grocery shopping in one big trip a week or every two weeks. I bet if feels great to get your pantry cleaned out. I have a few items in there I need to go through (old crackers) and one cabinet still that needs to get cleaned out. I love that feeling having cleaned out cabinets.