Pantry Love

I know that you are going to be so envious when I tell you how I spent my day!

I have been gluten free for over 3 years now, and we have been refined sugar free and processed food free for a year.

So it was time to clear out the pantry.

I had saved some food stuffs in one corner of the pantry, just in case we couldn't commit to the challenge, or just in case we had visitors who couldn't do without certain products.

Today, I threw away vegemite, ozimite, peanut butter, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, mint sauce, sundried tomatoes, tinned beetroot, 4 tins of four bean mix, a can of lite coconut milk, a can of condensed milk, two tins of red curry paste, hoisin sauce, tinned mushrooms in butter sauce, wheat spaghetti, a packet of GF crackers, 6 packets of trident spicy soups and a few other things.

All of those things, aside from the spaghetti, contained sugar.

It still surprises me, how many common foodstuffs have sugar in them.

While I was on holidays, if we ate out, I just couldn't avoid sugar, except when we ate two meals at a Paleo cafe in Townsville. Paleo meals don't contain refined sugar. In other restaurants, I couldn't tell if my meals contained sugar, nor could I tell how much was in them.

The best I could do was to avoid gluten.

I could feel the sugar having an affect on my body.

I really thought that if I was as careful as possible, a little sugar here or there wouldn't hurt. But it did hurt. I could physically feel it. I could feel the changes in my mood, from extreme highs to dull lows. I could feel the changes in my energy levels. I struggled to stay awake mid afternoon. The joints in my fingers and my knees began to ache almost immediately and it probably contributed to my inability to sleep.

These things all happened to my body before I quit sugar, but I didn't recognise it as a side effect of sugar, I put it down to everything else from overwork, stress, ageing, being overweight .. any number of reasons.

So now my pantry is clear of food that contains sugar. Here is the 'before' shot ...

... and here is the 'after' ...

I just noticed a jar of peanut butter in the 'after' shot that shouldn't be there!

Tomorrow I have to order some text books for this term's subjects. I have a sneaking suspicion that they may be quite expensive ... and scary looking!

Meanwhile, it's time for sleep.

Nite all.