This is Part 2 of a 5-part blog series about sticking to a healthy-eating routine that is sustainable even on a budget and when you’re busy. To start at the beginning of the blog series, click here.

Confession time: In college, I kind of lived on Mountain Dew, crackers, and candy bars on the days when I had to be on campus from morning till evening. Thinking about that now makes me feel a little queasy, although I will forever have a soft spot for the deliciousness that is a Cheez-It. If you checked my pantry today, you would find a couple unopened bottles of ginger ale leftover from Christmas punch, and perhaps a box of crackers or pretzels and some pasta, but nearly everything else on the shelves either looks pretty much as nature intended it, or has an ingredients list that’s barely longer than my name.

It’s not that I never let myself indulge in junk food, and it’s not that we know how to do eating healthy perfectly; it’s just that I’ve learned to largely keep junk food out of the house so that Danny and I can’t mindlessly dive through a bag of chips. I don’t feel guilty when I occasionally have something deep fried at a restaurant, but what I bring home from the grocery store lines up with our everyday eating goals. To compliment the fresh produce and (small quantities of) meat and dairy that we use in our cooking, I keep the pantry stocked with ingredients that help us keep up the kind of real-foods-driven diet we want to maintain.

To keep it simple to find what I need, I (try to) organize our pantry into distinct sections:

• The rice/grains shelf
• The oils/vinegars/sauces shelf
• The flour/sugar/baking goods shelf
• The canned/jarred/dried goods shelf
• The tea and coffee shelf
• The miscellaneous shelf (this is where a bag of tortilla chips or box of cookies will wind up)

When the pantry is organized, it makes me less tempted to bring home those chips or cookies because they’ll seem out of place, and keeping the pantry well stocked with the foods I know I’ll use in many different recipes — and in recipes I’ll make regularly — makes me so much less tempted to just order a pizza at the end of the day.

The staples that you will almost always find in our pantry include:

• Whole grains (numerous varieties of rice; quinoa; barley; farro; oats)
• Granola or organic cereal (with low sugar content)
• Pasta (we don’t eat pasta often, but it’s good to have on hand)
• Lentils (red and green)
• Beans (chickpeas; great northern; black beans; kidney beans; split peas)
• Canned tomatoes and tomato sauce
• Stock and broth (veggie broth; chicken broth; coconut milk)
• Non-refrigerated produce (garlic; onions; potatoes; winter squashes such as butternut, spaghetti, and sweet dumpling)
• Dried fruits and veggies (sundried tomatoes; raisins; dried cranberries and cherries)
• Oils (olive and infused olive; coconut; avocado; sesame; vegetable) and vinegars (balsamic and infused balsamic; red wine; white wine; apple cider; rice; and white)
• Local honey
• Peanut butter
• Baking goods (flour; cornmeal; organic cane sugar; brown sugar; cocoa powder)
• Tea and coffee beans
• Popcorn kernels
• Nuts (although nuts keep best in the freezer)

I want to always have these things on hand because they’re the base of so many of our meals. It’s easy to pull together a fast and super healthy dinner at the end of a workday when I have some fresh produce and all of these pantry ingredients at my disposal. With quinoa, great northern beans, garlic, walnuts, veggie broth, red wine vinegar, and a winter squash from the pantry, all I need to round out a healthy and filling dinner is some fresh kale or Swiss chard; with red lentils, canned tomatoes, basmati rice, onions and garlic, and olive oil from the pantry, plus some spices from the spice cabinet, all I need to finish a simple Indian dal is a jalapeno and fresh ginger, and if I serve it with a green vegetable, dinner is complete. (I’ll be sharing some of my favorite fast recopies and recipe resources in a few weeks).

Another thing I’ve found is that by not keeping easy-to-grab snacks on the pantry shelves, I a) only eat when it’s mealtime or I’m actually hungry, versus eating for entertainment, and b) usually make sure I eat enough at mealtimes or go back for leftovers. I keep fresh fruit on the counter, yogurt in the fridge, and I’ll pop a bowl of popcorn with coconut oil several nights a week. And I don’t miss having premade snacks or junk food around at all. I love having a kitchen and a pantry that are not only well organized, but well prepared to keep our (non) diet on track.

Next Monday: Eating Healthy Without Blowing Your Budget — I’ll explain how Danny and I came up with our food budget, how I make it work for us even when buying high-quality ingredients, and how I shop to make the most of the money.

~ Laura