Your Guide to a Healthy Pantry
Let's overhaul your pantry with better-for-you staples
We often think of our fridge first when it comes to cleaning up our diet and stocking our home with healthy food.
A fridge full of fresh fruit, veggies, and protein is a critical component of feeling our best, but we often overlook the pantry, where sugar, seed oils, preservatives, and artificial ingredients hide unnoticed.
Did you know that high fructose corn syrup is the third ingredient in Heinz ketchup and that a single serving contains 4 grams of sugar, the matcha at Starbucks contains 32 grams of sugar or that most conventional salad dressings are loaded with seed oils, cane sugar and a long list of ultra processed chemical additives?
Watch out for labels like “sugar-free,” “low-fat,” “high-protein,” or “natural.” These are just fancy marketing tactics designed to disguise highly processed, inflammatory products.
We need to get in the habit of turning products over and reading the ingredients. My rule of thumb? If you couldn’t buy every ingredient in the grocery store yourself—don’t buy it!
Right now, I’m looking at the back of a popular light Greek vinaigrette dressing, and here’s what I see:
Ingredients: soybean oil, sugar, maltodextrin, xanthan gum, corn oil, natural flavor, ferrous gluconate, annatto extract, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate, calcium disodium EDTA, and potassium sorbate.
Do we really want to drench our lettuce in a sea of toxins? No! Just sodium benzoate alone has been linked to DNA damage, hormone disruption, infertility, and cancer.
You might be thinking, how are these ingredients allowed in our products?
The FDA allows the food industry to self-regulate, meaning big food companies can add thousands of chemicals to our food, self-declare them as "safe" (GRAS), and bypass FDA approval.
It’s critical that we look at all the ingredients in the foods and products we buy and be our own best advocates.
These additives make food more addictive, last longer on shelves, look colorful, and taste better—but at the cost of our health.
The Good News?
We don’t have to give up salad dressings, condiments, dips, chips, pasta, cookies, cereals, or protein bars—we just need to swap them for clean, better-for-you alternatives made from minimally processed whole foods without harmful additives.
We’ve done the hard work for you—testing, researching, and curating the ultimate clean pantry guide so you can restock your favorites with products that make you feel good while protecting your long-term health.
If you’d like to work with me one-on-one for a personalized Wellness Guide, send me an email at annie@letsfeelgood.co 💌
LET’S RESTOCK
🥜 Nut Butter - Make sure there are no added sugars or seed oils! The ingredients should just be dry roasted nuts & sea salt. Bonus points if it’s organic!
NuttZo *a personal favorite - loaded with healthy nuts & seeds
🌰 Nuts - Opt for dry roasted or raw. A lot of store bought nuts are roasted in seed oils which are inflammatory.
🫒 Oils / Fats
🥗 Salad Dressing
🌶️ Condiments / Dips / Sauces - a few of our go-to brands are Primal Kitchen & Siete. If you’re not buying from those brands make sure to check for all whole food ingredients and no added sugars or seed oils!
🧀 Crackers
🍪 Cookies
Honey Cinnamon Sweet Thins *must try!!
🍿 Chips & Popcorn
Buttery Popcorn *must try!
💪 Protein Bars - This category can be very deceiving—there are plenty of products on the market branded as healthy that are far from it.
Let’s take a look at Barebells, a popular protein bar. These bars contain glycerin, maltitol, polydextrose, sunflower oil, Red 40 Lake, Blue 2 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, Blue 1 Lake, artificial flavors, sunflower lecithin, and sucralose. WOW. Not only are these ingredients far from healthy, but some are also dangerous—all wrapped up as a “healthy” protein bar.
We have to check the ingredients! We can’t trust fancy marketing schemes. My rule of thumb? Always get your protein from real, whole food sources whenever possible.
When you’re in a pinch and need a bar, choose one of our LFG-approved options below.
Subscribe to see our fav LFG approved protein bars, protein powders, cereals, granola, chocolate & pasta picks 👀