Bulk Food Series- Part 1

That first Azure Standard (or any other bulk natural foods) order can be mighty intimidating. I remember my first time and looking at all the bags and boxes and thinking "What have I done? Where will I put it all? I don't even know how to use some of it!!!"

If you are just making the transition from highly processed foods to a more whole-foods style of eating, please consider taking one step at a time. This is a concept completely foreign to my personality but I know it would have made it easier for me. The only possible exception to that advice would be in the case that you've embarked on something like the "Eat Real Food" challenge and just dropped off 90% of the contents of your kitchen at the food pantry. In that case, you need the real food, you need it all and you need it now!

As you are going through and making up your order, consider storage once all those 25 and 50 lb bags arrive. I didn't do that and for many months had a pantry full of 1 gallon ziplocs. It takes roughly 14 gallon bags to contain the grains/stuff from a 50 lb bag. Just FYI, if one fails to plan ahead, orders 6 50# bags of various grains, sucanat, rice, etc plus a variety of dried fruit and other goodies and then puts it all into said gallon bags, one's pantry becomes a random frustrating mess of bags and one begins to avoid cooking just to avoid the pantry... If the goal is to avoid finding yourself at the McDonald’s drivethru, making yourself loathe being in your own kitchen is not the most effective means of accomplishing that.

The large gray stackable bins with the flip front lids ($14.95 regular price, often used for dog food or recycling) hold up to 75 lbs of bulk grains, rice, sugar, etc. & I now have 4 of them. They go on sale at Fred Meyer periodically for $9.95. They are fantastic. I have another size of clear plastic tub which holds a 25 # bag of rice. WalMart ( I know- I hate going in there too....) has some thin rectangular canisters that hold perfectly a 5 lb bag of flour or cocoa powder and line up very efficiently on a pantry shelf.