We’re showing not just how we cleaned-up and cleaned-out our pantry, donating a huge box to local food bank, but also what our family-friendly real food pantry favorites are. We’ve been long-overdue for a pantry clean-up and clean-out. It was over 6 years ago, and an entirely different house, when we last shared a peek inside our pantry. Things have changed a lot since then – and not just a pandemic to get us cooking out of it a lot more – but a lot more vendors we love! We decided to take the opportunity of restocking to completely reorganize!
There are now widely available goods that you can buy if you don’t want to make everything from scratch from brands who use real, whole food ingredients. Are they necessary? Absolutely not! Have they made our lives infinitely easier while also giving the boys a sense of normalcy when eating lunches with friends? You betcha.
Recently, because of COVID-19, we joined Thrive Market and tried a TON of new-to-us products and brands. In the process, we took on the family project of cleaning out the pantry. Once I explained to the kids how the food supply has changed during the pandemic, they wanted to help fill the box for donation and we had FUN cleaning, organizing, and finding donations.
I know, that sounds like a joke. But, seriously – after receiving a big online order it was easy to go through and re-fill that big box we received with items we could donate. It was our time shopping with Thrive Market. I wanted to try as much as we could, to give you all an authentic review of this service I paid for ourselves. Of that big order, we’re already working on another order of some items – while not planning to order others again. Here’s what we recommend:
Thrive Market family-friendly real food pantry favorites we tried and liked
- seaweed snacks
- blanched almond flour
- organic beef jerky
- full fat coconut milk
- condiments, like mustard
Other branded items:
- Jovial GF brown rice pasta
- Revive Kombucha
- Vegan Rob’s Cauli Puffs (the best of about 5 diff versions of these we’ve tried)
- Wilde Chicken Chips
- Quinn pretzels (they even have a gran-free one!)
- Siete, all the things!
- GF Brownie Thins
- Unreal & Surf Sweet candies were perfect for Easter
- Pure fruit bars
- Enjoy Life breakfast ovals (maple fig)
- Nature’s Bakery Fig bar
Do you need to subscribe to Thrive? No. We have gone years shopping Whole Foods & Amazon deals, finding an expanding selection of real-food and organic items at Costco, and loving the clean-finds from Trader Joes. BUT, with this Pandemic we’re trying to be in-stores less, and the cost to join really did pay for itself nearly immediately because of the discount on the large order I placed combined with the $20 off deal.
If you want to try it, you can get the first month free and $20 off your first order using our referral link. I’m not “partnered” with Thrive and paid for our own membership and items, but no reason to not give you a discount with their referral program! Especially since these boys eat a lot so any discount on my end is always helpful!
Checkout Thrive’s healthy snacks & home goods here, get $20 off and free shipping over $49 HERE
Thrive Market also sells clean wines, check it out with $20 off HERE
Food wasn’t the only thing we refreshed our pantry with – the “clean-up” was about creating a better organization system, while the “clean-out” included donating old things. We ordered from Amazon to get the sorting tools and also still use their subscribe & save function for items we either couldn’t find on Thrive or were more affordable that way.
I’ve got all our Amazon Favorites in the Real Everything Amazon Shop HERE
What I love about shopping Amazon is that they are integrated with WholeFoods, so I can often get local delivery or pick-up. Plus, they have extra Prime discounts, and if I use my Amazon card I get another 5% back. It’s hard to beat those deals when you can find them! Again, not being paid or partnering with them in any way (I wish!) but any of the links we use for Amazon are affiliate links that give us a very small percentage of your sale if you choose to shop our links – which helps us continue to provide resources and educational content for you!
Some of my Amazon favorites include:
- Legit Mixes (our favorite is Pancake but there’s also bread & bagel)
- Collagen Peptides
- RX Bars, I get one each of:
- Stella & Chewy pet food
- Penny eats the freeze dried Dinner Patties in Super Beef, Puppy Chicken & Salmon, and Puppy Salmon & Beef
- Cats eat the freeze dried raw Dinner Morsels in Chicken & Salmon
- Both get the Wild Weenies treats
- Thrive does have some Stella & Chewy, but not what our pets eat
- Sweet Potato Glass Noodles
- Better Stevia (for our coffee)
- King Arthur Flour Mug Mixes (indiv servings)
- Dark Organic Maple Syrup
- Smarty Pants supplements for the boys ($12 with S&S vs $17 on Thrive)
If you’re looking for our organizers, here’s what we got:
- Stackable Can Organizer
- mDesign BPA-free Clear Bins
- Broom & mop holder
- Non-Skin Lazy Susan large or 2 smaller
And I know we aren’t talking cleaning items, but since I keep this in my pantry and am currently OBSESSED with how easy and effective it is, I HIGHLY recommend this Steam Mop & the extra pads we have on our Amazon home list, too! We’ve been using it near-daily to ensure we aren’t tracking germs thru the house and it’s light-weight and easy enough for all the boys to use it well.
You can watch a video tour of our pantry on Instagram HERE
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