Compliments of peteluff via Flickr

“If you have your health, you have everything.”

Then why do our schedules, activities, and lifestyles place healthy practice at the bottom of our “to do” lists? Working ourselves into the ground will be of little benefit if, as a result, we find ourselves below ground level.

Health related priorities must have an active place in our lives, with keeping oneself in mint condition topping the charts. Do you make time to exercise at least thirty minutes a day, eat a reduced calorie diet (comprised of healthy, low fat fare), take vitamins, engage in routine healthcare maintenance, and in general – treat your body like the temple it was intended to be? A building block of bodily healthy resides both front and center, at the place of prominence within your kitchen.

What is your state affairs within the refrigerator? Is it clean, well-organized, with food encased in see through (well labeled) containers, all items within their shelf life of expiration? Your refrigerator may be the most formidable frontier of unconquered space within your home. Ziploc bags containing non-descript substances, perishable pieces of fruit overripe (now unrecognizable), jars upon jars of items ancient in both age and appearance, sad containers with little or no contents left, disheveled piles shivering in dark corners and vials too embarrassed to share their history is typically what greets us. A cavernous entity frightful in appearance and sinister in its contents. How to get a handle on iceboxes in which food items practically reach out to shake your hand?

• Get all the kids out of the pool. Empty every size container, and sort by items: (1) to throw away; (2) repackage; and (3) restock. Anything that’s been staring you in the face for longer than you can remember, that which you can no longer name needs a home besides yours. Treat salvageable items with the respect they deserve, ensconced in glass containers with tight fitting lids and labels descriptive of their contents.

• Neatly sort small items on shelves free from grime and dirt (with labels facing outward), so that refrigerator trips seem less like a treasure hunt. A nutritious regimen begins with knowing what you have, and having it on hand. Shopping trips to purchase healthy food are exercises in futility if subsequently, it’s shoved into a corner, permitted to rot into a pitiful shrivel, or piled so high and deep that it takes almost too much trouble to excavate – prompting family members to say “Let’s just make a sandwich!” Inventory and organization of your home’s most central feature is essential to health maintenance. More than a peek, but a stare down that involves something other than a grab, go, and gone. Radical refrigerator reorganization is your ticket to optimum health.