To Decant or Not to Decant
If you type “organized pantry” into any internet search engine, you know exactly what images the search engine will find. Pictures of beautifully “organized” pantries with EVERYTHING decanted into coordinated containers.
These images are so pervasive that it's hard to imagine an “organized” pantry that doesn’t look like this. But let’s consider what it really means to be organized.
Personally, my definition of organization is: everything has a home and this home makes sense when considering when and how the item is used. For a pantry specifically:
The pantry isn’t overstuffed
I can quickly see what I have on hand
I can get things out and put things away easily
In my view, decanting is NOT a requirement to having an organized pantry. Also, decanting requires a significant investment in time, money, mental energy and physical effort.
The dark side of decanting:
First, there is the time and energy it takes to physically decant an item. When I go to the grocery store I want to come home and unload the groceries as quickly as possible. And presumably when you’ve gone to the store you’ve already thought through what you are going to prepare over the next week, what you need to prepare these meals and what you already have on hand. You’ve traveled to the grocery store, shopped for the items on your list, taken each item out of your cart during checkout, paid for the items, loaded bags back into your cart, then transferred those bags from your cart to your trunk. Then, when you get home you have to transfer your groceries from your trunk to their final resting place: your fridge, freezer or pantry. I want that last step to be as uncomplicated and unfussy as possible.
It’s messy. Yes, you can use funnels and that helps a bit but there is still usually some mess to deal with on the counter and floor and you sometimes need to wash the funnel used depending on what was decanted.
It’s expensive. Containers are not cheap, especially containers that are big enough to actually be useful.
It is a lot of mental work when you are procuring containers. You should ideally consider your constraints before buying containers of any kind. Namely, how big is the space I have to store these items? Also, are the containers the appropriate size for my needs. Will a whole bag of pretzels fit into my “pretzel” container?
It can be wasteful. What happens when your “pretzel” container doesn’t fit a whole bag of pretzels? Do you stuff the ¼ full bag in a box in your pantry and then forget about it until you stumble upon it 6 months later and the pretzels are stale and inedible and then you waste that ¼ of a bag of pretzels? Or what happens as your needs change and you need more or less containers? Or different sizes as your family grows or kids leave the nest? Those containers often get relegated to the basement where they languish, sadly being denied the opportunity to fill the measure of their creation.
It often takes up more room than keeping the item in its original container. The containers take up the same amount of room, whether they are empty or full.
So why do we continue to hold ourselves to these standards? To “look” like we’re organized? To impress our friends?
Decanting is a myth. The reality is that behind every “beautifully organized” pantry is a corner of a cabinet full of all of the odds and ends that don't fit perfectly in the container you've designated waiting to meet their inevitable fate of being forgotten and then going stale. Or there is a hot mess of "other items'' somewhere because you don't have room for them in your cabinet because literally all of your shelf space is taken up by half empty containers of AIR.
And you can never escape the continued maintenance of decanting. It will never end.
With all of that said there are a few things that I do like to decant. I like to refer to this as “selective decanting”:
When the bag that the item comes in is flimsy and prone to ripping I feel like decanting is worthwhile and can save on cleaning up time down the road. Think flour and sugar.
I also decant when uniformity of container matters to me. This is most common in 2 instances: you have open shelving and you are displaying the items in pretty jars/containers or a spice drawer and cabinet. Often the most convenient place to store spices is in a drawer or cupboard near your range. You have to work with the physical constraints of that drawer or cupboard so it may make sense to have uniform spice jars to maximize that space. And most people aren’t going through their spices weekly or even monthly, so you probably won’t be decanting your spices very often.
So, next time you come across a picture of a beautiful pantry with everything decanted in matching containers, pause to think about all of the time and effort that goes into creating and maintaining such a system. Is that worth it to you? Only you can answer that question. I know what the answer is for me.
And if you’ve had “organize pantry” on your to-do list for ages, consider what it really means to you to have an organized pantry. Let me assure you, you don’t have to have everything perfectly decanted to have and organized, functional pantry.
