One of the goals of any diet/lifestyle plan is to replace junky food choices with healthier ones. Some people advocate clearing the fridge and pantry of all offending food if you can, provided thatother members of the house won't be goaded into felanious acts of defense and revenge after you actually throw away perfectly good Cheez-Whiz.
I myself favor the Clean Slate Approach, but then, moderation in thought and deed has never been my strong point. There's something to be said for a reasonable, gradual replacement of junk food with nutrittrous choices: for one, you waste less. Second, you give yourself and your family time to adjust to a new way of eating.
I especially like one nutritionist's strategy for creating awareness and preparing healthier habits: David Grotto, RD, LDN, and author of the book 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life advocates a fun system of colored-coding the items in your refrigerator and pantry with stickers. "Food items that reinforce your health goals are tagged with green stickers and ones that should not be replaced are tagged with red stickers," Grotto explains on his website, nutritionhousecall.com. Seeing the "red flag" foods in this way gives you time to reflect on your choices and come up with alternates with which to replace them. In any case, Grotto's technique gives a new spin on pantry- and refrigerator-cleaning that makes the prospect of dieting almost kind of fun.