The New Moon in Virgo brings us an opportunity to refine our eating habits. One of the best places to start is with our pantries and cupboards. What’s in yours?
My household has changed recently and so have our eating habits. After 10 years of being a caretaker to elderly parents, it’s just the hubby and me now—a Cancer and a Virgo. Can you imagine? We’re…different, you know?
A lot of our conversations go like this:
Cancer: You should eat something. You’ll feel better.
Virgo: I’m not hungry.
Cancer: You want a sandwich?
Virgo: I might have some cereal later.
Cancer: You should eat something.
Virgo: I’m not hungry.
He finally has lunch around 4:30 and it blows supper, you know? Well, now that it’s just the two of us and I’m not required to fix a meal for his mom, I’m not cooking nearly as much. Which has its plusses and its minuses.
Plusses: There’s not as much food around the house, not as much shopping, not nearly as much pressure to cook a big meal.
Minuses: Meal times are irregular, we’re not eating as well.
Oh, there’s another plus.
The cupboards are getting cleaned out.
Not “officially.”
Not in that I’m pulling everything out, throwing stuff away, and cleaning the shelves kind of way. I’m just slowly using up what we had and getting rid of what we won’t use. But this is great preparation for the New Moon in Virgo and the oppportunity to refine our diet. Not the I have to lose 10 pounds by this afternoon diet, but the I’m making nutritionally sound choices diet.
It’s time. It’s past time. I can’t even see what’s in the dang cupboard anymore. I want to streamline my cupboards and my diet. Virgo likes that. Clearing your cupboards is a fantastic New Moon project. Get rid of all the things that aren’t healthy, nutritional, or fresh. How long has that can of beans been there, anyway? The label’s faded to all pinkish; the top’s dusty. While you’re at it, clear the refrigerator and the freezer, too.
Why not make it a New Moon ceremony? Start clearing the cupboard now (great during the waning Moon phase). On the day of the New Moon, do some healthy shopping and load in your new items. Let the Grand Trine in Earth easily guide you. Pluto in Capricorn is here to transform the physical world. Jupiter in Taurus can make wise choices, as well as big ones. (Don’t over shop!)
How can the New Moon in Virgo help you refine your diet?
Auntie Moon 
eh, time to clean out the refrigerator, and freezer, I guess *shrugs*
.. I did the spring cleaning thing earlier this year when we got deliveries.
My husband is a Gemini Sun – Gem ASC (late degrees) Moon in Cancer(first house) native. I’m Mars/Sun/Venus in Cancer (first house) Moon conjunct Pluto in Virgo (4th house) person… so we keep things really well stocked, and even have ecological food delivered in huge trucks every few months, and a fruit and or veg box at least once a week.
And we don’t waste anything either, and getting to know how we encourage our food behaviours, I think its probably because he’s getting into making secure my impoverished childhood.. or at least, we do that to each other. I suspect some weird psychological thing, but at the same time, we are not obsessive eaters, and we like having our cabinets and root cellar well stocked.. its just the way we are I guess.
I recall when I first moved in with him, he was running a “food museum”… as I liked to call it, with weird cool things for baking, long past their due date. Reminiscent of my own mother, who had a jar of mango chutney in the refrigerator from before her father died (18 plus years previous) along with that pickled herring! (She’s also got Moon in Cancer) I helped them “let it go”, but documented the dates as evidence that they should not do this kind of collecting.
I have to look out for the food museum mindset, ruthlessly, even within myself.. I’m the kind of person to dig up the closets and yet still keep things for about a thousand years too.. but never food, it needs to be eaten or composted.. (in Pluto style!) (perhaps that Scorpio 6th house is doing me some good? ;))
My Taurus son is getting kind of hoardy with the food these days and is starting his own food museum with candy he never eats and puts away into a huge stack, perhaps this will be a good time to clear that out!
I’m also getting good at finding the appropriate mushrooms this last season, and froze about 3 liters of black currants, so I’m pretty good at keeping things stocked up, even when I’m not even buying anything!
Ack..storage.. its getting out of hand still.. with a gigantic freezer, and a root cellar in the garage! I’m going to faint!
Oh, what do I have in the pantry?
Fruit Preserves (in the refrigerator) two small bottles of champagne? fresh veg, fresh fruits, apples now out on the trees, plums..
Grains, cous-cous, rice, dry beans,lentils, canned beans, canned tomatoes, ecological whole grain pasta, quinoa, bulgar, falafal mix.. canned chick peas, bla bla bla..
and frozen berries in the freezer, along with frozen veggie sausage and burgers (for my husband) tofu, soymilk, soya whipped cream, frozen breads, that kind of stuff…and frozen spinach, frozen broccoli.. frozen mushrooms, frozen homemade soup, and such..
And a huge pile of chocolate, cookies and candy my son has been hoarding!!!!
LMAO!! “Food Museum” is hysterical! My mother-in-law was a food hoarder and when we combined houses, you wouldn’t believe the age on some of her canned items. Really creepy things you’d find in the spooky basement of the food museum. We’re definitely well-stocked here, too. We could feed an army at the drop of a hat. It all gets to be too much sometimes and I feel smothered. And still can’t think of what I want for supper!
I have a cousin with a food museum too. He has all the strangest and old things in it from many different cultures.
Clean out the fridge is a good idea in the dark of the moon! i started last night; thanks for the gentle push. The cupboards, that’s a bigger project, much less compelling. If you leave a can on the shelf 6 months, you still don’t have a science project.
It must have been around this time last year when I found myself feeling quite *sickly* after eating meat and then realised that probably I have been a ‘veggie’ all my life but had to fit in with family tastes (Cancer Moon, sorry..nourishing meals for growing kids!)..now on my own – dog can tuck into the chicken, but I am getting quite creative with pasta, rice and pulses..of which I seem to have built quite a store of in my pantry..lentils, dried beans and lots of spices, dried herbs and bottles of exotic ingredients to add a ‘dash of’ to what could be quite bland otherwise! The pantry was overhauled this week as I start to collect soup ingredients, tinned and dry goods against the weather taking a turn for the worse and not being able to shop as and when I need or please…I buy a little extra something each week and feel good when I open the pantry door and see the rows of tins, all the pulses and beans in containers..and they are all grouped together in their categories and uses…I am now off to find My Life…!!!
Nice 🙂 It’s quite crazy that the day of the New Moon, the power company is cutting our power for the entire day, so it will be me, silence, and the Virgo cleaning twitches. I think it is the first time that I was excited to get a power notice and my first comment was cllleaaannninggggg. The first place for me to start is always the kitchen, as my cupboards become so messy, so quickly with three teens and an Aries! My diet is pretty simple and clean as it is, Saturn through Virgo made certain of that, but the exercise, mainly yoga/meditation, is where I am refining my routine and focus. It has been months and months sadly, so we’re off to buy an ohm sort of cushion and the new, 15-30 minute per week day meditation rule shall kick in 🙂 However, back to the food, and I am hankering to get into some new bean/rice salad recipes this year, so that will be fun 🙂
You’re inspirational, Karen. I’ve been staring at my yoga videos for too long now. Sofar, staring hasn’t helped.
Saturn has been transiting my 6th house and is squaring my sun….this has been a very “Virgo-diet” experience….Since it began I found I have an auto-immune disease that gets triggered by eating gluten and dairy…so they’re gone from my diet. I also gone (but I cheat every once in a while) is regular caffeine and sugar. I was a choc chip cookie freak and addicted to coffee so this was no small feat. I’m now trying to eat a salad every day for lunch, red meat 1x a week and have switched to almond milk which I really like (in the vanilla 🙂 This stellium of virgo planets in the new moon is actually in my 5th….I’m putting together an art show and will be in 2 others…
Best of luck with the show! How exciting!
I don’t think I could go on living without caffeine.
I cleaned out the cupboards weeks ago! Right now, I’m getting some things done in case hurricane Irene decides to knock out the power.
These are all such great suggestions, and they’re are some great sounding pantries here. I’m a soup maker, too, so I’m looking forward to some cooler temps here in the south, Penny.
I’m holding good thoughts for you and yours, Anne, and all those who are in the predicted path of Irene.
I chuckled at the “less shopping, less cooking” part. Between my ex and I we had four kids. He and his two boys were 6 foot garbage disposals – just shopping and cooking for them was for six people, not three. I grew to detest grocery shopping and cooking. Now that it’s just me, I’m loving it!
I can’t remember the last time I ate chocolate and if you knew me you’d fall off your chair hearing that (though right now I am wearing my favourite t-shirt that is chocolate brown with chocolate yummy stuff all over it). I’m Irish and addicted to tea, but for the last month I have two with caffeine in the morning and the rest is decaf – the sugar content has also been cut in half.
Though it may sound simple enough, these are major changes for me and sometimes I just don’t understand what got into me!
Have you tried the chocolate teas, Mandy? They’re amazing. Glad you get the “less shopping and cooking.” Grocery shopping is a MAJOR pain. There’s worse things, but that’s not much fun. I’m hoping that since I can expand our menu choices to what we like, instead of what the mother-in-law would accept, that I’ll start to enjoy cooking again.
I am of the “stock-up while it’s on sale and I have coupons” kind of shopper. As a result, my kitchen cabinets and fridge/freezer are full (4th house multi-conjunct Cancer Sun-Mars-Venus). Fortunately, they are also pretty well-organized (6th house Virgo Jupiter) and I have developed a system that works for me and keeps waste to a minimum. Before I put away new groceries, I jot the expiration date on the front of the package or on a piece of paper I tape the canister for bulk goods so I can easily see it whenever I open the cabinet. I also keep an inventory of the contents of the freezer for meal planning. Anytime I happen to see an item that should be used in the next couple of months, I place it on a special ASAP shelf or spot in the fridge/freezer. I look there first, before I plan our meals or my shopping for the week.
I am one month into a long-term healthy nutrition plan that I hope will help me break some bad habits and build some good ones in their place. I set out with a general idea and a few specific rules (all of which I have since broken, I might add; ). I’ve learned a lot more about myself than I would have imagined and I have lost more weight than I would have expected. I’ve gained some confidence in my ability to make changes in the way I eat, but I have also learned from my rule breaking that regular yet small indulgences are essential for my sanity and continued commitment. I’m also beginning to figure out just how much my daily and monthly cycles affect why, how, and what I eat. This is what I want to focus on this month by keeping track of these cycles and how they affect and, in turn, are affected by what I consume. It just seems fitting to begin this journal at the New Moon in Virgo.
Bon appétit et bonne santé!
Wow! You have such a great system. The freezer inventory is especially useful. (I think we have 2 pounds of mastodon meat in ours we still haven’t used! Definitely past the expiration date.) I do lose track of what’s in there and have lost too much to freezer burn. It just makes sense to use what you’ve already got on hand. I told my husband, “We’re going to eat this stuff.” And we’re slowly making our way through.
It’s a great New Moon project, Mary, and for the whole month of Virgo and beyond. As the seasons start to change, it will be interesting to see how our appetites change. And our freezers and cupboards, too.
I’m a Cancer with my moon & ascendent in Virgo….so that leaves me feeling very conflicted re: the food thing! lol I LOVE having tidy, neat cupboards. But I also love having comfort foods.
I get that completely, Lindsay. I’m a 6th house Cancer, so there’s a tinge of Virgo there. I get a little crazy when my cupboards are out of control, too, so I’m working on that. I also made my New Moon project to serve food with love. It’s become such a chore and that’s a shame. I’m not the healthiest cook, either. Comfort foods are a mainstay around here. But right now I have a pot of lentil soup on to cook and am committed to eating a little better. Well, through Virgo, at least.
Talking about a Virgo New Moon- there’s nothing in my fridge but the light, nothing in the freezer but ice cubes – the pantry needs a visit from him in ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ to arrange the tins. Maybe one day I’ll have the fridge full of delicious bits – the freezer full of goodies and my pantry full of essentials, until that day I’ll keep on visualising
All that Sadge in you doesn’t have a fridge full of foreign food?!
Lol, I was just watching again Julie and Julia last night!
with late virgo asc, a moon conj pluto in 1rst H and 3 planets in 6th H. I like to have enough in my pantry and refrigerator, in case of ‘something happening’ (my sag husband with taurus moon agrees 🙂 thankfully we keep it up to date and rarely have to throw anything, there has being a lot of reducing and editing though. we eat lots of fresh, healthy food, with something sweet and sinful here and there!
I had to almost totally eliminate dairy to keep allergies at bay and it’s worked wonderfully. But I miss cheese and Ice cream…caffeine, yes, at least in the morning. Tea and infusions, yes. ah and there is a 5pound bag of carrots waiting to be juiced up!
what an American thing……………..full cupboards, foods stocked up…needing to clean the refrigarator. Throwing out food? It is sad to me, really.
most people, where I am from, in Amsterdam, only have a bicycle and we mostly walk to the supermarket and only take out that which we can eat in 1-3 days at the very most, and never more then we can carry.
It is sad, martina, but all Americans aren’t this way. When I lived in New York City, I had a tiny refrigerator and very few cabinets. I went to the store almost daily because I had no where to store a lot of food. But when I combined houses with my inlaws, they had two refrigerators and a big freezer. Mostly, they kept vegetables that they put up from their garden (or friends’ gardens) in the freezer. Cooking for a family of 5 adults made me shop in a different way, though, and the freezer and refrigerators kept me from shopping almost daily. A trip to the grocery store requires gasoline in the car. Walking in New York only required calories. One trip in the car is better than 5+ each week. Also, the inlaws were from the generation that grew up in the depression. They hoarded food and all kinds of things because they grew up with nothing.
It’s funny, though. The universe helped me clean out my freezer this weekend. It stopped running and I called friends to give away lots of meat that would spoil if it wasn’t frozen. Our family has recently downsized and, frankly, I was glad to be rid of it. Well, I now have an empty freezer that I intend to keep on the empty side. Except maybe for “emergency” ice cream. 🙂
Thanks for sharing how food shopping works for you. I rather envy that.