Book excerpt: Clean up your pantry, revitalize your tastebuds, and enjoy a healthier way of living! Ditch the middle aisles of the grocery store, and take a stab at making your own pantry staples and snacks with fresh, flavorful, healthy ingredients. Homemade Snacks and Staples gives more than 200 recipes that enable readers to skip the processed foods. Prepare your own salad dressing and other condiments, broths and stocks, yogurt, butter, spices mixes, nut butters, breads and tortillas, and every other staple you could want. Make your own breakfast cereals, toaster pastries, protein bars, fruit popsicles, popcorn, roasted nuts, crispy crackers, French fries, salsas, dehydrated snacks, and so on! You'll find these recipes to be rewarding, delicious, and far easier than you think. The industrialization of much of the world's food chain has taken people so far from their agrarian roots that the diet they now consume would have been unrecognizable as food just a few generations ago. Bright, artificial colors and ridiculous amounts of sugar and fat, coupled with the preservatives needed to enable shipping and long shelf lives, have infiltrated the foods that people eat. In the growing backlash, concerned cooks are looking for ways to wean themselves and their children from these diet disasters without making anyone feel deprived. This book offers the antidote. As a bonus, these recipes are mindful of vegan values and provide optional vegan variations.