The most consistent finding in behavioral economics about food is also the most obvious one: what is in reach gets eaten. What is not in reach does not.

This is not a moral observation. It is a logistical one. When your brain is depleted — when executive function is low, when decision-making is hard, when you are at Level 3 or Level 2 on the capacity scale — you will eat what is easiest. If what is easiest is a bag of chips and a jar of peanut butter eaten with a spoon, that is what happens. If what is easiest is hard-boiled eggs in the fridge and walnuts in a container on the counter and a tin of sardines in the cabinet, that is what happens instead.

The difference between a kitchen that supports mental health and one that undermines it is almost entirely a pantry and refrigerator decision — made in advance, when you had capacity, that then runs on autopilot when you don't.

This is the standing pantry. Not a perfectly curated organic grocery haul. Not an expensive supplement shelf. A set of reliable, inexpensive, consistently available ingredients that cover the nutritional priorities — omega-3s, protein, magnesium, B vitamins, fermented cultures, fiber — without requiring elaborate preparation.

In the refrigerator: eggs, always. A container of Greek yogurt. Sauerkraut from the refrigerated section — not the shelf-stable kind, which is pasteurized and has no live cultures. Hard-boiled eggs from Sunday's batch if you managed it. Avocados. A block of hard cheese.

In the pantry: sardines. Wild salmon, canned. Lentils, dry. Rolled oats. Walnuts. Pumpkin seeds. Tahini. Dark chocolate, 70 percent or higher. Quinoa or brown rice. A good bottle of extra-virgin olive oil.

In the freezer: spinach. Blueberries or mixed berries. Broccoli.

That is most of it. The rest is cooking what you feel like eating from those components, or assembling it without cooking at all, or opening a tin and eating it at the counter.

The investment is building this before you need it — when you have the capacity to shop, when you can think about what the hard days require, when you can set the system up rather than trying to navigate it in the moment.

A well-stocked kitchen does not guarantee that you will eat well on hard days. It removes the obstacle to it. The sardines being there does not force you to eat them. But when you have no energy and no appetite and the bar is just food in the body, reaching for a tin of sardines rather than ordering something delivered that makes you feel worse is entirely possible — if the sardines are there.

The pantry is not a diet. It is infrastructure.

Build it before you need it. That is the instruction. Everything else follows.