Grocery Stores

There I stood, in the middle of the grocery store. I was lost. I had been here many times before but, I had never felt so completely overwhelmed. Everywhere I looked were things I had come to know throughout my life as good to eat. Some had seemed almost like good friends, Now everything was strange, I was afraid of almost all of it. It was like finding myself in some weird horror movie. I took a deep breath while closing my eyes and pulled myself together. After all, I am a grown woman, capable and able, and this was only a grocery store!

This is how I felt everytime I went into a grocery store for the first couple of months after finding out that I was intolerant of corn.

The rules of living were all new and, were changing every day. I knew I would find my way. I had to. But the rules seemed so odd, all new and, they kept changing as I learned new sources of hidden corn almost daily.

After nearly 40 years of grocery shopping I found myself wandering instead of shopping, sometimes I got an overwhelming feeling of confusion, I had heart palpitations, had I sat down at one of those pharmacy blood pressure machines I’m sure I would have registered in the danger zone.

Up and down the aisles I traveled, picking up a bottle or a can or a box, often something I had been eating for years, or a favorite ingredient. Each was hesitantly picked up and resolutely set back down on the shelf. Some days it seemed there was nothing I could put in my cart.

My absolute diagnosis was in March of this year, 2006. It is now August, months have passed. I have learned to comfortably navigate my local grocery store again. I push my cart through the store with confidence. I no longer travel up and down the aisles. I only make my way up a couple of aisles, and the majority of my shopping is done on the perimeter, most of that is in the produce department. Most of what I buy is “ingredients”, not packaged food, no mixes, no “convenience foods”. I spend most of my food budget dollars at the farmers market or with local farmers that produce meat on a small scale. Now when I eat, I am pretty sure about the contents because, I have cooked it from the ground up. If it’s bread, I began with flour. If it’s jelly, I began with fresh fruit from the farmers market (I like to buy my food with the dirt still on it nowadays). It is a lot of work, but it helps me to control my life. The quality of my life depends on what I eat down to the exact ingredients. Even tiny amounts of corn affect me negatively. This is a reality of my life now. I refuse to give in. My plan is to continue to enjoy life, to not allow food to become the enemy and to not become bitter or angry about the widespread use of corn in almost every aspect of a normal daily life. I have a lot of life left to live and only so much energy per day. I dare not waste even a smidgen on the negative.