All It Took Was a Trip to Whole Foods

Imagine this. You are standing in the middle of Whole Foods on a busy night during the after work rush. You have the smallest loaf of bread you have ever seen priced at $6.99 in one hand and a tub of dairy free, gluten free buttery spread priced at $4.99 in the other. From the outside you look like yet another person just trying to get through your shopping trip and get home to family but on the inside, its different. On the inside you are screaming like a little kid throwing a tantrum in the middle of the toy aisle at Target. While you might be trying to imagine this, I know exactly how you feel because tonight, this is exactly what happened to me.

"Why does this cost so much!? I am going to starve to death!! This isn't fair, I want to eat that yummy loaf of moist whole grain bread that costs half the price!! I am going to go broke just trying to give myself the basics!! Where's my mommy??"

Yup, I sat there staring at the items in my hand, yelling these questions to myself. I even became so overwhelmed and fed up with shopping that I called my mom to ask her how much the loaf she purchased for me while we had been visiting cost. It was almost as though it was a conspiracy against me. Because I live in California and the Los Angeles area for that matter, they must be price gouging me. But no, she paid about the same price.

Eventually I gathered up all of my items, my cheddar flavored fake cheese, my fake mayonnaise, my gluten free pretzels, and some fruits and veggies paid for them and headed home. By that point I had come back to reality and a sane level of thinking. I opened up my pretzels, bracing myself for the taste only to discover that there wasn't much of a difference between these and the regular ones I used to eat. Same went for the cookies. I made a sandwich for dinner that night with my tiny bread, my fake mayonnaise, my fake cheese, some tomato and some expensive deli turkey only to find that it pretty decent. I reminded myself that I was probably the only one in the family who will eat this stuff, so it will last longer and the price wont be as big of an issue as I had thought while looking at the prices at Whole Foods.

I finally came back to reality and realized I wont starve to death and I wont murder anyone because I am hungry. I can still eat some of the things I enoyed and even if they do taste different, they are still good and I can adjust. I realized that even though I now have ventured into a new way of living, I still might be able to enjoy the food I eat. All it took was my first big trip at Whole Foods, post Gluten Free diagnosis, to realize this.