I have found the Disney-Land of grocery! Whole Foods Market! Now I was pretty excited by Global Foods Market, but Whole Foods is so Semi-Pescetarian-Vegan friendly! I kept wandering the isles going “look at this” and picking things up… and adding them to the cart. Fortunatly for the budget, Brian kept an eye on what I was putting in the cart and asked… frequently… “Do you really want this?” and “What are you going to do with this?” I did manage to get quite a few items into the cart…. a number of them I even had an idea of what to do with them! At first it was just so exciting to find things I could eat…. then I was trying to find things I could COOK and turn into dinners.
Whole Foods Market has this amazing bakery… all sorts of bread and muffins, scones and cakes…. Brian had to drag me away. Around the far side of the bakery, we found gluten-free breads. I couldn’t find any bread without milk and eggs too, but I did find tortillas. Brian was so excited… Taco Night! We found a gluten-free flour (weird, huh?). Brownies, maybe? You can find it here on Amazon.com – King Arthur Flour Multipurpose Flour, Gluten Free, 24-ounces
The cheese section was pretty amazing too. There were all these different cheeses and these really nice signs over them stating clearly what kind of milk they were made from… Cow, Goat or Sheep. Woo Hoo! (NOTE: When I had the food allergies as a kid, Mom was told that I could have sheep or goat’s milk. There is a protein allergen known as Alpha s1 Casein found in high levels in cow’s milk. The levels of Alpha s1 Casein in goat’s milk are about 89% less than cow’s milk. I have not been retested for food allergies, I’m just going with what I was allergic to as a kid, eliminating them for two solid weeks and then slowly adding things back in and seeing how I feel. Not super scientific…)
I found chocolate too! You have to find a Dark Chocolate and READ the label. It’s a lot easier to find milk-free chocolate in the health food stores. I came home with four different chocolate treats. You should SO try these: Chocolove Almonds and Sea Salt in Dark Chocolate — 3.2 oz
Oh! The meat section! OMG! Tons of fish and seafood…. we got Mahi Mahi and Tuna… OMG! I can’t wait to have them for dinner. Brian is a killer-griller. I was lost in the seafood section, but Brian wandered off into the beef and pork area… As I said, I’m not usually a fan of pork (I dunno why, I just don’t like it!), but I like sausage and bacon… I know, I’m not consistant. We found these blueberry pork breakfast sausages….mmmmmm. Those are for breakfast tomorrow morning…. I’m thinking Brian can give the Gluten-Free waffles a shot too.
If you have a Whole Foods Market in your neighborhood…. you are SO lucky! Our closest Whole Foods is about an hour away… sigh… but Brian and I are kind of odd…. We think a great Friday night involves going to a fancy supermarket and finding new things to cook. I can see us having wonderful date nights at Whole Foods. Find a new fish, a bottle of wine… go home and cook together!
We are odd, but I couldn’t ever do this without Brian’s support. Food allergies act like an addiction… it’s so bad for you, but you want it. Since I’ve been off my allergens I’ve had headaches, dizziness, mood-swings… and killer cravings. It helps being able to see the improvements already… My joints feel better, much of the achiness and stiffness is gone… not totally, but I can feel a real difference. Lost some weight already.. woo hoo! And I am sleeping better! I may crave the allergens, but the improvements that I am feeling already are making it easier to ignore those cravings. Luckily for me, Brian loves cooking (and me) and he’s been really brave about trying new recipes and ingredients.
I’d like to actually maintain this lifestyle…. maybe not to the extreme level forever…. but a semi reasonable level. Right now I am trying to make sure that there isn’t a drop of wheat, milk or eggs in anything I eat. I’d like to get to the point where I don’t have to worry about a little bit of one of my allergens in my food…. like butter. I miss butter….. it’s a major pain to cook without butter! I’ve found sheep’s butter, but it’s pretty expensive (they way I used butter, anyway…).
Day six… almost a full week in… I’m beginning to think I can do this!
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