Label Reading

If you are in the same boat as me, you’ve probably experienced the following. You are walking through the supermarket picking up the groceries on your list. Your tummy is suddenly rumbling reminding you that it has been a few hours since you have last eaten. You decide to pick up a quick snack. Cereal bars are on sale, but they have sugar so you look at another item. Then you find some protein bars.  They are a little expensive, but they have some flavoring that you are wary of anyway, so you go to the next item. Snack after snack has something adverse; sugar, white flour, artificial ingredients, hidden MSGs, allergens, hydrogenated oils and the like.

Label reading is one of the most tedious and frustrating aspects of living a healthy lifestyle in my opinion.  Constantly needing to know what exactly you are putting in your body is enough to just make you grit your teeth sometimes. This doesn’t stop with food either, oh no! This means soaps, cleaners, detergents for clothes and dishes, what we eat and drink out of, even pesticides, herbicides and paint! The list is endless. I know I drive my family up the wall with my toxicity awareness and it seems to keep getting worse because of the new toxins that I realize that I need to watch out for like GMOs.  I do try to be a little accommodating, but then I get scared of what it will be like when I have kids.  I don’t mind compromising my own body a little, but I could never compromise my child’s!

There are times when you can’t read labels like when someone invites you to dinner. You want to eat whatever they give you because we are taught to be polite, but how can I do that when I can’t even function on the majority of what people eat?  I’ve had to take food with me on trips since it is such a headache to find a place for me to eat; and don’t even get me started on airplanes and the whole no liquid, no gel thing. Eating well is a necessity for people like me, but it isn’t always easy.

What are some things that can make this lifestyle easier?