Yesterday was the binge and purge of all the food in our kitchen. Well, not entirely, our boys still have to eat. But for the most part, our kitchen has been cleansed of all the starchy, creamy, stuff we can’t eat over the next 30 days. And boy did it send me on a tizzy.
The day started off with a tip to the Marietta City Farmer’s Market, where I loaded us up on some fresh veggies. There’s nothing quite as good as local produce. Its crazy the difference home grown/organic makes. I mean, check out this friggin’ sweet potato! It’s the size of my head! It was a good haul of sweet potatoes, avocados, okra, green beans, peaches, tomatoes, kale, red and green peppers, some sausage, and almond butter. We will definitely be going back here for future produce purchases.
We knew we needed a lot more stuff so a trip to our local grocery store was up for the afternoon. As this Whole30 thing continues, I find it both easier and more difficult to shop at places like Publix and Kroger. The Kroger near us has a fairly good “natural” food section and some decent produce, but I really just dislike the store in general. It feels dirty and the service there is awful. I don’t shop there often enough to know where everything is and I don’t like the layout. The deli counter is meh at best, and the seafood was something I’d rather not see. Publix on the other hand is like a magical wonderland full of helpful employees, samples, fresher looking produce, free cookies for the kids, and occasional free samples for the adults! We can walk around in our racecar shopping carts, up and down the aisles loading up our cart with all the tasty treats we’ve come to enjoy and love! Wait… not any more we can’t.
That’s the thing. We once were able to make a list, go to the store, and 30 mins later be out the door with a full cart, cookies for the baby, and we’d be stocked up for the week. Now we have to stop and read the labels. Every. Single. Label. Granted if we stayed to the outside perimeter of the store and only went into the innards of the store for stuff like coconut milk and frozen items, we should be fine. But even then, its not that easy. Want some bacon? Nope, its sugar cured. Forget about the dairy section. Almond/Coconut milk, nah, sugar or some other added chemicals for “flavor”. The label checking is hard enough, but throw 2 kids in the mix and difficulty increases tenfold.
I was having a mini anxiety attack after leaving the store, but despite a grocery store that was lackluster in what we REALLY needed we still managed to load up with all manner of things that we can eat over the next 30 days. The label looking will get easier and we’ll soon know what’s on/off limits. I have a few butchers I need to visit so we can find some more choice meat, and I’m gonna look online for some other items to stock up on.
