Easy Gluten-Free Grocery Shopping

Today we kick off the first day of 30 Days to Easy Gluten-Free Living.  You are in for a treat this month as 30 different bloggers will share tips and treats all to make sure you know that it really can be easy living gluten free.  To check out the complete schedule visit HERE.  Tomorrow jump over to The Daily Dietribe where Iris will give you tips on Your First Day Living Gluten Free.  Remember this event lasts all month but it travels from blog to blog.

Grocery shopping is something I find people either like or they don’t.  For me it’s a lot of fun.  When I see so many fresh fruits, vegetables, meats  and seafood my head starts to spin with meal ideas.  But let’s back up to the first day I went grocery shopping when I found out that I was divorcing gluten and it was out of my life for good.  I say divorce because we all have a relationship with food.  For me this was a bad one.

My brain was still very foggy and I had a hard time sequencing tasks.  I even would get done shopping and not remember how to get home.  Gluten had really done a bad number on my body.  So when I went shopping I just went with no plan in mind and no idea what I was going to buy.  All I could remember was being told that gluten was in everything.  Quite frankly I was scared to death.  I think that first trip I was there for 3.5 to 4 hours.  Wandering around and reading every label on every product I could find was exhausting.  The ones that said gluten free on the label I tossed into the cart to try.

This was how I started my path to living gluten free.  I would make meals from the boxes of gluten free foods and frozen items.  I’d spend hours at the grocery store looking for what would be safe to eat with no thought of what would be good for me to eat.  I don’t think I’m alone with this type of start to living gluten free.

So here I was trying to heal my body from the effects of gluten and I was not giving it very much help.  See most of the products in boxes don’t have a lot of nutritional value.  They do have a lot of calories which really didn’t help the situation.  But what my body needed was good solid nutrients from real food.  I needed to be eating foods that would calm the inflammation, heal the damage and strengthen my body so it was healthy.

It never occurred to me that I could buy fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood and they were naturally gluten free.  I was wrongly told that gluten was in everything.  What they meant to say was that gluten is most often found in processed foods, not everything.  Wheat, barley, rye and oats from cross contamination are the foods that contain gluten.  That is not what I would call everything.  But foods with ingredient labels must be read carefully to make sure they have not added it in.

My nutritionist then told me to eat single ingredient foods.  Well my foggy brain took that to mean eat only one food at a time.  For instance eat only asparagus or only onion or only potato.  Those items don’t have ingredients labels because they are ingredients.

I think we need to be really careful in what we tell people and how we explain things, especially to those who have been sick for so long and finally find out the cause is gluten.  We need a little extra TLC and a confirmation that we understand what is being shared.

So today I’d like to share with you some tips with explanations on how to make your grocery shopping trips fast, easy and fun.

Make a menu for the week. Once you get used to doing this it will take you as long as 10 minutes to make it.  Try to make a menu with recipes that use whole foods.  Those single ingredient foods, real foods, or whatever you like to call them.  Organic fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, wild caught seafood, nuts, beans, coconut oil, Sea salt and items like that.

Make a list for the grocery store by using that menu. See what ingredients you need to make those meals that you don’t hava on hand and add them to your list.

Organize your shopping list.  Some like alphabetical, by category, or by the way the store is arranged.  You can even create a template with those headings and use it each time you make your shopping list.

Keep your list handy. Keep this template or whatever you write your grocery list on in the kitchen.  This way when you use the last of something that is a staple write it on the list so you can restock your pantry on your next trip.

Keep it fresh to keep it fast.  The more foods you have on your list that are fresh, which are on the outside isles of a grocery store, the faster you time will go at the store.

Beat the crowds. Try to pick a day or couple of different days and times to go shopping that is not as crowded.  This will help get you through the check out faster and it’s easier to get personalized service.

I hope you try out one or more of these suggestions and enjoy your easy shopping time at the grocery store.  Just remember the best tip to make shopping easy is to stick to the outer sides of the grocery store where the naturally gluten-free food can be found.   If you have any great tips to add to these lease share.

Have fun this month with the 30 Days to Easy Gluten-Free Living.

Monday May 2nd    me ,  The WHOLE Gang sharing Grocery Shopping Tips

Tuesday May 3rd  Iris from The Daily Dietribe sharing on Your First Day Living Gluten Free

Wednesday May 4th  Heather from Gluten-Free Cat sharing Smoothing the GF Transition with Smoothies

Thursday May 5th  Alta from Tasty Eats at Home sharing Convenience Foods

Friday May 6th  Elana from Elana’s Pantry sharing Quick and Easy Gluten Free Power Bars

Saturday May 7th  Cheryl from Gluten Free Goodness sharing Easy Meals

Sunday May 8th  Megan from Food Sensitivity Journal sharing Gluten Free Baking Undone:  Easy Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Monday May 9th  Amy from Simply Sugar and Gluten Free sharing Quick & Simply Cooking

Tuesday May 10th  Ricki from Diet, Dessert and Dogs sharing Gluten Free Baking Tips

Wednesday May 11th      Ellen from Gluten-Free Diva sharing Travel Tips

Thursaday May 12th     Kim from Cook It Allergy Free sharing

Friday May 13th     Melissa from Gluten Free For Good sharing Gluten-Free Food Rules

Saturday May 14th  Brittany from Real Sustenance sharing Healthy Allergy-Free Quick Bread with easy flavor variations.

Sunday May 15th  Nicola from g-free Mom sharing Kids Lunch Boxes

Monday May 16th     Wendy from Celiacs in the House sharing Fast Food for Teens

Tuesday May 17th     Shirley from gluten free easily sharing Your Pantry is the Key to Being GFE

Wednesday May 18th     Nancy from  The Sensitive Pantry sharing BBQ and Picnic tips and Recipe

Thursday May 19th    Heidi from Adventures of a Gluten-Free Mom sharing tips for getting kids to eat healthy, real-food snacks!

Friday May 20th  Silvana from Silvana’s Kitchen sharing

Saturday May 21st  Maggie from She Let Them Eat Cake sharing

Sunday May 22nd  Sea from Book of Yum sharing Gluten Free Vegetarian Burritos

Monday May 23rd     Tia from Glugle Gluten-Free sharing

Tuesday May 24th    Alisa from Alisa Cooks and Go Dairy Free sharing Wrap it Up-Thinking Outside the Bun

Wednesday May 25th  Hallie from Daily Bites sharing Keys to Colorful Cooking

Thursday May 26th     Carol from Simply…Gluten-Free sharing

Friday May 27th   AndreaAnna from Life as a Plate sharing Tips on Traveling on Day Trips with Kids

Saturday May 28th  Zoe from Z’s Cup of Tea sharing

Sunday May 29th  Kelly from The Spunky Coconut sharing

Monday May 30th  Jess from ATX Gluten-Free sharing 1 Meal 3 Ways, Jazzing up Leftovers

Tuesday May 31st  Naomi from Straight into Bed, Cakefree and Dried sharing

 

 

 

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29 Responses to Easy Gluten-Free Grocery Shopping

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