A Whole New World

I love shopping but picking out a ripe cantaloupe doesn’t give me the same thrill as picking out a cute dress. Today was my big day. I am officially a healthy vegetarian and the first thing I had to do was buy some healthy food. My shopping trip was an emotional rollercoaster. I was full of anxiety, confusion and deceit. Yes, deceit. Yesterday I wrote out my shopping list for this week and I immediately felt anxiety. What if buy this food and I don’t like it. Am I choosing the right products? I just didn’t feel secure that I was making the right decisions. I felt silly because it really shouldn’t be this hard. I go in the store buy some rabbit food and get out of there. I’m not being asked to cut the red wire or the green wire.

But this is a big deal to me. It’s time that I get healthy. I’m 5’3’’, 190 and I will be 25 years old in less than a month. It’s more than a vanity thing. Shoot, I don’t consider myself fat. I’m thick. But medically, I’m overweight and that can lead to some serious issues. High blood pressure runs in my family. And while I don’t have it now, but if I continue with my unhealthy habits it’s just a matter of time before it affects me.

So I headed to my neighborhood grocery store. The moment I walked in I was filled anxiety. Where do I go first? What do I do? The only thing that calmed me down was the sight of Home Grown tomatoes 2lbs for $3. I picked up a firm tomato and held it in my hand. A feeling of peace came over me and my confidence came back. I took out my list and headed for the onions.

The vegetable buying part wasn’t a problem. I knew what I wanted and for the most part I found it. I was a little disappointed that there were only two zucchinis. One was gigantic and the other one looked like it had been used to beat somebody across the head.  By the time I left the produce department I knew that the $50 budget was out the window but I knew that I wouldn’t be making a big grocery trip like this every week so I was ok with going over budget.

I knew that I wanted some soup. It’s an easy meal. What isn’t easy is finding a truly vegetarian canned soup. I found a good vegetable soup on sale. It looked promising but when I turned to look at the ingredients I saw that there was chicken stock in the vegetable soup. After picking up can after can I kept finding that several of these “vegetable” soups had chicken stock. I finally found a couple cans of soup from Campbell’s Select and Healthy Choice.

My major victory was found in the pasta aisle. I only want to eat whole wheat pasta but I know that whole wheat means a whole dollar or two added to the price. However I was relieved to find that this store had a few brands of organic whole wheat spaghetti and rotini noodles that were at a marked down price. So you know I stocked up.

After picking up a box cereal and few other impulse items I headed to the check out. I stood in line nervous. I knew I was over $50 but I did not add up as I went along so I had no idea how much I had spent. I put my items up on the counter. There was no turning back now. I wasn’t putting anything back because I needed everything. She scanned everything, pushed the total button and told me $82.81. But I was at peace. I knew that this would not happen again. I wouldn’t let it. At the bottom of my receipt was how much money I saved from in-store sales. $12.64. Yeah right. I’m buying a newspaper. Vegetarianism is going to turn me into a crazy coupon lady.