Score! Brown Rice Tortillas! Whoohooooooo!

Hypothetical Question:

"What if, for serious medical reasons, you were told today that you could never ever again be able to eat [Insert Favorite Food* Here]? How could you go on with your life?" *May include but is not limited to: Gooey Chocolate Brownies, Carb-Loaded Pasta Including Creamy Mac n' Cheese, Cheese of All Sorts, Mexican Food (vague, but this is just a hypothetical), Ice Cream, Pizza, Toaster Waffles, etc.

For a foodie, the typical answer is:

"GASP, Nooooo! Life would be so bland without [Food]. I'd go on a hunger strike! I'd die!"

Well, what if that question became a reality? It's really so easy to take the foods you love for granted. But for people with food sensitivities from allergens like gluten, corn, yeast, sugar, dairy, etc., figuring out what they are left with to eat, and what can actually be enjoyable, can become a daily struggle over the balance between diet and health. Most health-conscious folk read nutrition labels religiously to avoid things like hydrogenated oils, mono or triglycerides, excess sugars, artificial additives, and so on. I was one of those people. Now, I'm a label-reader to the extreme. Since my husband recently discovered that he may be sensitive to some or all of 37 (!) commonly listed ingredients, and since I'm such a loving, supportive wife (martyr?) who tries to eat whatever my husband eats when possible, to reduce temptation and make our kitchen a friendly and safe environment for him, my routine grocery trips have turned into a big teasing game of "Nah Nah Nah, You Can't Have That!" Something like sugar (evaporated cane juice, raw cane extract, etc.), is literally in 90% (ok, that's an estimate) of the food items on the market. Even in so-called whole-foods/health-foods sections! There are a handful of items that are sweetened with honey, but my hubby can't have honey either. C'mon, give some lovin' to natural fruit juice sweeteners, people! And a majority of gluten-free products out there substitute corn as the grain, which means that corn-less folk can't partake. My husband and I are particularly fond of Mexican Food - burritos, enchiladas, tostadas, tacos, mmmmmmmmmmmmm. I promise you that is not too many "m's" to convey the ultimate yum-factor of Mexi-goodness. Those foods are all traditionally made with corn or flour, not to mention with added fat of butter or lard. I say Poo! Cross that off our list.

Then this afternoon, I totally had my day, nay WEEK, made when I went to our local Trader Joe's, and discovered a handful of totally safe, allergen-free foods that my husband and I can both eat and enjoy without sacrificing much in taste! It's like the good old days again! I was able to buy brown rice pasta, which at other leading stores is either supplemented with corn meal or jacked-up in price to where you might as well have flown it in straight from the rice paddies, first-class. At an affordable $1.99, comparable to regular semolina/wheat pasta, it's well worth a try! I also found Gluten-Free Pancake/Waffle Mix for a crazy $2.99! Normally such a thing is $5 or $6, but not Joe's variety! A bag of reduced Guilt Potato Chips kettle-cooked in sunflower oil instead of cannola (for corn-allergic folk) cost a mere $1.79. And my saving grace: Brown Rice Tortillas! Ingredients: Brown Rice Flour, Filtered Water, Tapioca Flour, Safflower Oil, Rice Bran, Vegetable Gum (Xanthum Cellulose), Sea Salt. No butter. No lard. No corn! Price: $2.49 for 6 tortillas! Thank God! Thank Joe! I was tempted to buy twelve bags, but realistically went home with two. Post-purchases, I rushed home, unpacked my loot, and wrote a sincere thank-you comment on Trader Joe's webpage. I would have done a happy dance then and there, if I weren't so damn hungry from the hour-plus it took to check every label while shopping at lunchtime.

This cozy little life just got a lot easier!

And Joe? If you're reading? Please please don't discontinue those tortillas. I'll make it well worth your while.