Welcome back to my autism-aware shopping trip through the grocery store. Week by week, I'm showing you what the store sells, prune down the selection to what's safe for me (because autistic people can have very sensitive systems) and point out various gotchas the store tries to make you buy stuff you didn't come for.
As a reminder, I shop with the following conditions in mind:
- dairy-free
- low sugar
- avoid ultraprocessed junk
- avoid food coloring
- conditional vegetarianism
- avoid high histamine foods
- awareness of gluten-free options and sugar-free options
Last week we met the pasta, "world foods," and sauce aisles, and found out my grocery store thinks "world foods" means snacks. So many snacks. With the occasional cooking staple thrown in for spice. I guess if you want actual ethnic food, you're better off hitting up an ethnic food store. We also learned sauces are sugar bomb traps. Pasta sauce especially, but BBQ sauce and salad dressing, too.
Onward to the soup and crackers!
Maybe fittingly for someone that makes stuff from scratch a lot, we start with broth and stock. There's a dozen varieties of chicken broth and beef broth. Why, I have no idea. It's pretty basic stuff. Notice what's missing, by the way? Beef and chicken are major meats, but... we're missing pork products here. Ham stock is a thing, but you can't buy it here. Or most anywhere in the US. Why? I'm not 100% sure, but I'd bet the pet food industry is a factor.
I always opt for the third option presented here, by the way: vegetable broth. It definitely doesn't have the same flavor in soups and such, but it's not that big of an adjustment in recipes.
Into your basic canned soups. Most soup is off limits to me, because the base is often chicken. If not chicken, probably beef. I still eat tomato soup, and cheese-based soups are also a thing, but both have their failings (high histamines and dairy, respectively). Cream of ____ is also not a good plan, because more dairy.
Yep. The soup aisle comes with its own snack section. This isn't even the only snack section in this side of the aisle. I'm sure the manufacturers would style these "lunch options" or something that doesn't contain the word "snack" but. Come on. These aren't big or thick enough to be a whole meal, and they certainly don't have enough vegetable content. Beyond the convenience bit, more canned soups. Soup isn't that hard to make, but cracking open a can is even easier. You have your choice of brand, too.
The soup section tapers off into this. "But we were already in the pasta section last time!" you might protest. Yeah, I don't know either. Anyway, here's the ramen. Friend of budgeteers everywhere, this stuff will give you calories... but it has basically no nutritional content. The ones that say chicken and beef and whatever, though? They definitely have chicken or beef content, so those are out for me.
On the far right side, Snacks the Second, with the Cup O' Noodles type of packages. Add hot water, stir after a couple minutes, and consume. You pay extra money for that packaging, though, and of course it goes right in the trash when you're done, and then into the landfill.
This is actually more Snacks the Second, rather than Snacks the Third. I guess one section of convenience soups wasn't sufficient. These are actual cans, but they have an easy-open top, so you don't need to retrieve the can opener. The options here vary, but they're all Italian-influenced ones. Canned ravioli seems kind of gross in theory, but if you're hungry enough, it's tasty.
I get to skip this section almost entirely because of the meat and dairy content.
Speaking of meat content! Did you know canned chicken is a thing? I don't know how you're allowed to call something fresh if it's been canned, but uh. This exists, at any rate. I associate that can shape with tuna, not chicken, but I guess it serves either way.
The tuna fish still exists, naturally. Along with sardines, shrimp, salmon, and mackerel. The fishing industry has apparently responded at some point to the fears of heavy metals in their products, because there's no reason to name your brand SafeCatch otherwise. Also, see at the top right there? Snack tuna fish.
You may also have Spam, corned beef, and canned chili (with or without beans). I have never knowingly ingested Spam, and I probably never will. I'm told it's an acquired taste. For something like this, "acquired taste" means, to me, "this is bad and you have to trick yourself into believing it's good."
On to the crackers, which are the other side of the aisle. So many crackers.
So hey, remember how there's a snack section in basically every aisle so far? We're now reaching the actual snack aisles. I'll try to be more specific than just stating that everything is ultraprocessed...
For example, Cheezits. Tasty. Low sugar, even. Dairy, though. Same with Goldfish crackers. Like almost everything in this aisle, not gluten-friendly.
I made sure to get a picture of this section specifically. Triscuits and Wheat Thins are two brands you can consume with less worry about your guts afterwards. Both have used whole grains in their production processes from the beginning. If you absolutely have to serve crackers and your party-goers aren't sensitive to gluten, either of these will do in a pinch.
If your party-goers are gluten-sensitive, though, here's your section. I'm sorry to say I haven't tried most of these, but at least they exist.
Saltines. Someone once told me saltines are only eaten when you're sick because if you can't keep them down, you haven't wasted food you care about. Apologies to anyone who does like saltines. Note the brown version in the middle. I say "brown" because it actually says nothing about the whole grain content. And of course all saltines are made from wheat flour, so...
Extra-snacky crackers and cookies, packaged in small containers for your convenience. I'm actually not sure why cookies are sneaking into this aisle, except that I guess it's the same packaging setup. Little plastic sleeves with sandwiched crackers and cheese paste, or cookies with frosting paste. Favorite grab snacks for events and lunches, in my experience. Again, it's ultraprocessed, nutritionless, and sometimes even sugar bombs.
Are graham crackers a cracker or a cookie? They're sweet, so I kind of want to say cookie. Regardless, here they are. You may have your choice of five basic brands, plus shaped snack versions because this is the US and we must have our snacks. Watch the sugar content on the snack versions, it tends to be higher to appeal to children more.
There's a type of cookie that's a layered bar shape. They're often chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry flavored, and intensely sugary. These come in "sugar free" varieties, if you look closely. They're sweetened with aspartame, which gives me headaches. If you recall from the baking aisle section, it's on the "best avoided" list. I didn't check every package of sugar free cookies, but most listed one or more of those substances to avoid.
Again, if you want to avoid sugar in your food, look for stuff sweetened with erythritol, stevia, and monk fruit. Aspartame is not your friend, and neither is sucralose.
Also, how many varieties of cookies does a person need? All of them, apparently.
Next, snacks! Nuts, ice cream fixings, granola bars, and candy. Just... so much candy.
Chocolate syrup and ice cream fixings. I'm not going to bother taking pictures of the calorie counts and sugar levels of these products. You know they're bad. I know they're bad. You only eat these because you're treating yourself. Sugar bombs, but at least they're honest ones.
Snack nuts. Mostly peanuts, but there's some mixed nut options and specifics like pistachios as well. Tree nuts (note: not peanuts) are a common allergen, but they're very good for you. Protein and aminos in one convenient crunchy package. It's a shame nuts are high histamine foods...
This is actually not the only section of nuts in the store, but the other is located quite far away and we'll get to it near the end of this series.
Applesauce. Note the staggering variety of "snack" options. The brighter and more colorful the package, the higher the sugar content. Gotta poison those kiddos early. When you buy applesauce, look for the no sugar added option, because that's the only way this isn't sugar bombs.
Convenience canned fruit. I'm most fond of the mandarin oranges, but I rarely get them. The 100% juice versions are a trap: juice is just sugar water with vitamin C, and it's not even going to be the same juice as the fruit in the cup. Notably, some of these options are "no sugar added" and some are even sweetened with monk fruit, so there are actual semi-healthy options here... you just have to look really hard for them. The plastic cups are awful for the environment though.
Right next to the fruit: pudding and jello. Yeah, because the canned and sugared up fruit wasn't snacky enough. More terrible plastic cups, of course. I can say this, at least: there are dairy-free puddings and gelatin-free jellos (they use carageenen instead). So there's options here for me if I want to buy something unrepentantly snacky. Nothing sugar-free that isn't horrifying, though, so my mother, with her allergy to cane sugar, is out of luck.
Continuing the massively unhealthy trend, fruit snacks. Make no mistake. These are candy. The pitiful amount of vitamin C in these can't hope to make up for the sugar, artificial colors, and calories they contain. I'm personally fond of Gushers but they are truly awful for me, so I rarely get them.
As an aside? This is one of two sections in the store where aisles connect in the middle, and it's because this is the heart of the store. That is, this is the candy aisle, and the break here leads to the chips. We'll meet the other pair of joined sections soon.
Speaking of candy, here's a shot of basically half an aisle... and it's all candy. Mints, chocolate-covered etc, gummies, hard candies, compressed sugar candies, dozens of types of candy bars, gum... the US appetite for variety in candy is practically limitless. I didn't bother getting more than one picture here because although they're honest sugar bombs, they're still sugar bombs. Often sugar bombs loaded with artificial colors. I typically don't even go into this aisle because of all the things I can't have here.
We now begin our foray into the other candy bars: the ones that pretend to be healthy. We start with something significantly more honest...
Marshmallow and cereal treats are pretty unhealthy and most folks know it. Let's look at the calories, sugar, and serving size. 90 calories, 8 grams of sugar, for 22 grams of marshmallow treat. That's kind of awful, but again, at least it's honest.
Now let's compare to an offering from Nature Valley, clearly touting itself as healthy and nutritious... 170 calories, and 9 grams of sugar, for 35 grams of granola bar. That's... worse. Significantly worse. Sugar bomb!
Wait, why is everything dessert flavored? Seriously, my pictures are a random sample of what's available, and everything is brownies and chocolate and peanut butter with the faintest hint of fruit, maybe.
90 calories, 7 grams of sugar, for 24 grams of granola bar. That's about on par with the marshmallow treat.
Oh look, one for kids. Brand: Rx Kids. Surely this one will be healthy and full of nutrients?
Nope, 130 calories, 10 grams of sugar, and no nutrient levels worth mentioning, in 33 grams of granola bar. The doctor that wrote this prescription should be sued for malpractice. This is just another cleverly marketed (and morally devoid) sugar bomb.
What about the fancier brands? KIND is supposed to be good for you. 160 calories, and 11 grams of sugar in 40 grams of granola bar. Sorry KIND, I don't think your amaranth, millet, rice, buckwheat, and quinoa can make up for the fact that you're the worst by far. Or perhaps you're only KIND to yourselves, by padding your wallets on lies?
As disgusted with this aisle as I am, I did find a couple options that weren't completely hideous. The reduced sugar variety of Chewy is still high on the calories (90) but only poisons you with 5 grams of sugar. That's still far too much, but it's... an improvement.
I typically don't take pictures of the endcaps/impulse buys... but this was too much to stomach. So, bonus horror, found by the spice aisle:
Did you know Family Time means sugar bombs? I didn't realize family time needed to involve poisoning myself. Thanks for clearing that up, grocery store!
That takes care of aisles 10 and 9. Remember, granola bars are sugar bombs (shop very carefully!), and I'll see you next time for the other half of the snack aisle (chips!) and various refreshing drinks.
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