Reading is Fun and Fundamental

A short one today, just as a cautionary tale. Wednesday night, I went to get my hair cut (by the way, I had my mom use those Surface products I mentioned on my hair, and I'm in love. If I could afford to get them all the time, it's all I would use). Afterward (around 7:30pm at this point, and I was exhausted - it was not a good pain week), I stopped at Heinen's to pick up a cake for my boss. Her birthday is January 3rd, so it often gets overlooked during the holiday season.

While I was there, I asked where their GF section was. In this particular Heinen's, it's spread out across the store with signs to mark each food, and then there are three freezer cases. I picked up some meringue cookies, meatballs, and waffles. I prefer making my own waffles, but for grab & go, I do like Vans GF.

Friday night, I made the vegetarian meatballs with grape jelly & chili sauce (basically sweet & sour), and they were awful. Never again.

Yesterday, I started having symptoms like I had the stomach flu on steroids. Sick to my stomach, dizziness, pain, tingling, hot flashes. You name it, I had it. My first thought was that it had been the meatballs. Maybe the chili sauce was a bad idea. Mike and I were babysitting my niece and nephew, and it was so bad I even told him I might have to call my mom to take me to the hospital. I thought I would pass out any minute.

When we got home, I decided to check the one food I ate that was even slightly out of the ordinary - the waffles. Maybe they had a lot of fiber in them, or something else that would upset my IBS. Well, I was right to check them. I'm not sure if they were mis-shelved, or if I was simply tired and distracted and reached over one freezer case too far. But these were just organic waffles, not GF. Wheat flour was the second ingredient, and I had eaten two of them. I basically poisoned myself because I didn't read.

The moral? No matter where you grab it from, always read the ingredients. This may be a no brainer for some, but I still had some lingering illusions about what's "safe." Needless to say, that's not a mistake I'll ever make again.