The one about a picky eater with food allergies on weight loss medication who lives in a food desert

I have often asked the Invisible Sky Daddy why I can’t just photosynthesize. Like a plant.

Picky picky princess

I was always a picky eater growing up. Macaroni and cheese. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Grilled cheese. Artichokes. Peas. Cheese. Black olives (yes, on the tips of the fingers). Plain hamburgers, no ketchup or anything. Spaghetti with butter, no red sauce. I also don’t like onions. I mean, REALLY don’t like onions. I’m not allergic to them, I just don’t like them.

And don’t even get me started on textures. I hate pudding, smoothies, melted ice cream, yogurt, shakes… you get the idea.

I must have been so frustrating to feed as a child.

And thanks to my Stepmonster, who was an avid cookbook reader who … I guess then did the exact opposite of what was in the recipe… I also have a fear of “surprise foods.” I don’t like stews or soups (unless I make them myself and know exactly what’s in them) because she would… I don’t even understand what she would do. Peas, my second favorite vegetable, would be indistinguishable from onions in color and consistency. Sometimes there would be onions in a soup. Sometimes it would be peas. Sometimes it would be celery, cooked to the consistency of rubber bands with strings in them. Sometimes it would be two out of three. Or worse, all three. You were pretty safe picking out potatoes or meat from the slop, as long as you didn’t mind that one was chewy and one was soft and neither had any sort of discernable taste. Sometimes she would make… I guess they were supposed to be tempura vegetables, but like the stew, you never knew what you were going to get. It was usually overly bready and yet also still kind of damp and you could not rely on the shape to give you a hint as to what it was. Broccoli? Mushroom? Cauliflower? Onion with a piece of celery stuck to it? You’ll find out when you bite into it!

Honestly, how do I not have food PTSD?

Did you know that being a picky eater as a child can sometimes be traced to food allergies? Children learn, even before they can articulate it, that certain foods make them feel unwell and that will drive them to avoid those foods in the future.

Food allergies

When I was in my late 30s, I started to feel really weird after eating certain things. Not all the time, not every time, but a lot. It felt like my throat was being squeezed from the inside. Sometimes I’d feel nauseous, sometimes not. If I couldn’t stop myself from throwing up, or could make myself throw up, I’d feel better sooner. There’s a long story I’ll leave out about how long it took me to get my doctor at the time to refer me for a food allergy test, but surprise surprise, when I finally got one, it turned out I was allergic to chicken, turkey, eggs, quail, duck, and all fish, fish eggs, and derivatives of. Basically, anything with feathers or scales, or that comes from creatures with feathers or scales. According to my allergy test, I’m allergic to the protein in these foods.

(The food allergy thing is because of the one kidney thing, and I’m happy to answer questions but I have already talked about that at length on the blog previously.)

This meant an entire change to what I ate. I love, love, love fish. I could still eat shellfish; shrimp, lobster… but I could no longer eat trout, mullet, catfish, tuna… no more tuna casserole. No more smoked mullet. No more fish and chips. No more Ahi Tuna salad. I never really liked chicken or turkey, but now those things were off the table as well. As well as anything made with chicken stock, or eggs. Do you know how many things have Surprise Allergens in them? Yellow rice is usually cooked in chicken broth. Lots of soups made commercially (or in bulk at restaurants) are made with chicken stock. Getting bacon at a restaurant? Do they also cook turkey bacon on the same grill? Cross contamination. Getting a salad? Some ranch dressings have eggs… some don’t. Some blue cheese dressings have eggs… some don’t. You’ll find out when you eat it!

Tim was pretty happy eating just about anything, but it did mean that I had to learn how to make new things, or make old things differently, and honestly cooking just became less and less enjoyable. And going out wasn’t fun, either, because it’s starting from scratch with each server, explaining allergies and asking how things are cooked and what they’re cooked with. It’s just… tiring.

What grocery store?

When we moved out here, I was surprised there was only a Hitchcock’s in Keystone. And trust me, it was … unpleasant. So many times I’d pull milk or coffee creamer out of the cooler section just to notice it was days past the “best by” date. The deli was always either had a very bad smell, or was closed for “cleaning.” And this is going to sound so petty, so “I’m a spoiled princess,” but a lot of the brands they carried were a lot different than what I had been used to in Gainesville. I’m not usually a “stick to this brand” girlie, I’m more of a “which is cheaper” girlie… but some of the stuff just never tasted right.

Hitchcock’s was about a ten minute drive, and there was also a Harvey’s about a 15-20 minute drive (down this crazy narrow winding two-lane road with no shoulders where a Ford Compensator coming your way can drive you off the road). I’d love to say I preferred one more than the other, but even though Harvey’s was cleaner, they didn’t have what I was looking for reliably any more than Hitchcock’s did. A lot of time I’d wind up bringing a cooler full of ice and going to both stores just to complete my grocery list. Almost every time there was at least one thing both stores were out of.

So I was THRILLED when soon after Covid started, Kroger came into Florida and started doing deliveries out of Jacksonville, in refrigerated trucks. That was a good five years. I would still occasionally go into Hitchcock’s (halfheartedly, almost hoping they’d be out of what I wanted because if it was there, was it out of date?) or into Harvey’s, which was actually converted into a Winn Dixie around the same time that Covid started.

But then (because you knew there was going to be a “but,” right?) there was this wild confunction with Winn Dixie and Harvey’s and Hitchcock’s and Aldi and who’s buying who and who’s going to restructure and be like the last grocery store standing… it kind of reminded me of the thing about how all restaurants in Demolition Man are Taco Bells because of the Franchise Wars. And then we all got an email from Kroger in December saying they were pulling out of Florida in January. I think they might have even pulled out the same week that the Hitchcock’s closed. Which, yeah, not sorry to see that pit of despair go, except that meanwhile the locally owned grocery store in Melrose, Williamson’s, closed, and so suddenly the Winn Dixie (formerly Harvey’s, sorry, I know, it’s confusing) was doing triple duty. I don’t think I’ve ever been there and been able to find everything on my list because they’re always out of SOMETHING, and good lord, I’m only shopping for one person!

So they way it is now, from what I understand, the Winn Dixie (formerly Harvey’s) was bought by Aldi, and is going to turn into an Aldi. They will close some time this summer to renovate and rebuild. Hitchcock’s was bought by a different branch of Winn Dixie (I KNOW!) and they have been renovating for months. They’re supposed to open at the end of July. So we may actually have a month or so there where there aren’t ANY grocery stores in this town OR the next town. I hate to say it but thank goodness for Walmart grocery delivery. Even though I hate Walmart and they don’t need my money… I have to get food SOMEWHERE. I do go up to Jacksonville every couple of months and buy pantry stuff at Costco, but not too much cold stuff because, again, I’m only cooking for one person.

Speaking of…

Cooking for one

When Tim died, and I had to relearn how to cook for one person… it was almost like the allergy thing all over again. What did I eat when I was single? A lot of fish, fast food chicken if I was tired and didn’t feel like cooking… things I couldn’t eat any more.

Recently I bought a standing freezer, and some of those silicon souper cube things, and I’ve been making some of the same size dishes I’d make when Tim was alive, but freeze everything I didn’t eat that night. Then I can just pull a little baggie out of the freezer on my way to the house from the studio and BAM, there’s dinner.

Except…

Let’s add tirzepatide to lose weight

So, start of 2025, my doctor put me on Contrave, to lose weight. I stayed on it for a year, and lost …. drumroll please … a whole pound. I was ashamed to even make an appointment with her, because I didn’t want a lot of shit about non-compliance. I was doing the best I could, with everything, all the time! But nothing was happening. We finally met, and she was like, “you know what? It just doesn’t work for some people. Let’s try you on something else.” And that meant a couple of months of going round and round with my insurance (which changed in January, having us start all over again) and the company that makes Zepbound.. turns out my insurance won’t pay for it no matter what, and I don’t qualify for cheap Zepbound direct from Eli Lilly (spelling?) because according to the sleep studies I took, I don’t have sleep apnea. So I’m on a tirzepatide compound, at least until Eli Lilly finished with whatever is going on with the court system and compounds can no longer be made (if they win).

Since January, I’ve lost 25lbs. I can talk more about that later if people have questions, but this is already getting long and mostly what I want to talk about is what it’s done to my appetite. And what it’s done is… what appetite? I no longer have hunger cues. I do have cues that tell me I’m a little light-headed because I forgot to eat because I don’t have hunger cues, which is … funny? So, and this does make me feel like one of the least adult adults ever, but… I’ve had to set alarms on my phone to remind me to eat. Because I rarely feel hungry, and even if I think I might be hungry, if I think about what I want to eat, nothing sounds like it’s going to be good. So it’s not just that I don’t feel hungry, I also don’t want food. Which means I have things on my phone now like “the cottage cheese alarm” and “the apple and beef stick alarm” and “the protein bar alarm.” Sigh.

And that brings me to… protein. I’m supposed to eat so many grams of protein in a day, to keep up muscle mass, and hey, did you catch that part up in the food allergy section? I’m allergic to some proteins. And because that’s a one kidney thing, there’s no telling if, in the future, Lefty will decide that OTHER proteins are ALSO attacking me and it will send out the histamine armies. So any day that I eat a lot of protein, if I start to itch at all – internally or externally – I flip out a little and panic that I’m now allergic to pork, or beef, or whatever I’m eating to get my protein for the day.

It’s so tiring.

Why can’t I just photosynthesize???