How to Buy Groceries without a Tricorder

With the abundance of processed foods and preservatives overwhelming the shelves of grocery stores, each trip I make to buy groceries is like an epic quest. My mission is tri-fold: (1) buy organic, gluten-free, minimally processed foods, (2) try to be kind to my wallet; and (3) try not to have a breakdown over labels, unknown ingredients, and/or the general confusion that reading the backs of several products of the same thing (but just a little different) will cause.

This makes me wish I had a tricorder.

What is a tricorder? you may ask if you’re not a hardcore trekkie. Or you may ask this if you HAVE watched quite a bit of Star Trek but can’t remember that thing that Spock carries around all the time on missions. 

Well this contraption in the picture on the right is a tricorder. And in the Star Trek universe, a tricorder is defined as a “multifunction hand-held devise useful for data sensing, analysis, and recorded data with many specialized abilities which make it an asset to crews about starships and space stations as well as on away missions.” (For more about the tricorder click here. You can also buy one here.)

As you can see in this picture below, Spock is usually carrying one. And sometimes you’ll see Bones with one as well.

Yet, while we’re close to mass-marketing a medical Tricorder, and there are apps  that can aid in grocery shopping, there’s no real way to know what exactly IS in the food we’re buying, especially if it comes in a box, a can, or plastic packaging. I would love to believe that having a tricorder would make shopping easier, since the device could just tell me what’s in my food, how much preservatives or non-natural ingredients have been added, or if all natural, just also happens to be gluten free. But alas, I must wait for that day.

In the meantime, however, I strive to be aware of what’s in the food I buy. Yet this can be incredibly difficult, and is only becoming more difficult as time moves on. Take for example Breyers ice cream:

Breyers ice cream used to be known for it’s short and simple ingredient list that included milk, cream, sugar, and the flavor ingredient (chocolate, vanilla, strawberries, etc). I even remember some of the commercials that advertised this. Yet now, even Breyers has unidentifiable ingredients. Their new list includes Tara gum, Guar gum, ice-structuring proteins, monoglycerides, diglycerides, corn-syrup and natural flavors. If you ask me that’s a big difference. And if I were to pick up such a package and read those ingredients, I would ask myself: What the frak is guar gum? And why I am eating it?

What I think are even worse, are ingredients described with familiar words, that make me think I know what they are, when really, I have no idea what they are. The biggest culprit in this category, for me at least: Modified Food Starch. What IS that?!

Separately, I know what each of these of these words mean, but together they’re just a vague label. Common sense would suggest it’s starch, made out of food, and something has been done it for it to be modified. But how are they modifying it? Why are they modifying it? Will it have an adverse effect on my health? And what kind of food is the starch made out of? Or is it even made out of food at all? Once they’ve modified it of course.

I did some googling and came up with the photo above to the right, and a general definition, of modified food starch as being any kind of grain or vegetable starch. Good luck for anyone who’s sensitive to gluten. If it says food starch, it’s probably not worth the risk. But what’s worse, is that most food has modified starches, or other chemicals and preservatives that we can’t even pronounce, nonetheless determine if they are a hazard to our health. Like Potassium Bromate. Which brings me to Walter Bishop’s thoughts on the matter. 

I tend to agree with Walter some days. There are times when I feel like grocery stores, or the companies whose products are filling the shelves ARE trying to kill us. With strawberry flavored death of nonetheless.

Strategies for Shopping in the Supermarket

So in an absence of tricorders, and only equipped with my smartphone, I have devised a simple strategy for shopping safely in the grocery store, which I will provide below. Apparently it’s all about Fringe  science.

Sort of.

In my experience, I’ve noticed that many grocery stores are set up with similar if not the same layout. Produce, Dairy, Meat, Seafood, Deli and Grains on the outside along the walls (the Fringe area), and processed foods, drinks, snacks and baking items on the inside. And to show you an example I’ve created a layout of the grocery store I go to all the time. Without any of my sci-fi biases, the layout kind of looks like this:

Curious to know how I view grocery stores through my sci-fi lens? Using my grocery store’s layout, I view grocery store space like this:

All those aisles full of processed and preservative filled foods: Romulan Space. A forbidden territory. I don’t go in there unless I must, and if I do go in there and buy processed or preservative foods (which is much more likely than outside of Romulan Space), I must be prepared for war, because my body is going to have to fight off the negative impact such preservatives and modified foods are going to have on my body and my health.

However, on the days, I’m not in the Star Trek frame of mind, and thinking more about Westerns, I view the grocery store like this:

Once again, that dangerous middle aisles space is off limits. This time as Alliance territory. From a Browncoat’s perspective, it’s better to stay away from the areas of the ‘verse that are highly regulated by an unfavorable super government (In this case particularly in the form of highly unfavorable mega-corporations, like Kraft and Blue Sun). It’s safer to cruise out on the fringes to avoid the Alliance. 

Well there you have it, when it comes to grocery shopping Fringe strategy is best. Avoid the Romulans. Avoid the Alliance. And when you can’t avoid either, for the safety of yourself and your crew: Read the ingredients lists!! If instinct or your smart phone tells you some ingredient is inexplicable, or you can’t pronounce it, avoid the Romulan and Alliance traps, and don’t buy it. Life’s safer that way.

Personal Pandoricas

I recently read a blog post by Paul Chek on Happiness, and a concept called Buddha’s cage. And while I can’t speak for everyone, Happiness is a pretty big thing for me, so Paul’s post got my attention, and after a day of pondering, I think I’d like to share.

 In his post Paul wrote something that really resonated with me:

“I’ve found that a huge amount of people’s inability to create sustainable happiness in their lives is because they allow themselves to be governed by other people’s opinions and expectations at the expense of their own.”

Captain Mal Reynolds

I’ve been a people-pleaser all of my life and it wasn’t until the last few years, that I recognized this and discovered that it could be extremely unhealthy. So when I read this statement, I thought: I know exactly how that goes, and unlike floral bonnets, it usually ain’t pretty.

Chek then went on to describe what he teaches to be a Buddha’s cage: limitations created from attaching our sense of personal happiness to mental, etheric, emotional or physical experiences or expectations. 

A Great way to remember these elements is by acronym: MEEP.
Which of course reminds me of Road Runner: Meep Meep.

As a result these limitations end up closing us in, not only creating a false sense of happiness, but also acting as a barrier to reaching true happiness, or reaching personal potential.  Paul Chek’s diagram of a Buddha’s cage looks like this:

My first thoughts and reactions to this picture took a while to develop, as my brain sifted and scanned through everything I know (or think) is true and ways to analyze and connect with the information presented to me, and find a sci-fi equivalent. My first “search result” in my brain was this:

A Pandorica. 

For you Whovians, this might give you an idea where I’m going. Everyone else, please bear with me: This image depicts more than just a box.

In the universe of Doctor Who, at one point, all of the Doctor’s foes form an alliance to create the ultimate prison for the most dangerous person in the universe. Or at least who they consider to be the most dangerous person in the universe: The Doctor. This prison, the Pandorica, is equipped with every type of barrier to keep the Doctor in: deadlocks, time stops, matter lines, and a restoration field to prevent escape by death. The Pandorica is indeed a comprehensive prison.

The Buddha’s cage Chek describes is actually very similar. The cage people tend to build around themselves is just as comprehensive including the mental, emotion, etheric and physical limitations (MEEP MEEP). But unlike the Pandorica, outside enemies are not the creators of such a prison, but in fact, the creator of our Buddha’s cage is none other than our greatest inner foe: ourselves. 

And it’s really easy to start building a Buddha’s Cage or what I like to call a Personal Pandorica. Most people, whether they know it or not, already have one, and some determined souls have found a way to break free. The types of limitations that create a cage on your happiness and personal growth can develop out of anything and everything from the perceptions and expectations of others (this can be anyone: family, friends, co-workers, professors, strangers), to your emotions and/or emotional ties to expectations of others (such as getting approval from those you admire), to physical limitations such as body-weight, self-perception, or past injuries; There are infinite sources of material to build bars or walls.

The Next Step: Escaping your Pandorica

As with most things, the first step is awareness, now that you’re aware of the limitations you have imposed, or have allowed others to impose on yourself, what do you do next?

In my personal experience, it takes time to break down these barriers, but as soon as you discover them, the demolition process can begin. It wasn’t until about a little over a year ago that I started to discover the limitations I had imposed on myself for most of my life. I’m now working towards breaking down 25 years of limitations and negative thoughts that hindered me in attaining happiness, moving forward and approaching life’s next big adventure. 

So how to plan your escape:

Scofield from Prison Break

Well first you get a full body tattoo of the prison you want to escape from since your brother Lincoln... Oh wait, sorry, wrong show...

In my personal opinion, the story line of the Pandorica, and the tale of Rory and Amy (The Pandorica and the Roman soldier) in Doctor Who is one of the greatest love stories ever. I also think that escaping Buddha’s Cages and Personal Pandoricas also requires the same element of love, but applied differently: self-love and a developed sense of self-worth. 

When we are young and we need others to make decisions for us, we rely on the perceptions and expectations of others to guide us to safety, and to the right choices. However, when one graduates from a child to an adult, there is also a need to graduate from relying on the opinions and expectations of others to, trusting oneself to make the decisions. As an adult, no one knows you and what’s going on in your life better than you, particularly in terms of what makes you happy. And many times others won’t be able to understand all of the challenges that you face. As a result, the expectations and opinions of others are not always going to align with what you think, like, want, or most importantly, need. This doesn’t mean you can’t still ask for advice or listen to the recommendations of others, but it does mean you can’t let others set the standards for your happiness. As soon as you let others decide what will determine what makes you happy, the door to your cage or Pandorica is as good as locked. Oops.

So next time you feel your happiness being threatened or being absent, ask yourself:  Is it because of what others think of you? Or what someone told you? Why does their opinion matter? How do you know they are telling the truth? If you think they are telling the truth, is it the absolute truth? Or just how they see it? What will their opinion matter six months from now? A year? 10 years? Are they setting the standards for your happiness? Why?

I find these types of questions to be extremely helpful. The biggest gray area I have is when professional opinions or advice is given. These professionals have experience and knowledge that I don’t, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean they know everything, especially about me. The most difficult area of my personal Pandorica to deconstruct is the limitations that come the expectations of family and close friends: I want them to be happy, but when I let them set the standards of my happiness, my life turns into a lab of gloom and doom where things go boom.

This kind of oxygen mask.

Someone once told me that surviving life is like surviving a plane crash: You must put on your own oxygen mask first before you can help others put theirs on.

Not this kind of Oxygen Mask.

This principle suggests that once you have your own oxygen mask on you will be able to help others, many more so than if you yourself were running out of oxygen in the process. Likewise, once figure out your own happiness, you can help others find theirs, many more so than if you yourself were unhappy.