Whatever floats your bloat

Charmed is my favorite TV show; perhaps favorite TV show of all time. The series ended in 2006 after an 8-year run. Its about three modern witches - beautiful intelligent empowered females who (rarely to never cook and) save the world from demons, warlocks, and other evil on an almost daily basis.

Needless to say, (besides the never cooking thing) the lovely ladies of Charmed and I don't have a lot in common - or at least we didn't - until yesterday.

I am in the process of trying to learn and understand cooking and healthy eating. The first step in my process is learning about my GI Tract and doing a four day anti-bloat diet. Since I (imagine or )perceive myself to feel constantly bloated, I thought this would be a nice way to start.

The four day anti-bloat diet is not something one would try to sustain for long periods for several reasons 1) it's extremely boring; 2) it is somewhat calorically deficient.

Anyway, the menu items for the four-days were not items I had on hand. Things like ginger root, hard-pressed cold flaxseed oil, cheese... you get the picture. I felt like I was collecting ingredients for a potion like my Charmed friends.

I went to Pick 'n Save after work (10 p.m. - ish) with my four day grocery list (provided by my book). The items were listed by categories ("Produce," "Herbs and Spices," etc.) for my shopping ease.

But for someone who is familiar with only a few aisles of the enormous new Pick 'n Save (candy, soda and cereal) the task was daunting; it took about an hour.

Because the night staff is not all that knowledgeable beyond how to run their registers, my trip turned out to be an extremely dull scavenger hunt. The raisins were particularly evasive as were the "dried plums" which I later figured out were actually PRUNES.

I still have a few items left to collect, but I should be in business for Day 1 of a healthier GI Tract tomorrow. Wish me luck in my quest to vanquish bloat!