Meltdown on Aisle 6: Finding Processed Food for Our Allergic Son

By Sean Kelley

On my first trip to the grocery store after my son, Graeme, was diagnosed with food allergies, I did something I’ve never done in a food store before: I cried.

I’m usually happiest around food, but it was a moment of rare negative emotion, and my breakdown happened in front of God, my 4-year-old daughter, Elise, and the boy who was stocking aisle six.

I had been reading my way through the store, checking every item before tossing it in the basket for foods that are now verboten in my house: peanuts, corn, wheat, soy, egg whites, and chicken. I knew I had to avoid those, but it was finding the derivatives of them in almost every product that was sending me into a state of panic and sadness. Read More