One of the biggest factors in my leaving Japan was being unable to eat food. I like food. I'm not one of those people who can cook a vat of chili and eat it for two weeks straight. My body just will not consume food it does not want to eat, and if it's bored or uninterested in something, I can't argue. If my body wants pizza and I try to give it rice, it will shut down the hunger after a few bites and I feel full but unsatisfied. Of course, I get hungry again about 30-60 minutes later. Horribly inconvenient.
So just a week or so after moving here, I have pretty well scouted out the best and worst places to get anything gluten free within my own little sphere of the world.
Keep in mind you're not only going to be paying the gluten free tax, but also the Hawaii tax. Food is expensive here.
If you're staying in Honolulu, I'm going to bet you're in Waikiki. If you aren't ... well ... too bad. But surely you can find something you can eat near you.
The first store I hit on my gf run was Down to Earth ( http://www.downtoearth.org/ ). They're an all-vegetarian store with a huge amount of gluten free food. I'm not vegetarian, nor do I have any desire to be, but they don't card you or interrogate you or sniff you for essence of meat before you go in.
They had a lot of frozen items (the usual Amy's as well as some other stuff), cereals, crackers, bread, pretzels, pasta, etc. The only item I was hoping they would have that they didn't (but the brochure said they did) was tortillas. They had the Annie's deluxe gf, so I was happy.
In their deli/bakery they had a couple of pizzas that were listed as gf, as well as wheat-free cookies (I assume not gf due to the potential for cross-contamination). I was intrigued by both, but a bit turned off by fake meat (dude, if you're going to eat meat ... just eat meat) on the pizza and dates in the cookies. I just have a thing about raisins or dates in cookies. Can't stand them. Always taste them. No good.
The next on my list was Whole Foods. This is in the Kahala Mall and a bit of a trek if you're ... anywhere. I had to take two buses to get there, and by the time I got home I had spent over an hour and a half on buses and my food was melting.
It was my first time in a Whole Foods, but I think they're pretty standard, yeah? Really expensive, but lots of gf stuff. I was very tempted by the doughnuts, pie, and carrot cake. Ohhhh carrot cake. But I can't afford $12 in carrot cake or $16 pumpkin pies! They had a lot of nice stuff and I spent a lot of money on it. Mostly things I hadn't been able to find at Down to Earth or the other supermarkets in the area.
The next was Kokua Market ( http://kokuamarket.ning.com/ ). Fortunately for me and my tortilla lust, after forgetting to buy them at Whole Foods, Kokua had some for me. They also had a decent selection of items, including Glutino crackers, bagels, frozen items (mostly Amy's), and instant oatmeal in a flavor I would never touch (ewww banana). They had a bit more pizza than Down to Earth had, and since they're just down the street I bet they stay a little bit competitive in pricing. A little. Chicken noodle soup! Hurray!
All in all, not bad, and probably the least I've spent on groceries thus far, even though I got several items.
Now, don't think you have to go to these hippy-dippy crunchy earth-loving vegan all-natural shops to get your food on.
Walmart is not the place to go for anything. It's not a grocery store for all intents and purposes, and is more of a tourist destination for Japanese people who want to be able to say they went to a Walmart.
The Japanese version of Walmart, in a sense, is Don Quijote (or "Donki" as we usually called it in Japan). I actually found several gf foods in Donki, such as cereals and pastas. It was kind of odd, considering I'd just left Japan due to its dearth of gf food. Of course, in Japan they don't sell the same foods ...
I haven't been to Times, but the Safeway I went to has very little in the way of gf stuff. A few Amy's dinners, a couple of bags of pasta. They do have some lunch meat that is labeled gf (Hormel, IIRC) at least. It's a little disappointing, since it's my nearest store.
Foodland in Ala Moana has a few items (mostly Amy's), but the other Foodland I went to on S. Beretania had a LOT of stuff. Waffles and chicken tenders and cereals. They even had some breads in the freezer case. A decent selection at a relatively normal store. The prices are still kind of insane, but at least you can get one of those little shopper cards and pretend you're getting a discount.
So there you go. Just a short list of my findings. If I find anything else ... I will report back.
No comments:
Post a Comment