Happy 100 and a trip to the grocery store!!

Can I get a drumroll please?! Yes this is my 100th post..woohoo!! I can't believe I haven't run out of things to say yet. This time, I think I would like to talk about one particular aspect of diabetes that is a thorn in my side. Yesterday, I had to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things...water, fruit, pretzels, and whatever impulse item I could find. As I was strolling along pushing the cart up and down the aisles...I started actually noticing the price of things as opposed to solely focusing on the carb counts in them. Don't get me wrong, we are by no means rich...so it's not like price doesn't matter to me at all...it's just that diabetes usually pushes and shoves it's way to the front of my mind in the grocery store making me consider carb counts first. I grabbed a bag of grapes because it is a quick, tasty, and easy snack for my daughter to have at school. It wasn't a gigantic bag...it wasn't a teeny tiny bag...to borrow a phrase from Goldilocks, it was just right. On I continued passing by the chips/candy aisle...I noticed a huge display of party-size bags of M&M's on sale for $1.99...they had regular M&M'S, peanut, dark chocolate, and those new ones with pretzels inside. It was a mountain of M&M goodness...all for the low low price of $1.99. I hadn't gone in to the store looking to buy M&M's, but I couldn't pass up such a good deal! I grabbed a bag and tossed them in the cart. Well, I finished up my tour of the store and went to the front to check out and get home. I always go to the checkout lanes set up were you can scan your own items and avoid the whole cashier/bagboy business. I am really not an anti-social person...I just seem to always wind up in the checkout lane where the cashier and bagboy are having some deep discussion about who likes who and what went on last night at the club...and I wind up standing there waiting for them to finish...waiting and waiting and waiting...ugh. So, anyway...I started scanning my items and happened to notice that my bag of grapes came up as $5.50. WOAH....i was paying $5.50 for some nice healthy tasty grapes....and $1.99 for a gigantor bag of M&M's??? Insanity. I understand that fruit is a seasonal thing and they have to base the prices accordingly...but seriously??? $5.50?? How can the powers that be expect the average shmo like myself to eat healthy and buy healthy foods for my family when the cost of healthy foods is that much MORE than the junk? As the parent of a diabetic child, I am always on the hunt for healthy alternatives that are lower carb and are going to make her blood sugar stay level for longer. I know that she is able to eat absolutely anything she wants...candy, cookies, ice cream...whatever...but I wouldn't let her do that all the time even if she wasn't diabetic. So, there I stood... staring at the computer screen at the checkout...mouth hanging open...thinking about how ridiculous this world is. The media loves to shove down our throats the fact that we are all obese and lazy couch potatoes and so are our children. Our schools are hell bent on promoting healthier eating to the point of sending home a news letter each month from the principal that usually includes a recipe for some "healthy" alternative for a snack or whatever....all the while still having designated "pizza days" that include ice cream desserts for the kids.
I am a firm believer in letting kids be kids. Regardless of if they are diabetic or not. I think they should be allowed to have their pizza days, enjoy a cookie now and again, get to have a lazy movie or boardgame night once and a while. I also believe that it should be everything in moderation. We ALL need to eat balanced...fruits and veggies as well as the occasional handful of M&M's. However, I am completely dismayed at how difficult and expensive it is to include those healthy foods in our lives. Give us a break! Make fruits and veggies a tad more reasonable and try to help the situation! UGH...sorry for ranting about this...it is just so frustrating to me...and so ridiculous. In celebration of my 100th post, I am now going to open previously discussed bag of M&M's and eat the entire thing....and include a single grape in there too. Just for balance...lolol...cause it's all I can afford.