Anyone who knows me well will tell you that grocery shopping is one of my favorite activities. I can spend hours roaming the isles of Whole Foods reading labels, comparing prices, or debating which brand of cashew butter is best. But grocery shopping in Italy is a whole different story. With most labels written in Italian, I could no longer tell what’s safe for me to eat.

Instead of spending time picking the food with the best ingredients, I was forced to pick the food whose labels I could read. That meant that if something had an ingredients list that was written in English, I was far more likely to purchase it. Even when I went shopping with my Italian friend, I didn’t have the time to fully check out the ingredients lists because I didn’t want to waste her whole day translating food labels for me.

Luckily, Italy is a country that is very conscious of Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity, so most stores had a dedicated gluten free section and all gluten free products were labeled. Outside of that section however, it was harder to tell what was safe for me to eat. Because I only have a sensitivity to gluten and not Celiac disease, I can eat foods that are contaminated with gluten as long as they don’t actually contain gluten. For example, oats are often processed on the same equipment as wheat so are not safe for people with Celiac disease to eat. While I do buy gluten free oats at home, I don’t worry about eating oats that aren’t certified gluten free when I’m not at home or when I’m travelling. But all of the oats in Italy were labelled as containing gluten and I didn’t know enough Italian to determine if they actually contained gluten or if they were just cross contaminated with it.

Because I spent so much time deciphering each food label, I didn’t pay nearly as much attention to the price of the food as I should have. If I could understand the label and liked the ingredients, I bought it.

While I did manage to eat well while I was in Italy, going grocery shopping in a different language is one of the few experiences that I won’t miss from Italy. I’m happy to be back to my Whole Food and endless cashew butter choices.