Well, I don’t drive, so there could be drive-through pharmacies here that I just don’t know about. But if there are, I also don’t know anyone who’s ever used or mentioned them.
So, do they have drive-through pharmacies there??? You didn’t really answer my question! LOL.
ha ha ha - Drive through almost everything.
Yes - Including Pharmacies.
lol
Some cities allow drive through liquor stores! So there are much weirder (than pharmacies) drive through opportunities in the good ol USA 
America also has drive-through liquor stores! And now we don’t even have to go into grocery stores…they just wheel it out to you!
I’ve read that obesity risk tends to correlate to socio-economic status for a variety of reasons. But buying cheaper, less healthy food because it is more affordable is just one of the reasons. The “decision fatigue” experienced by people in the financially strapped demographic is crippling. When people lack enough resources to address all of their life challenges, decision fatigue makes it nearly impossible to have any mental bandwidth left for meal planning, label reading, grocery budgeting, cooking, etc.
I see obese people in the Sam’s Club cafe eating hot dogs and soda for lunch with their kids before or after shopping for food to cook. It seems to some people like, “Well, yeah, of course they’re overweight. They’re eating lunch in the crummy cafe at the store instead of buying something decent and cooking it.” When really, it’s more of a, “They are totally burned out bc they are stressing out about working two jobs and figuring out how to pay for medicine and for their kids’ glasses and…and…and…so when it comes to food, there is no bandwidth left and they revert to what’s easy and accessible and they don’t have to think about it bc they can’t.”
That’s what I’ve read, anyway. Of course this explanation doesn’t cover everybody, but I think it makes sense in a lot of cases.
We do. Well, we used to have drive thru pharmacies, but now they’ve one upped it. We now have call ahead curbside assistance. So you don’t even have to drive your car through anything. Now you can just pull up on the curb, roll out of the car, and people will run to you with medicine and applebee’s.
Yes, that all makes sense.
I think the other half of the equation is the near complete lack of help or guidence for people once they are overweight. It’s great to tell people to eat less and move more. But when people have to stop at three stores just to find tuna fish that doesn’t have a bunch of other ingredients added to it and when exercise is painful, that’s really, really hard advice to follow day in and day out.
I mean, I read every nutritional label and every ingredients list on every food that goes in my mouth. I weigh and measure a good portion of that food. I almost never eat out (the last time I ate out was 16 months ago), and when I do eat out I’m limited to 1% of the menu. I don’t drive, which means I walk a lot just to run errands and get to and from work. And I have been struggling for years and years to lose any significant weight.
Losing weight must be ten times more challenging for someone who’s even more overweight than I am, has never looked at a food label in their life, has no idea of what a normal serving size is, and who drives everywhere even if it’s jsut two blocks away.
This is something I want to start focusing on. Until you posted this it never occurred to me that there’s weird stuff in my canned tuna! And I’m a vegetarian (other than tuna…) who is weirded out about animal products and you really would have thought I’d look to see exactly what I’m eating 
I guess it’s so normal here that people don’t even think about it.
I’m curious about your peanut butter now… do they only sell the “natural” kind where the oil separates to the top? Maybe that’s a weird question. I like it that way but am too lazy to keep it stirred up…So I usually buy Jif with its trans fats and whatever 
Agreed, but it’s also because you can get 4 hotdogs for $4. Family feeding frenzy. All you can eat. It’s for a million reasons, but low price is near, if not at, the top.
Yep. And eating/cooking nutritiously is EXPENSIVE. I try to focus on fresh, real stuff at the store and attempt to keep the packaged stuff to a minimum, and it’s ungodly what we can spend on groceries for two people if we aren’t careful!
No, they sell the natural kind that you have to stir up as well as the processed kind that you don’t. But regular stores will usually have both types to choose from, and when I was in the US, the natural stuff was nowhere to be seen. (Maybe it was just the stores I went to. I was with a group so didn’t get to pick.) I also found that your “natural” Jif had equivilent ingredients to our regular Jif, and your regular Jif had all this extra stuff added.
(I also hate stirring up the natural stuff, but I find if you stir it really well the first time, you only have to do it once. It’s doing it really well without spilling the oil everywhere that’s super challenging. So I resorted to using powdered peanut butter that’s just peanuts and salt that gets two spoonfuls mixed with water whenever you need to use some.)
Ok - gotcha! My local stores sell both but it’s usually just one or two brands of the actual natural kind.
This is a great conversation.
So, in reading about food cheating, guilt, regret…I don’t relate to those. I personally haven’t had any of those thoughts in a really long time about food. Once I was T1D for a few years, I got to the point that anything I ate I was darn sure I meant to eat and had planned it or scrutinized it in some way before I ate it. That’s not healthy. But it is what I do since my life leaves little room for error these days.
What I DO feel often, though, is Dosing Regret. I am pretty hard on myself anytime a routine meal goes haywire on me. And when I branch out and eat something non-routine and if I get it really wrong…I feel pretty aggravated that I didn’t predict it better…time it better…count it better…forecast everything better. That’s not healthy, either.
Yes they do!
I learned to do coupons one year. Saved a ton of money to put away for my kids’ college. I could save about $85-$120 a trip, but it was all stuff that wasn’t good. As soon as I’d start adding the good stuff, the bill would double. We could afford it, but if ever we were in a tight spot, I could tell you how hard the decision would be to buy the good stuff… as we could definitely stretch a buck much further with the bad stuff.
That was my first lesson as a honeymooning T1D who was also 21 years old living on a $10/hour flight internship: buying Real Food is Expensive! Perimeter grocery shopping was bewildering!
@T1Allison, try not to be so hard on yourself with the dosing. I am so careful (counting carbs, weighing, timing…) and I eat a lot of the same foods all the time. Every day the results are different. There are just too many variables. Things got better for me when I started actively ‘sugar surfing’. I am glancing at my CGM quite often and if I see things drifting up for too long (or drifting down), I take action by taking a small bolus (or a bit of carbs). By doing this I am able to keep my readings within my targets most of the time.
Thanks, @Lisa! 
I’ve started a reply to this topic a few times, but then I’ve backed off and decided not to post. It’s an interesting topic to think about, and I’m not entirely sure that I know what my personal challenges are. I think I’d have to be “normal” for awhile in order to realize how I’m “abnormal” 
All of us D people probably have developed some sort of “dysfunctional” habits and relationships with food. I imagine the type of dysfunction depends on all sorts of environmental and biological differences. I’d guess mine revolve more around feeling like my food choices shouldn’t be limited… even though in reality all of us need to limit our food in some way. Thank goodness I tend to crave healthier foods most of the time or I might be in serious trouble!
Healthier foods can be more expensive in the United States, but I think some of that depends on how you define healthy. Quinoa, black beans, and lentils are incredibly healthy forms of protein, and these are generally pretty affordable here. Produce can be pretty expensive though - especially organic produce. I think the time element can also be a barrier against healthy eating. It seems that we’re always looking for the most convenient option, and that seems more likely to include the most processed foods. I’m not sure why other countries have avoided this convenience phenomenon, but I think we could probably trace it back to the problems @Nickyghaleb and @T1Allison have described. If you’re stressed about making ends meet and providing healthcare for you and your kids, you’re going to opt for the easiest and quickest food options.
Additives are a legitimate issue as well, especially because it’s really hard to know which additives are bad for you and which are nothing to be concerned about. Are “natural flavors” a big problem? What do these include? I don’t have any idea. When I’m picking between a tomato sauce with corn syrup and a tomato sauce with natural flavors, which is better? That’s just an example, and there might be other options than just those two, but it still makes me wonder!!
Anyway, interesting discussion. I liked reading everyone’s thoughts on the matter.
Applebee’s oriental chicken salad is delicious, but very high in cards. I have one now every three or four months, or closer to six to … scrap that … once a year!. Something under 20-30 would be nice, especially if it tasted good!
We need a keto bar here locally.
yes, I have used one – there’s one in LA near my parents house. Not sure who the intended audience is but we used it that one time because I believe the actual pharmacy was closed but somehow the drive-thru window was open?? Bizarre for sure and no faster than just walking in…but on the plus side I guess you could have five kids going bonkers in the backseat and not have to police their behavior in public. So there’s that…