Farewell Dear Friend!

I have often said that Pumpkin Pie is my favorite desert next to ice cream.....RIGHT next to ice cream!  It continues to be my favorite desert, which is a problem.  You see, I have had to change my eating habits.  This is frustrating.  The first thing that I had to do was to change the groceries I was buying.  If I were living alone, that would not have been such a big deal.  But the reason I am changing my eating habits is because I have found that I have food sensitivities that I did not realize I had.  Ignorance was indeed bliss.....for 49 years!
Now, I realize that I have what is called "Leaky Gut Syndrome"  Sounds just as ugly as it is.
So here I am, for the first time in history, READING LABELS in the store to make sure that stuff doesn't contain dairy, soy, peanuts, corn, sugar, eggs, gluten etc.  It took me three times as long to shop for groceries!  First off, since when is it legal to have ingredients on labels in micro-print????  My neck hurt from positioning myself so that I could see through my bifocals!  Secondly, when it says that something "May contain traces of peanuts", then is it safe or not?  I don't take the chance.  I have found ONE almond butter brand that does not contain ANYTHING other than almonds and water, and I am NOT telling which one it is because the store I get it from is constantly running out of the stuff.  I think others have found it, but I have not found them at the store as yet and when I do there is gonna be a scuffle!  And then there is the moment when, once you have it completely cased as to where you go in which store to find whichever product is compatible with your body.......the STORE REARRANGES THEIR SHELVES!!!!
It feels at times like a three ring circus.  And to top it off, when you are one of more than just one person living in your home, and the other person doesn't need/want to make the switch, it gets costly to by two kinds of things.  The good thing is that we are now down to just a couple of those things.  My Love is perfectly willing to use rice flour instead of wheat flour, and rice pasta instead of gluten pasta.  So that is awesome!  She still "Needs her milk chocolate to keep her color", so I buy milk chocolate for her and Dark Chocolate for me.  Now THAT was an adventure!  Dark Chocolate covered Almonds.  I was completely unsure as to whether or not I would even be able to stomach the bitterness of Dark Chocolate, but I guess that my system had done enough self-diagnostic cleaning that my taste buds had changed.  Even though I had all my wisdom teeth removed last month, before I even had that done (I was convinced that they WERE my sweet teeth), I no longer craved sweet stuff!  So Dark Chocolate it is!
And then there is the fact that I am losing weight in the process!  I knew that there HAD to be some benefits to all this hassle!  Now I need to go and find smaller pants to wear.  Shopping trip, here I come!
As for Pumpkin Pie.....farewell, dear friend!  Until I can find someone who can make you without dairy or soy in the pastry, I will just have to eat your out of the can!