Recently I have noticed how hard some food packaging is to understand. I’m not talking in the way of allergies and nutritional information like everybody else seems to be. I’m talking about reading what the item is and what flavour it is. The main thing that I need to know when I am hungry.

Online shopping is brilliant for people who are visually impaired. it saves having to go out and find things in a shop. For me this is impossible. If I walk into a shop on my own it is just a big blur of racking, shelves and fuzzy colours. Even if I stand close to the shelves I just can’t make things out properly. I would need to pick each item up individually to try and figure out what it is. Even then, it would be a struggle. There are to many things to close together. So when I go food shopping I have to go with somebody else. The only way I can independently do shopping is if I do it online.

I have been watching a programme on TV recently about how shopping used to be over the last century. The shop assistants used to fetch the things you wanted while you sat and waited. It also mentioned how it was a huge shock when people were expected find their own shopping for the first time. Self service shops were the new thing and some people weren’t very happy with it. I quite like the sound of shopping in the old fashioned way. That is the only way I can do shopping in a shop. I can go into the chemist or the butchers absolutely fine because the shop assistants find me what I need. But if I have to go into a supermarket alone, even just a small local one, I really just can’t do it. It would take me so long just to find one item and even then I would probably just give up.

When I get home everything is in it’s right place and the majority of the time I know what things are and where they are. The thing that I do struggle with though is finding the flavour of things. I know what a packet of crisps looks like, I know what a packet of meat looks like, I know what a jar of sauce looks like. It’s just finding out what type or flavour the things are that I find difficult.

The other day I was looking at a packet of crisps and the packet was so cluttered with images. There was the brand logo, obviously an important part, there was a celebrity covering half of the packet, the banner across the bottom saying that it was part of a multi-pack and there was a picture of some crisps. All this imaging was just taking over the background colour of the packet, which tells me what flavour the crisps are. It was hard to try and find a section of background colour to look at. And I can’t always read the writing that tells me what flavour it is. Most of the time I can’t even find the writing without spending a good few minutes looking. By that time I have given up and started eating the crisps whatever flavour they are.

There are aids available to help visually impaired people with things like this, but I don’t want to use those aids while I still have enough sight. I want to use the sight that I do have to try and figure things out for myself. But I do really wish that they would make food packaging more plain, simple and easier to understand.

xx ❤ xx