THE SUPERMARKET ACCORDING TO GILLESPIE    This column originally appeared on Wicked Local.

The supermarket has become a curious place.  A simple trip to the grocery store that once meant picking up bread, milk, eggs, and in my case usually something impossible to find like a tiny can of black olives has become riddled with choices, some of which could leave even the most decisive person in a state of total confusion. 

Upon entering the modern grocery store the first decision to be made is whether to use a cart, a half-cart, or just carry a basket.  It is widely believed that using the full-size cart automatically means that you will buy more groceries.  Therefore, toting a basket to simplify is a great idea unless milk is on your list which means you will be carrying an item that weighs the equivalent of a barbell while you shop.   

This past week, my wife sent me out on a mission to buy some specific groceries:  bread, cereal, milk, eggs, crackers, and Oreos. 

The bread shelves contained enough unexpected choices to make my head spin including whole wheat, honey wheat, soft multigrain, oatmeal, buttermilk, potato, stone ground, and pita bread, along with the standard choices of rye and raisin.  In an effort to remain somewhat healthy, I tried to make a choice between 12 grain bread and 17 grain bread (both containing what I consider to be too many grains and not enough bread) and couldn’t help but wonder about the shopper who only wants a 4 grain bread.  Eventually, I settled for something called Rustic White having always been a fan of baked goods from the 1840s. 

Cereal is easy.  My goal was to toss a box of Cheerios into my cart and proceed to the next thing on my list.  Cheerios, however, now come in many different incarnations such as whole grain oats, chocolate peanut butter, very berry, apple cinnamon, Cheerios with protein, and Ancient Grain Cheerios for anyone who has ever wondered what it might have been like to have a bowl of cereal in Mesopotamia.

I remember only two kinds of milk when I was a kid:  milk and something called Nu-Form for those who were conscious of their diets during the 1970s.  Buying milk now requires you to differentiate between 1%, 2%, fat free, and whole milk which is yet another reason why I wish I had listened to my fourth grade math teacher.  Today’s milk can be purchased as soy-based, coconut, almond, banana, Omega 3, and be grass fed (which is clearly not the choice of milk drinkers who happen to prefer their orange juice pulp free).

Eggs can be free range or cage free (not really sure of the difference), brown, white, large, extra-large (there is no option to buy small eggs), and organic which my old friend and experienced chicken farmer Pete Dutcher of East Bridgewater says, “Organic just means the chickens eat bugs and worms off the ground instead of eating chicken feed.” 

I never ate an Oreo as a kid and imagined that it could be improved.  Yet Nabisco has apparently branched out from this classic cookie offering it in a staggering amount styles and flavors including Thin Bite Oreos, Golden Oreos, Double Stuff Golden Oreos, Cinnamon Bun Oreos, Red Velvet Oreos (apparently stuffed with fabric), Peanut Butter Oreos, and Cinnamon Cookie Oreos which begs the obvious question:  Why wouldn’t you just eat a cinnamon cookie? 

I expected to complete my visit to the supermarket by tossing a simple box of Triscuits into my cart, but the Triscuit section (with enough variations to actually have its own section) nearly cracked my sense of shopping sensibility.   Triscuits now come in a mind-boggling amount of available flavors ranging from smoked gouda, hint of salt, sweet potato and roasted onion, cracked pepper and olive oil, fig and honey, balsamic vinegar and basil, roasted garlic, lemongrass and ginger, as well as reduced fat and, finally, Triscuits – the original cracker.  A worker stocking the shelves appeared complacent and somewhat amused in recognizing my state of bewilderment.  “It’s overkill for sure,” she said.  “There might even be more Triscuits over there in the natural section.” 

When I was a kid my favorite cracker was Chicken in a Biskit, primarily because I liked the cartoon picture of the chicken on the box.  Admittedly, it remains my favorite cracker and it’s not because of the taste.  It’s because there is only one kind of Chicken in a Biskit.

In some cases, it is more preferable to have limited choices in life, and if supermarkets operated with this simple philosophy I might even be able to find the black olives.