Identification at the supermarket

Now that I no longer have nearly enough vision to identify products in the supermarket through color or by other visual cues, I have quickly learned to develop other ways to do what I need to do in order to identify my food stuffs.

I use the sense of smell to help me identify such things as various types of flowers, breads, pastries, and other types of baking goods. I use my sense of hearing to help me identify what is in certain packages, tins, cans, and boxes. I often shake these to help me identify.

For example: the sound of packages within a box is different to the sound of loose stuff within that box. The sound of packages of tea is different to the sound of loose tea leaves when shaken. The same goes for soup and so on. The sound of beans in a tin sounds a bit different to the sound of peas or peas and carrots in a tin. The sound of fruits in a tin sounds different to tomato sauce in a tin when these are shaken.

I also use the sense of touch to help me identify food stuffs. Some boxes are bigger than others and the same goes for packages. So once I know what to expect from sizes, I am halfway home free so to speak. As long as I know what I am buying then I can use my senses of smell and touch to help. One other thing, I use my sense of touch to help identify the shapes of things. Bottles, tins, cans, and even some packages. Spray bottles are shaped differently to those bottles with pull-up tops, dish soap versus Mr Clean spray bottles for example.

I think that by now you are getting the picture so I'll leave you to figure out other examples. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, your friendly accessibility advocate, wishing you a terrific day and urging you to go out there and share my blogs with others. Visit www.shop.aph.org to learn more.