Wholesome Stef Goes To Wholefoods
Number 1 on my to-do list during my recent visit to London was a shopping spree at Whole Foods. While others might want to splurge at Harrods & Co., for me the endless aisles of fresh organic produce and funky new health brands are way more appealing. When I lived in London four years ago I was still in the midst of my eating disorder, so shopping for healthy food wasn't really one of my priorities. So, this time around I was beyond excited to visit the store with a new sense of appreciation and a health - conscious mind.
Every health foodie I know raves about how amazing Whole Foods is. Seriously, think about heaven and then think about Whole Foods; they're basically the same. From the moment you walk in, the colors, smells and jam packed fresh produce aisles automatically make you feel healthier just by being there. Unfortunately, it can also make you incredibly broke. The prices are definitely not what you are used to in normal grocery stores! I had to reeeeeally control myself to not run through the store like a super excited kiddo on christmas day leaving a path of destruction behind me throwing everything I can find into my cart.
Which was quite hard because they really have everything you could ever imagine; from organic fruits and veggies, endless aisles of vegan protein powders, thousands of different supplements, healthy cook books, non-dairy cheeses and 'healthy' frozen food. They even have a salad bar and a juice/smoothie bar where you can grab anything your heart desires on the go.
What I find particularly cool is that you can buy nuts and seeds in bulk (a good place to save money) and that you can even grind your own fresh peanut butter in-store.
No thanks to GMO
Another exciting thing that I recently learned about is Whole Foods' commitment to providing full GMO (genetically modified organism) transparency for their customers by 2018. Aka labelling products wether they are GMO or not. Being the first to do a lot of this work with GMO transparency means that they are paving the way for those who will follow and I think it's a much needed step in the right direction for the US (this applies to the US only, as GMO are not allowed in Europe anyways). Especially when you consider that in the States 70-80% of all supermarket food contains GMO and there is NO labelling.
In fact, attempts to require GMO labelling in the US were just recently shut down in July 2015. It marks a victory for food and agricultural companies that lobbied for the bill and is a blow to opponents which include consumer, health and environmental groups. I didn't really have a stance towards GMO's until recently when my studies at IIN opened my eyes on the topic. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of studies on the matter yet (not a single human study, can you imagine?!), but the few studies that do exist paint a dangerous picture...
Kudos to Whole Foods for leading the way!
I recently tried Booja Booja for the first time and I'm a major fan ever since! They do truffles (picture) and also dairy free vegan ice cream using only four to five ingredients, mainly cashew nuts and agave. In Switzerland I have been able to find some flavours at Egli.
Frozen gluten free pizza, say what?! I think I just arrived in heaven."Thank god" we don't have this in Switzerland or I would probably become fat!
These are some of the goodies that I ended up buying: Vegan chocolate protein powder from Sun Warrior, pistachio-flavoured protein from Purition, egg free mayo, sweet potato pasta, a book about juicing, cranberry nut snacks from Greenola, flax and herb crackers from Raw, so called miracle noodles and an organic deodorant and tooth paste. I was especially ecstatic to get my hands on the peanut butter powder called PBFit from BetterBody Foods. It's a low fat powdered peanut butter made from gently roasted peanuts where 85% of the oil is extracted and the peanuts are ground into powder.
