well played, whole foods.

i just got home and had to jump on the comuter right away. i was just at the grand opening of our town's Whole Foods. now, i've been to whole foods before, and i tend to thinik it's just for picky rich people. but this store is completely brand new and they've enhanced their shopping experience many times over. they have all under one roof, a fishmarket, coofee shop, juices , sushi bar, noodle bowl station, olive bar, salad bar, pizza shop, sandwiches. plus all the expected health and grocery stuff. i havent been in a whole foods since 2008, so maybe they are all doing it this way. but the immenseness of it all, and the artistic signs and wall art and arrangement, filled with about 1000 people oo-ing and ahh-ing. we were all quite impressed. this is the supermodel of stores. i wonder how much they raked in today. they are gonna put all the stores and restaurants around them out of business.
i arrived too late for the free samples, but it's probably just as well. i would have been very tempted to stray from my raw diet.


speaking of which, what i was NOT expecting was the amount of raw items available, and i dont mean the produce.( although they do sell young coconut which is in a lot of raw recipes)

i went in looking for bulk dried garbanzo beans i could sprout. but they have a whole section of the bulk food that are SPROUTED RAW FOOD! like raw grains,seeds cereals, granolas, raw flour! sprouted nuts and seeds with various flavors! it was so crowded it was hard to get a sense of it all, but i will go back to investigate.

even in the great of the bulk, they have exotic things i'm not familiar with : tongues of fire beans, wild red peanuts, freekah....


i'd expected them to have the 25$ jar of raw maranatha almond butter (they had) but they also have raw cashew butter! that you grind for yourself right there.

and to top it all off. Raw cheese. *que heavenly music*

in the crowded stupor i managed to get away with some raw sprouted banana maca porridge mix. they also had vanilla mesquite, chocolate coconut, i don't remember them all but i'll be back. i think all these raw sprouted items are courtesy of the Living Intentions brand. good for them, educating the public and all that. these are right out in the front of the store, and hopefully people will take a second to read about them.

but let's not forget the other incredible thing about whole foods... the price. OUCH!