How Whole Foods is ruining the "Whole Food" Movement
A grocery store called “Whole Foods”... sounds healthy, ay? It sells organic produce, has special sections for allergy-prone customers, and offers some hard-to-find products. It also has its own hot bar, salad bar and deli. Some stores even have a pizza oven or a wrap/bowl counter.
The hot bar items include soups, home-style sides and main dishes (macaroni and cheese, roasted chicken, mashed or scalloped potatoes are regular items at the one near my workplace) and diverse ethnic dishes that you can scoop into a container and eat at home or in their dining area. Some of the soups are made in-house- there are at least 5 soups daily. The salad bar has 3 different types of greens to which you can add all kinds of fruit, veggies, proteins and condiments. For all of these except the soups you are charged by the ounce. The deli offers pre-made pasta salads and the like, proteins, meats, made-fresh sandwiches, pizza and bowls or wraps depending on your preference. A pretty good variety of meal items, as you can see. They even list all the allergens (except for yeast which I am allergic to) on the tags for the food. Everyone who works there is usually fairly nice, which makes me think they must be treated well as employees. They probably take pride in their edible creations.
But have you ever eaten at the hot bar, the salad bar or the deli? It's mediocre on a good day. The ethnic dishes have mostly healthy ingredients and good spices in the ingredient lists, the other hot bar items appear to be something I could make in my own kitchen that I would enjoy eating leftovers of... So how the hell are all the dishes lacking any flavor and character? The pizza dough is a weird texture, is undercooked and the cheese on it is gross. The bowls/wraps are... frankly, disgusting. The grilled tofu in the salad bar tastes like tofu. (If you don't eat tofu, this is a tragedy- tofu is supposed to absorb the flavors of the spices and food it's cooked with.) The only thing that's worth the calories is the salad bar (minus the grilled tofu) because how can you screw up fresh veggies and fruit, right? Oh, but Whole Foods can- I once scooped up half-cooked beets! Perplexing! How do you take perfectly normal foods and literally take all the flavor out of them?
I don’t claim to be a domestic goddess (quite the opposite, actually) but I can do better than this.
I once took a class with a woman who worked at the pizza bar at a Whole Foods. She hated the pizza there and would casually talk to her customers like all good employees do. She found out that people where buying pizza there solely because it was convenient. They specifically said that they didn't actually think it tasted good, that they didn’t really like it at all.
The worst part of this all: the cost. At $7.99 per pound, the hot and salad bars are a real rip off. For a normal restaurant-sized meal, I would pay about $13 by weight. This size of this $13 mound of food would be two, maybe three meals portion-wise for me, but for $13 I'd rather go to a restaurant and get delicious food with appetizing leftovers as opposed to bland, over-priced crap. A friend of mine's brother once went to a Whole Foods for the first time and loaded up a to-go box with a scoop of everything that looked delicious. $25 later, he sincerely regretted his decision.
Whole Foods’ bowls/wraps (same ingredients, just in a bowl or in a tortilla) are $6-8 and the cost of pre-made salads vary by weight, but I assure you that they are considerably more expensive than elsewhere. Yes, they are fresh. Yes they are made locally and employing the people who make them. But why would I pay for food that doesn't taste good?
I am not trying to steer you toward other grocery stores that mass-produce salads, soups, sandwiches or ship them from Texas, but I think convenience has blinded us. I think Whole Foods is trying to get people to be healthy by selling local foods that are in-season, fresh, and organic and by offering ethnic and diverse foods. I appreciate that (even though I can rarely afford it these days) and they have it mostly correct, just not the part about their prepared foods.
They are making healthy produce available to us, but they are ruining the idea of healthy eating by taking all those healthy foods and preparing foods with them in a way that lacks real character. Who is tasting these foods before they are offered to their customers? Clearly nobody with alive taste buds. When people pay $13 for a forgettable & flavorless meal, what is that telling them about "healthy" food? Expensive and healthy food should be delicious, not dead and unremarkable! It should hook you, it should make you crave it like I crave a nachos from
Blossoming Lotus.... or a
Bryan's Bowl.
You can open an urban grocery store almost anywhere and it will thrive. In Portland, as long as it's got the "health food" label- it will almost always be busy. It’s too bad, because we all vote with our dollars. And by buying these prepared foods from a place that doesn’t care how they taste, we are enabling them to keep up the crappy work. Just say no to bad food and save yourself some money in the process!
The one exception to Whole Foods’ terrible prepared foods is the bakery. One of the best cakes I think I’ve ever tasted was from Whole Foods. I recommend you try it out if you’re ever in the neighborhood… while you’re there, pick up some fresh produce and make something delicious.
Labels: flavor, food, taste, Whole Foods
Must-Have Food: Fage Total 0% Greek Yogurt
There are some foods that you just can't go wrong eating- Tofu Shirataki, almonds, quinoa, edamame.... and Fage (pronounced Fa-yeh) Total 0% Greek Yogurt! This stuff is like a miracle in a cup! It's super creamy and a bit tart, so try it mixed with some sugar free jam or some fresh fruit. It's hard to beat these stats:
Serving size: 150g (5.3 oz.)
CALORIES: 80 (!)
TOTAL FAT: 0g (!)
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 55mg
TOTAL CARB: 6g (!)
SUGARS: 6g
PROTEIN: 13g (!)
Labels: food, greek, yogurt
Nicole's Best Restaurants in Portland
Agree or disagree? Did I forget somewhere?
Bakery: Ken's Artisan Bakery
Brunch: Equinox, Stepping Stone, Industrial Cafe & Saloon
Dessert: Papa Haydn (Cassata), Pix
Donuts: VooDoo, duh!
French: Chez Machin, Le Happy (Salade Crepe)
Indian: Swagat (Sorry, Milan and Darsh's house isn't a restaurant)
Italian: Caffe Mingo
Latin: Pambiche
Malaysian: Kinta Restaurant
Mexican: classy- Cha, DF; not-so-classy- Muchas Gracias
Middle Eastern: Nicholas
Pizza: Pizza Oasis, Interstate Bowl
Pub Food: Laurelwood (nachos, chili, fries)
Seafood: Jake's
Southern: Screen Door
South American: Andina
Southwestern/TexMex: Esparza's
Sushi: Masu (Sq'eel roll!)
Thai: Monsoon, Thai Basil
Tibetan: Lungta
Vegetarian: Farm Cafe
Cheap: Muchas Gracias
Garlic Fries: Laurelwood
Mac & cheese: Le Bistro Montage (Spicy Mac or Tomato Pesto Mac. Surprisingly, their service has improved since they got credit card machines. Hmm.)
Cheese Sticks: Triple Nickel
Late Night: Muchas Gracias (24 hours), Holman's
Fast Food: Burgerville, Muchas Gracias
Splurge: clarklewis
Most Underrated: Holden's
Most Overrated: Pok Pok, Henry's Tavern, Amnesia Brewing
Best Service: Holden's
BEVS:
Coffee: Albina Press
Tea: Tao of Tea (at the Classical Chinese Garden)
Original Mixed Drinks: Cha, DF
Stiff Drinks: The Matador
Microbrew: Bridgeport Brewing (Blue Heron)
Martini: Brazen Bean (Pomegranite martini)
ON THE TOWN:
Happy hour: East, Brazen Bean
Smoky Dive Bar: Low Brow Lounge (I MAY just like this because of the prime location amongst the Pearlies...)
Smoky Dive Bar with Shuffleboard: Gil's Speakeasy
What this town NEEDS: 1. A scandinavian restaurant, centrally located please. Be sure to serve lefse! 2. GOOD pizza in Hollywood. (Sorry Laurelwood Pizza Co.... it's not so great.)
Places I have not been yet: Apizza Scholls, Lovely Hula Hands, Gravy, Le Pigeon and all those new ice cream/yogurt joints.
And yes, I live in northwest Portland....
Labels: best of, drinks, food, Portland, restaurants
Dieting and Progress
I have been on a superfitnessandhealth kick since I started Boot Camp at the end of April. I feel like I have always been interested in nutrition (some of what I know, I chose to ignore) and less about fitness but I realized that the things that I DO know aren't rocket science and so I have decided to share some of my health and fitness tips with you. This is really motivated by Daniel, my Boot Camp Sergeant, and also a fellow Boot Camper's blog site, "Everyday Athlete" at right. Check it out.
As a form of credibility- I was measured yesterday and I lost 1% of my body fat since the beginning of June! I also lost 5 pounds, 1 1/4" in my waist, 1/4" in my arms, 3/4" in my legs and 1/4" in my chest. Also keep in mind that I have lost 30 pounds since 2003.... and I'm vegetarian, uhhh... pescatarian.
Nicole's Top 10 Tips for Eating RIGHT
1. EAT 5-6 SMALL MEALS (or "snacks") PER DAY. You should eat "just enough" food- don’t ever gorge yourself!! You should never feel full! I like to think of this overeating as "stretching your stomach out" so that you can eat more and more and more- while your body's metabolism stays the same.... YOU do the math! I still have issues with this- I was always taught to clean my plate which is SUCH a bad habit, especially as much as I have eaten out! When you eat less, your body processes food more efficiently because it has less to process AND your stomach shrinks to its natural size so that you are full on less food.
Here is a sample day*, approved by my Boot Camp Sergeant:
At wake up: drink a full glass of water- this helps to flush out toxins.
Breakfast: 1/4 C. uncooked oatmeal (cooked according to directions) and a serving of fruit.
Mid-Morning snack: a handful of almonds and a serving of fruit
Lunch: a large salad w/ 3-4 oz. of protein. Use a small amount of light dressing or vinegar/oil.
Afternoon snack: 3/4 C. cottage cheese and a serving of fruit
Dinner: 3/4 C. quinoa or brown rice with 3-4 oz. of protein and steamed or baked veggies.
After-dinner snack: an apple with some almond butter or a protein shake
*Anytime you workout, eat something EASILY DIGESTIBLE right away- like a (hard-boiled) egg and some fruit or a protein shake.
2. STAY AWAY FROM REFINED SUGAR AND ANYTHING WHITE (bread, rice, pasta.) Instead of oatmeal packets, eat regular steel-cut or Irish Quick-Cooking oatmeal- the only ingredient in your oatmeal should be OATS. Most foods that are processed have sugar (in some form) in them and companies disguise the ingredient "sugar" by calling it all kinds of different things: corn syrup, sucrose, maltose, glucose, dextrose, maltodextrin, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, sucrose (there are more than 100 different sucrose substances), high-fructose corn syrup, maltitol, sorbitol, and mannitol. Anything ending in "-itol" and "-ose" means SUGAR! I was appalled to learn that the government subsidizes corn and there was so much corn produced that farmers didn't know what to do with, so they "invented" corn syrup!! And now it's in everything!
If you really want to NOT have that afternoon "crash" at work, don't eat refined sugar!! (Natural sugars are ok, like the sugars in raw fruits, stevia and agave.) Your body comes down from your lunchtime sugar high and that is what causes the crash. Try strictly eating foods with low a Glycemic Index: http://www.glycemicindex.com/ Some people are more sensitive to GI than others.
As an alternative to pasta, a super fabulous product I have found is Shirataki noodles (I call them miracle noodles!): http://www.tofushirataki.com/
Look at this unbelievable Nutritional Info:
Calories: 20
TOTAL FAT - 0.5g
TOTAL CARB. - 3g
Fiber 2g
Sugars 0g
Protein - 1g
NO PRESERVATIVES
3. EAT A LOT OF FIBER. Keeps you regular! Eating fiber along with sugar (only if you must) helps your body process it!
4. DRINK A LOT OF WATER. You should drink AT LEAST half your weight (lbs.) in ounces of water each day. For example, let's say you weigh 150 lbs.- then you should drink MORE THAN 75 ounces of water daily. I believe the rule is half your weight in ounces + 10%, so 90 ounces. This is really hard to do if you don't drink a lot of water already. Hint: it's a lot easier if you exercise....
5. LOWER YOUR CARBS AND EAT MORE LEAN PROTEIN. In general, American eat waaaaay too many carbs. Think about all the regular things we eat and the carbs content: pizza, sandwiches, burgers, pasta... Zoiks! All we eat is carbs!! "Lean" protein is generally fish or chicken. A good rule to remember is, the less legs, the better- so fish, chicken, beef/pork, etc.....
6. CONQUER CRAVINGS, EAT MORE LEAN PROTEIN. This is a great site for eating good things instead: http://www.naturopathyworks.com/pages/cravings.php
I find that the days when I crave sweets are the days when I don't eat enough protein. And amazingly enough, once you ween yourself from sugar, you will find yourself NOT craving it! Not surprisingly, when I do eat sugar, I want more....
7. EAT MORE NATURAL FOODS- READ LABELS!! Processed food= bad! Generally, the fewer ingredients, the better. Apples:apples! If there's anything you can't pronounce or don't recognize on a label, it's probably bad for you in some way.
8. BALANCE CARBS, PROTEIN, FAT. 40% Carbs, 30% Protein, 30% Fat. Yes, it is ok to eat fat! (And, usually products that are "fat free" or "low fat" have a LOT of sugar in them.) This does NOT mean that it is ok to eat french fries and ice cream everyday. (Refer to the Shirataki noodles nutritional info above.... MIRACLE NOODLES!!)
9. DON'T DEPRIVE YOURSELF. If you like pizza and ice cream, schedule a "cheat meal" once a week. I don't believe you should go without the things you love to eat, but don't be surprised if you follow these tips and crave all the "bad" things less and less!
10. TAKE A MULTI-VITAMIN. They can't give you perfect health, but they give you most of the vitamins and minerals that you need regardless of whether you're eating right or not. I like SuperNutrition's "Simply One Women One-per-Day" -no fillers and vegetarian. My beloved mother recommends Reliv.... (She would LOVE to talk to you about it if you want to contact me.)
This may all seem overwhelming, and it is. But we as Americans have gotten so far off track of what we SHOULD be eating that we don't even know what's what anymore. I will tell you that it took me about three years to get to this point where everything came together, makes sense and WORKS! I can't tell you how terrific I FEEL... EVERYday. I 'm not tired at work; I have so much energy and I WANT TO workout! Unbelievable!
Labels: carbs, cravings, diet, fat, fiber, food, noodles, nutrition, protein, sugar
