Move over Whole Foods and Make Room for Delicious Orchards

While in New Jersey, I got the chance to go shopping at Delicious Orchards with my cousin Brennan who is just about to graduate from high school.

It was like being at Disneyland for me, with the array of organic foods, delicacies and treats spaced strategically around the store.

 

Upon entering, there was the usual display of beautiful flowers and plants, and the bakery products and breads. It was not your typical bread aisle, but composed of healthy breads made by the bakery in house.  I quickly walked by till I got to the rest of the store, which was peeking my curiosity.

Delicious Orchards is unlike a regular grocery store in that there are no aisles.  More than three quarters of the store is produce – every type of fruit, and vegetable imaginable in season, along with rows of nuts, and seeds.

The inviting space was organic and free flowing – very similar to an open air market – where one could mingle and give thought to how one would nourish themselves.

There were cases of various foods spaced throughout the floor plan like organic, grass-fed cheeses, organic yogurts, teas, coffee, baking necessities (Bob’s Red Mill organic flours, spices, etc.), dark chocolate, and cases of wild fish, and some prepared food for purchase.

I did not find much of a scent of processed foods in a box, except a few healthy whole-wheat crackers.  It made me long for the day’s of the old Mrs. Gooch’s.

The only comparable store in Los Angeles is Sprouts, which is now opening a new store in West Los Angeles.  Although not as gourmet as this store, Sprouts has a similar feel and look and avoids the commercialese of other health food stores. The Santa Monica Cooportunity also has a similar feel, but not nearly as beautiful and inviting.

Brennan had finished checking out our food, and I was still inside longing to linger, but time was running out for our family gathering to begin.  Being in that store felt very familiar and made me want to return to Colts Neck, New Jersey just to shop there.  Later I found out from my Mother she took me there frequently as a little girl.

Remember your life is not a dress rehearsal.  Healthy shopping and eating is of the essence if you want to avoid health ramifications.  Finding a pleasant and inviting place to shop can be beneficial to your health and eating experience since it’s not too late to start your health plan now.

EAT LIKE ME

Some exciting news came across my path this week.  Self magazine asked me to audition for their column “Eat Like Me’ in which a Registered Dietitian blogs a few times a day about what she eats, how she shops, cooks, etc.

I heard that I was in the finalists along with 3 other very talented R.D.’s, one of which is a friend of mine.  One thought I had was “maybe they should let us all share the job?”  It would be so flavorful to get 4 perspectives on eating versus just one.

A successful client of mine told me one of her mantras:  “I’m going to do the job till I have the job.”  She told me this that last week and guess what? She got the job she wanted.

I thought this was a brilliant idea and since many of you are always asking me what I eat I thought – what better time to start than now? So here it goes for today.

A Day in the Life of Susan….

I woke up at 6:30 am to get to the gym.  Since I know it’s important to have some protein first off I ate about ½ cup of 2 % cottage cheese and a third of a banana before I was out the door.

When I got home from the gym I had:

A combo of cottage cheese/plain organic yogurt with 1 tbsp. of ground flax seed, and  1/2 cup of mixed berries and a handful of cashews on top.

Then off to the Santa Monica farmer’s market.

I’m a bit spoiled since I can walk there in about 5 minutes.  My first stop was purchasing organic pink lady apples for my lunches. Then I went to my favorite vegetable stand and purchased:

• black kale which I usually stir-fry with a little olive oil for one of my green veggies
• pea pods which I eat as part of my lunches (a favorite since childhood) and a crown of broccoli.

Next I went to the stand that sells:

• Mexican guavas, a delicacy I recently discovered which tastes tropical like something you would eat in Hawaii
• One basket each of organic strawberries, blackberries
• A bunch of carrots

And finally a dozen of the pastured (ones from grass-fed cage-free chickens) eggs from Healthy Happy Farms.

Are you still with me?

Before leaving the house again I had a bowl of Greek yogurt with some walnuts and the blackberries I had gotten at the Farmer's market.

I had to drop Jeffrey off at a photo shoot so afterward I thought I’d treat myself to shopping at the Santa Monica Co-op which was recently revamped and was told it had a great look and feel.

At the Cooportunity…

Immediately I realized this was a cool fun store.  On the first aisle they had bulk items.

Although I love peanut butter, I don’t like peanuts.  However, I love raw Spanish peanuts which I discovered at one of my babysitting jobs in high school so a bag of those went in my cart.

I bought a few bananas and then went to the prepared foods counter.  The Co-op sells the best chana masala which are garbanzo beans made with the Indian Spice garam masala.  It contains limited ingredients and is a spicy treat to eat with your plain Greek Yogurt.

Next I hit the dairy section and bought a few small Fage 2% yogurts for the office and 2 Strauss Organic Whole Milk yogurts for home.  I don’t advise nonfat yogurt since it has less protein and more carbohydrate.

They had ground flax seed on sale so I bought a few bags of the Spectrum and then on to the tea aisle where I purchased Uncle Lee’s Green Tea in bulk.  It is a great quality loose leaf green tea. 

Although my favorite is Matcha Green tea I can’t bring myself to spend $20 for a little bag of it.

A few cans of premium cat food for George (my 17 year old geriatric cat) since I don’t want to make a second trip to the regular store and one package of the Raw Wheat Free Crusts for the office.  Those are the “faux seed crackers” I have my clients try to substitute for bread – crunchy, satisfying and a great thing to have with guacamole or hummus as a snack.

I’m about to have my snack of natural cashew butter and an apple and who knows what dinner will bring?

So there’s the first entry in “Eat Like Me.”  If you go the Self Magazine web site and sign up it starts in about a month.  They will have each of the 4 R.D.’s doing different days and then the readers vote.  I encourage you to go there and see what transpires and in the meantime follow me here to see what my days of eating are like.  I’m excited to see where this journey takes me and my loyal readers.