We Love Whole Foods!

As you may have gathered by now, we love Whole Foods. It's one of my favorite places to be. It's a very relaxing shopping experience. If you have never been to one, hopefully this post will encourage you to check out your nearest store. (-:

I thought I would highlight in this post some of our favorite things about Whole Foods.

We will start by showcasing the buffet line. I really like this because sometimes I will go straight from work to Whole Foods, so usually I'm pretty hungry. In that case, I will start out my trip by going by the buffet line and getting a meal to eat while I shop. Mark did that tonight since he hadn't eaten. The food is all really yummy, too. Here is Mark with his dinner:

The next item is something that I had no idea I would appreciate as much as I do. It's the filtered water. For whatever reason, our tap water is DIGUSTING, not to mention whatever kind of junk is flowing through it. But worse than the tap water is our ice. Our ice machine makes this ice that smells TERRIBLE. Like I don't even like drinking ice water because it smells and tastes so weird. The freezer even smells weird. So, at WF, you can get a gallon of water for $0.39. We have three gallon jugs that we refill regularly. The water tastes so good, or I should say, it doesn't taste. Which is wonderful. We even got ice cube trays and now our ice cubes are CLEAR and taste good as well. It has revolutionized our lives. You can choose between two different types of water - we choose the reverse osmosis filtered water. Also, I have a Klean Kanteen, which I LOVE. Here I am with a Klean Kanteen like mine standing by the water filter.

Then there's the coffee. Mark loves coffee and considers himself to be somewhat of a coffee snob. He drinks it every day. I, on the other hand, only drink coffee on cruise ships or ocassionally with a fancy desert. It's an addiction that I've tried to avoid. Mark grinds his own coffee at home every couple of days, so his is very fresh. He really likes the whole bean coffee from Whole Foods. When I asked him if he could tell me what he likes about it, he said it has "an intensely rich flavor and aroma".... hmm.... so anyway, here's a picture of him with the coffee:

A very creative thing WF has that I LOVE is the "Try Something New" cheese section. It is small samples of cheeses that are under $3.00. You get to try all kinds of fun new fancy cheeses in small portions for not very much. I always try to find the biggest piece I can find for the smallest amount of money. (-: My plan was to remember the cheeses I've tried so that I could go back and get them later, but the problem is that I have liked every cheese I have tried and haven't written any down. Fail. I mean, who doesn't love cheese?

Next we have the bulk section. I LOVE the bulk section. I love the bulk spices because I mean, if a recipe calls for one teaspon of some odd spice that you will ONLY use in that recipe, instead of paying four dollars for a container of it that will go bad by the time you make that recipe again, you can buy one teaspon of it for like a few pennies at WF. How brilliant is that? You can get only what you need. I can get specialty flours, oats, sugars, grind my own peanut butter, get 1/4 cup of a certain nut I might need, trail mixes, and oh, the granola. I love me some granola. The staple items I always get to snack on at work are the pumpkin flax granola and the cranberry harvest nut mix. It's so good. Here I am, hugging the bulk granola section.

I just realized that in this post I have said "I LOVE" three times. I'm glad I'm using my extensive vocabulary.

Next we have the Whole Body section, which again, I LOVE. Specifically, I love Dr. Bronner's. It's a brand of a non-toxic, chemical free soap that is so wonderful and smells like I think heaven might smell. The particular version I love is peppermint. OMG. It smells so good. I use it for hand soap, and soap in the shower, and they even make a shaving gel. And I love that when I use it, I am not putting parabens, phalthates, or any other gross stuff on me. You should totally check it out. You can even dilute it and clean with it. Now THAT is multi-purpose. Here I am, loving on a big tub of the stuff.

And finally, we have the bread and the bread card. With the WF bread card, after every 5 loaves of bread, you get one free. We only have to buy one more and we'll be up for a free one. WOOT! (-: The particular bread that we love is called "Seeduction". I have NEVER heard Mark talk so much about bread as he does about this. Actually, I'm not sure that I have ever heard him talk about a food product as much as this bread. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's good, but he's more than slightly obsessed. So I let him take a picture holding his favorite bread in one hand, and the bread card in the other. They also have a vitamin card, which is a super good deal. You buy 5 vitamins that are at least $4.99 in price, then you get your sixth for free, up for $20.00. How cool is THAT?!

 

The other things we love include the helpfulness of the employees, the deli meats and cheeses, the coupons and special deals they have, their vast variety or organic produce and foods, their beautiful flowers, and that I know I will be able to find things that I would never be able to find at Wal-Mart. Plus, if you bring back your paper bags and re-use them, you get a ten cent credit for each one. WOOT! I also love the quality of the things I get there. I like knowing the meats are not pumped with antibiotics, and that I can't let them sit in my fridge for extended periods of time because they don't have preservatives. I like that I can buy local things there. I like that when I ask someone a question, they can give me a very knowledgeable answer, and believe me, I ask some hard questions. I love that I don't have to stand in line for thirty minutes and inevitably face a machine failure when it's finally my turn in line.

The only thing I don't like about it is the price. Some people refer to it as "Whole Paycheck". It is definitely more expensive than Wal-Mart, but actually, I think EVERYTHING is more expensive than Wal-Mart. So, I try to be smart in my shopping. I buy whatever apple is on sale each week. I stock up when my favs are on sale. I use the coupons and the special deals they have, I buy the sale meats, and starting in April I will be putting my part time job paycheck toward my grocery budget. So, it's something that I have to sacrifice a little to do, but for us it is worth it. Kind of like an insurance policy.

So, all that to say, we love Whole Foods. You should check one out. Until we get a Central Market, it is my favorite grocery store. TRY IT!

What about you?