We had our 6th meet-up event. This time we had Desiree Moody (the assistant store manager of Whole Foods) walk us through the store at the Bowery. We started off with a light snack upstairs so everyone cold get to know each other. Then we headed downstairs for the tour.
Desiree explained that Whole Foods was the first store to carry natural products. She explained that all the meats at the store come from humane companies such as Bell and Evans who provides Whole Foods with chickens raised on an all natural diet, with no antibiotics, growth hormones or preservatives.
We also discussed “bird friendly coffee”, which left an un-answered question, so here goes: shade groen coffee is good for birds who live in those areas. It also lowers the need for fertilizers and herbicides. The majority of coffee grown is usually 2/3 of a farm. Shade grown coffee can host about 150 species of birds as opposed to non-shade coffee which only keeps from 20-50. The bird population has decreased significantly, for example there are 70% less Cape May Warbles. So after doing a little research, I’d say its worth it to purchase Bird friendly coffee.
Right after that we hit up the pet food section, Desiree explained the benefits of feeding dogs a raw diet. This is something we truly believe in. Petey (the mascot of FriendsEAT) has been on a raw meat diet for the past 3 years. He eats Stella and Chewy’s, it’s an all natural, raw pet food made from human grade free range meats and organic veggies. That’s better than most people eat, but we have noticed a significant change in his health and attitude when we switched. I remember when my vet kept telling me to give Petey kibble, and I made the analogy of Total. According to the advertisement, Total has 100% of all vitamins and minerals needed by a human, so in theory, if I eat Total at every meal, I should not need to eat anything else. We all know this is not true and it is the same for animals, so I urge everyone to really watch what they feed their pets.
We also talked about sodium content and what we should be consuming daily. The US Department of Health and Human Services says we should have no more than 2,300 mg per day (1 tsp of salt). The average American has an average of 5,000 (twice the recommended amount). Where does this come from? Most likely prepared foods, I went onto http://www.nutritiondata.com/ and checked out a couple prepared items:
A plain hot dog has 710 mg of sodium
A beef and cheddar hot pocket has 960 mg sodium
Lean cuisine chicken and vegetables with Vermicelli has 633 mg sodium
This is where we get in trouble. Also, we have to make sure to see how many servings per package. Sometimes companies will list 250 mg of sodium, but there may be 3 servings per packet making the true sodium content 750 mg. So I guess the thing we come away with is keep your consumption of prepared foods low.
We learned a bunch more stuff, but the best part was getting to know everyone. I’d like to thank everyone that made it out (battling the pouring rain) and special thanks to our host Desiree.
The most interesting thing I learned about was Vegan sugar. So it turns out that sugar utilizes cow bone char to whiten sugar. Brown sugar is NOT considered Vegan; it is made by adding molasses to refined sugar (which was made with bone char). If this is an issue for you, one way to ascertain that you are going Vegan is to stay away from ALL refined sugar and utilizing turbinado sugar or beet sugar. Just in case you are interested, We’ve added on the bottoms some companies (via vegfamily.com) that are Vegan friendly.
In all, the walk through Whole Foods was educational and fun. We thank Desiree and will definitly be modifying/enhancing our supermarket shopping.
List of Vegan Friendly Sugar Companies
Florida Crystals Refinery
P.O. Box 86
South Bay, FL 33493
407-996-9072
Labels: Florida Crystals
Refined Sugars Incorporated
One Federal St.
Yonkers, NY 10702
914-963-2400
Labels: Jack Frost, Country Cane, 4# Flow-Sweet, Pillsbury, Makes powdered brown sugar
Supreme Sugar Company (subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland)
P.O. Box 56009
New Orleans, LA 70156
504-831-0901
Labels: Supreme, Southern Bell, Rouse’s Markets
Whole Foods at the Bowery is located at 95 E Houston St, New York, NY 10002
[mappress mapid=”22″]Hours of Operation
Monday-Sunday 8:00 am – 11:00 pm