Meat

Natural Acres ground beef, both organic and from grass-fed cattle, is currently our least expensive ground beef, at $4.40/lb. It is sold in the freezer, top shelf. I like adding lots of chopped parsley and a little salt & freshly ground pepper to hamburgers. Gives them a little nutritional boost plus adding flavor.
Also in the freezer, perfect for grilling, are McDonald's Farm summer sausages and various other cuts of meat, including occasionally Dine's delicious hot dogs. So if you don't find what you want in the fresh meat area, check out the freezer.

Keep your feet safe

( Design & Illustration - Fred Fassberger)

Energy Bars

Energy bars, "nutritional" bars, granola bars, candy bars—sometimes it is hard/impossible to distinguish. However, there have been some positive trends: fewer ingredients, less processing of ingredients, some with organic ingredients, and less sugar. However, these bars are not a free ride in terms of calories, fat and sugars. The new bars are being sold on the end display across from the cheese.
Larabar bars are very popular, containing five or fewer raw ingredients. Their mantra is "Eat human food—it enlivens the soul." They have no added sweeteners, but, like most of the others in this list, dates are a primary ingredient. Calories, fat and sugars vary, but they all seem to have 5 gm of protein and under 15 gm of sugar.
Cliff’s Nectar bars contain few ingredients, all organic. Dark chocolate & walnut is tasty, with around 160 calories and under 20 gm of sugar.
ThinkOrganic! bars are all organic with raw ingredients, except for the chocolate.
Raw Indulgence bars are raw, gluten free, organic and kosher. The Heavenly Whole Food Brownie is sweetened with agave nectar and weighs in at 254 calories, 20 gm of sugars, 15 gm of fat, 6 gm of protein.
Alpsnack bars, from the Dr. Bronner peppermint soap family, may have more than 10 ingredients, but they are recognizable foods and are organic.
Cliff Luna bars were recently reformulated with 3 gm less sugar and one more gram of fiber.

Attempting to find and read ingredients & nutritional content is a real pain—the Kind fruit & nut bars are printed on a clear wrapping over the multicolored bar, making it impossible to see. Therefore you may not know that glucose & honey are added to these bars. The nutritional info for the Oskri sesame bars is for one of the three wafers included in the 1.9 oz package—so do the math.

Another surprise, Real Green, an organic fruit & veggies bar, contains a reasonable 160 calories, but does contain 30 gm of sugar. Real Green’s label says four servings of fruits & vegetables are contained in the single serving bar—not sure about that math.

The old standby, Tiger’s Milk protein-rich bar, has a long list of ingredients more familiar to a chemist than a gardener, with high fructose corn syrup leading the list.

And when you want something really tasty for the calories, there is a terrific selection of chocolate in Aisle 7A.

The energy saving compact florescent light bulbs have recently been moved from aisle 4A and now hang nearby above the yogurt case along the back of the Coop. The Coop sells Satco Mini Spiral Compact Florescent Bulbs in four sizes. The 13 and 15 watt bulbs are equivalent to 60 and 65 watt incandescent bulbs and sell for $2.36 and the 18 and 26 watt bulbs are equivalent to 75 and 100 watt incandescent bulbs and sell for $3.25. The bulbs have a life of 6000 hours and a color temperature of 3000K which provides a warm white light.

Overheard at express checkout: very young woman to fellow young worker as she scanned my Bunny Luv carrots:
"Where do baby carrots come from?"
He: "From big carrots. They cut them out."
She: "But isn't that wasteful!"
Maybe we should offer farm tours.....

New local organic produce:

All lettuces (green and red romaine, green and red leaf, boston, and mixed
variety of baby lettuces)

Other vegetables-collards, green and purple kale, bok choy, Chinese cabbage,
radishes, mint, bunched or baby arugula (both limited), broccoli rabe (limited),
sugar snap peas, Japanese bunched turnips, garlic scallions, loose spinach,
and yellow zucchini are all from local farms.
Parsley, cilantro, chards, herbs, lacinato kale, and baby bok choy are
starting to arrive from the local farms, and will soon be entirely local.

Organic strawberries from our closest local farm, Hepworth Farm in New York,
have begun their brief season

Organic fruits from tropical southern Florida: Lychee nuts, and sapodillas.

Not organic and certainly not local food from around the globe: chanterelle
mushrooms from Europe, and clementines from Chile.

Organic grapes have returned. Prices are still high, but the flavor is
already there (we avoided the early sour weeks). All seedless, green and
black are in stock, and red will arrive 6/15.

Water Filters & Beverages on the move

Water Filters have been moved from the household Aisle 4A to Aisle 2A, next to the bottled water. We hope that this will encourage you to use a water filter rather than filling up the landfills with many plastic containers of water.
We dropped the 16oz Poland Springs 6 packs of water & added Keeper Springs 16 oz.
In order to make room for the water filters, Jenna and Matt reorganized the juices and soy drinks in Aisles 2A & 3B. Martinelli has joined the other tall sparkling juices across from the beer. Condensed milk & Crisco migrated to the baking section in Aisle 2A for a week but are now back in Aisle 3. And don’t believe Yuri when he says that we’ll keep moving them every week so no one will ever know where they are.

All the regular sodas are now in Aisle 3A. I am trying out some sparkling juice/sodas—Switch, to possibly replace Blue Sky sodas. Also new--Boylan sodas on front endcap, in response to member request. Let me know what you think of these products.

New in Refrigerated Cases

Emerald Valley: salsas, hummus and black bean dip being sold out of the salad case at the rear of the store. All are organic.
Wildwood baked tofu is replacing most of the Sunergia brand tofu's with the exception of the Sunergia Indian Masala flavor. Sunergia tofus are being replaced because of spoilage problems. Wildwood tofu comes in baked aloha, savory and teriyaki plus smoked teriyaki.
Wildwood soy smoothies have been added to the yogurt case. These smoothies are made of both organic soy milk and organic fruit. Wholesoy soy drinkables do not have organic fruit and the company has been having some production/quality problems. Wildwood flavors: key lime, berry, and vanilla.
Wallaby yogurts are also new in yogurt case: banana vanilla, blueberry, strawberry banana and vanilla.

Murray's chickens--what's happening? re jennie, we have now changed over from Murray chickens to Coleman's, which is judged to be as good or better than Murray's. Coleman poultry arrive already priced, which means that they can go directly to the shelf. We have two types: antibiotic and hormone free and organic. Key organic=green packaging and antibiotic-free=orange. After this weekend we will no longer be selling Murray's.
New from Uruguay Grateful Harvest beef; it is the only beef we carry that is both grass fed and organic.

Bulk and spices

Frontier asafoetida powder and organic bac'uns bits are being sold in jars on top of the spice area. Asafoetida is frequently called for in Indian receipes--a little goes a long way.
Organic crystallized ginger has replaced the conventional candied ginger we had been selling in the bulk spice area. The organic is less expensive and is loved by all the ginger people.
organic deglet noor dates, organic jumbo thompson raisins and apple juice-sweetened cranberries are available in packages, hanging above the packaged dried fruit.
Hunza apricots are finally available. They are small, but buyer be aware--they have a big pit!
almond price went up again--there is a severe shortage. There was a large crop failure in Europe last fall, which greatly raised the price of California almonds.
Raw peanuts are not available due to the hurricane that destroyed the Georgia crop last year. China had a good supply of peanuts, but they have been purchased by the large peanut butter manufacturers.

New products--odds & ends..

Green Forest Facial Tissue is replacing Krasdale facial tissue, which has been discontinued by our distributor. Green Forest products are made from 100% recycled paper paper, with 20-30% post-consumer content. Seventh Generation facial tissue has a similar recycled content: 100% recycled, with 20% post-consumer. Because Seventh Generation is significantly more expensive than Green Forest, we will be discontinuing Seventh Generation facial tissues as well.

Suzanne's ricemellow creme is available on the front end display across from the eggs. A marshmallow cream substitute, it contains: brown rice syrup, soy protein, natural gums & flavors. Gluten-free, non-dairy, vegan.

Rico empanada in the freezer. You may have had a chance to sample these last night at a demo in the coop. Made in the Bronx, there are three flavors: chicken pot pie, rice & beans, and corn & cheese. They are working on a meat empanada.