Heidi Swanson’s “Super Natural Foods”
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working on reviewing Heidi Swanson’s cookbook, “Super Natural Foods.” Unfortunately it took a little time, because I needed a good solid weekend free for shopping and cooking, and I didn’t get one of those until this past weekend. Now the reivew of “Super Natural Cooking” is finally up!
Technorati Tags: all-natural, health, Heidi Swanson, organic
Allow me to digress (slightly) for a moment. It’s a crying shame that natural foods tend to be so expensive, thus putting them out of reach of poorer folks or turning them into luxury items. I know partly this is because there’s less demand for them, making them specialty items. It isn’t hard to see, however, particularly in places like Annapolis, that often it’s just stores realizing that a large part of their audience consists of high-income yuppies willing to spend a ton of money on anything they think is trendy. Which makes things pretty tough on the rest of us who’d like to enjoy these foods not because they’re trendy, but just because they’re good and good for us.
Allow me to use two examples. One is the Whole Foods Market in Annapolis. The avocados we picked up there while shopping for specialty items were twice as expensive at the ones at the Giant supermarket. FULLY twice as expensive. They were a little larger and a little more perfectly ripe, but worth twice the cost? I don’t think so. Other items were similarly priced. At this point I’d shop for everything I needed first at Trader Joe’s (which has surprisingly low prices, but unfortunately you can’t count on their selection from week to week), then at Giant, and then I’d grudgingly pick up anything else I couldn’t find at those two places at the WFM.
The other example–one that surprised the hell out of me–is the PA Dutch Farmers’ Market in the same plaza as the WFM. Sure, they had some good produce, but the majority of that place was taken up by the worst of cheap, artificial, mass-produced foods with the prices jacked up to the roof. I have to give the Amish credit for being savvy business-people who know their market–they’re apparently aware that the yuppies who go in there will happily pay $4 for a loaf of bread made up of mostly hydrogenated vegetable oil and artificial flavorings just so they can say they got it at the PADFM.
Whatever happened to real farmers’ markets? There was supposedly one on a major route near us, and the sign had pictures of produce on it, but when we went there, all we could see were flowers.
That’s one thing I really miss about living in New Hampshire. We could drive 20 minutes over the border into Vermont to the Four Corners Farm and buy some of the most amazing in-season produce ever–usually we could fill two paper bags for about $20. Of course, on the other hand, we’d have had to drive about an hour away to get the kind of natural foods that the WFM carries, even if they are expensive.
I hope the natural foods trend grows beyond a trend and into something more common in a big hurry. I want to be able to get low-glycemic index sweeteners without paying an arm and a leg for them. I want to be able to get fresh, beautiful produce of all kinds without going broke. (Of course on that end, what I really want is to have the budget for a good garden one of these years.)
Healthy Food doesn’t have to suck
