Grocery

Have you ever wanted to brew your own Kombucha or Kefir? Or have you wanted to experiment with making your own sourdough? Well now you can! We now carry the following Cultures for Health Starter Kits for making at home: Kefir Kefir has a tart, yogurt-like flavor and contains beneficial yeast and probiotics. Since this is a powdered culture it is easier to maintain than a grain-based kefir starter kit and it comes with two packets. Once prepared, the culture can be used 2-7 times when a small amount is reserved from the previous batch. Kombucha Their Kombucha Kit is a great way to learn how to start your own kombucha at home. Their kit includes one kombucha starter culture with specific, but easy to follow instructions. You can even transfer the culture from one batch to the next. Since you have to add tea

This week’s focus is all about inspiring you to put together the perfect gift basket. At Valley Natural Foods we have plenty of unique items for creating the perfect basket, well almost… Although we do not sell baskets, we do sell great basket substitutes, like our Valley Natural Foods Reusable Rag Bags or Golden Road Imports Fair-Trade purses and backpacks. To me, gift baskets (or themed gift bags) are a great way to make a gift more personal, and it’s easy to cater to your budget. Here are some ideas to create a cohesive gift with items available at Valley Natural Foods: For the Bloody Mary Enthusiast My recent acquired taste for Bloody Mary’s inspired this gift basket idea. It all began when we started carrying Suckerpunch Gourmet Bloody Mary Mix. The name alone drew me in, and as I took a

If you’ve been to Valley Natural Foods recently you may have noticed that we have removed yeast from our refrigerated bulk bin section due to lack of sales.  However, we still carry yeast for baking purpose in small, single-use packages of active dry yeast, and large, 1 pound packages of instant yeast. You can find these packages in our baking aisle (aisle 5) and above the bulk liquid containers in our bulk section. If you're looking for brewer's yeast you can find it in Aisle 6. Yeast has been used for more than 5,000 years for fermentation and bread leavening purposes. It wasn’t until recent years that yeast was identified as a living organism. Yeast is a single-celled fungi that is used today for fermentation, leavening bread, molding cheese and producing useful mold for antibiotics. So how does yeast work? Yeast cells,

Let’s Do… Organic Holiday baking can be a challenge when the entire family comes together. There are traditions, picky eaters, and special diets to consider.  Here at Valley Natural Foods we have a great selection of traditional and non-traditional baking items. A few new items have been added to the collection to fit your non-dairy baking needs. Non-dairy baking is now easier than ever with Let’s Do… Organic’s Sweetened Condensed Coconut Milk and Heavy Coconut Cream. Let’s Do… Organic’s Coconut products contain no added preservatives, extenders or enhancers and only contain pure organic coconut. The coconut will add good fats and a rich nutty flavor to your holiday baking. For more information and recipe ideas visit: http://www.edwardandsons.com/index.itml  Navitas Naturals Cacao butter is back! Navitas Naturals takes ground cacao nibs from organic cacoa beans and cold presses them into a paste using low temperatures to ensure

Gut Shot Farmhouse Culture Gut Shot sounds scarier than you think; in fact it’s quite good for you! Gut Shot is a probiotic rich drink that is made from organic vegetables. The juice is pressed from fermented vegetables and full of live active cultures. With such a small serving size of 1-1/2 oz. you can add it to smoothies, use it as a salad dressing, or drink it plain. Gut Shot helps keep your gut happy and healthy and are organic, non-GMO, vegan and gluten-free. We now carry the following flavors of Gut Shot: Classic Ginger Beet Kimchi Gut Shot comes from the same makers of Farmhouse Culture Sauerkraut products that are also carried at Valley Natural Foods. If you like their sauerkraut go ahead and give Gut Shot a try. For more information and recipe visit: farmhouseculture.com.   Bone Broth Protein A trendy new “superfood” has made an

What’s the buzz on this new Humm Kombucha? If you haven’t tried the new line of Kombucha at Valley Natural Foods then you’re surely missing out. The founders of Humm Kombucha have been brewing for over 20 years and decided to make a business out of it in Oregon. So how do they brew Kombucha? They start with a sweet tea mixture and then add an organic culture known as SCOBY. Well what is SCOBY you ask? SCOBY is a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, but don’t be afraid of the bacteria because it’s actually good for you! The bacteria and yeast work together to ferment the sugars in the sweet tea to produce vitamins, enzymes, and probiotics which can help improve digestion along with other health benefits.After the SCOBY is added the mixture ferments anywhere from 7-30 days. After the fermentation

National Honey Month September is National Honey Month! And at Valley Natural Foods, we celebrate this historic, versatile and healthy ingredient by offering fresh, raw honey from a variety of local sources! Humans have been collecting and consuming honey for over 8000 years, and has been an important ingredient throughout history, from the days of the ancient Egyptians to the Roman Empire, up through the time of kings and queens of England and into the modern day. Honey’s long history is due in part to many of the health benefits that it provides. It can be applied externally to treat wounds and sores, taken internally to ease coughing and throat irritation, and some recent research even indicated that honey can help prevent cancer and heart disease. If you are interested in the health benefits of honey, see our Wellness Staff who can guide

With summer drawing to a close its time to start thinking about back to school shopping! What better way to celebrate a new school year than a Lunch Box Giveaway! On Thursday, September 1st, the first 12 customers to spend $100 will receive a lunchbox filled with samples of some of our favorite products! Take a walk around our store and look for tags on our favorite lunchbox fillers.  We have a great variety of products for different personal preferences and diets. Then stop by our housewares section for a great selection of containers and drink-ware that are durable, colorful and eco-friendly! Packing lunches for your kids and for yourself shouldn’t be stressful, it should be fun! Want to make packing lunch just a little bit easier? Here are some tips to help make packing lunches less stressful and time consuming: Purchase

For as long as I can remember I have been a picky eater. One of my fondest memories was the first time I tried pineapple. I was about 10 years old and I did not want that yellow, creepy-looking fruit anywhere near me. Until one night, just days before we were scheduled to go to Hawaii on a family vacation my parents informed me that I wouldn’t be let into Hawaii unless I tried pineapple. As a 10 year old I believed them and the fear of being stranded at the airport scared me. So I cried for about 15 minutes before finally trying it, and guess what? I loved it! Although, I was too proud to admit my parents were right. Now that I’m older I’m all about trying new things and now came my time to try Kombucha. One

The first thought that comes to mind when I think of a coconut are memories of sitting between two palms while sipping on a sweet frozen beverage.  But there is more than meets the eye with this exotic treat. Coconuts have been utilized for centuries for their juice, meat, milk and oil. Until recently coconut fat has been deemed “unhealthy” because of the presence of saturated fat which we now know to be untrue in the case of the coconut. So what makes the fat from coconuts healthier than other fats? It all has to do with the composition of fat molecules within the coconut. All fat is made up of chains of fatty acids which are then classified based on their molecular length. The longer and more complex the fatty acid, the harder it is for the body to break down