10 tips for choosing whole foods products

Whole foods are now mainstream! There's a lot of organic and natural foods being advertised.

Fresh foods is best, but we all buy some packaged foods. So how do you know which packaged foods are the best?

10 tips for choosing quality foods:

1. Read the ingredient label. Look for about 5 or less ingredients, with food that you can recognize. Could you make it in your kitchen? Is it real food? Avoid food products with a long ingredients list with unpronounceable chemical sounding names.

2. Research the company. Go to their website and get a feel for their mission and story. Look for the food pioneers, back to the land types and idealists. Some quality companies have young idealists that offer interesting products. The raw foods community has some unique superfood companies, like Nutiva.

3. Transparency. Does the company tell you how they obtain, grow or process the food? If they use quality methods, they will tell you.

4. Traditional processing methods. Look for low heat processes, like cold pressed or stone ground. Traditional processes for whole foods are sun dried, naturally fermented, etc. Avoid high heat and chemical extraction.

5. Non-GMO. Are they a non-GMO company and proud of it? Are they organic and proud of it?

6. Who is behind it all? See if there is a healer, herbalist or farmer behind the company. For example, the herb company Herb Pharm has Herbal Ed, a medical herbalist for over 25 years.

7. Stewardship. How do they treat the earth? Do they protect the soil, the water? How do they treat their animals?

8. The triple bottom line. a good company based on whole foods will follow this. This is: fairness to workers, helping the environment and being profitable.

9. Education: Do they educate their customers? Some companies have wonderful newsletters. An example is Mountain Rose herbs, where they teach you basic herbalism.

10. They go the extra mile. For example: they offer BPA-free cans. Most canned foods, even organic, contain the contaminate Bisphenol-A (BPA), a hormone disruptor linked to cancer, birth defects and more. The 3 good guys are: Eden foods, Eco Fish, and Vital Choice.

And a warning: Many small companies that sell whole foods have been bought out by larger companies. Hains Food has swallowed up Arrowhead Mills, Celestial Seasonings, and many more companies. They want to be big and I'm leery of this.

When a corporation gets big, it wants to be a leader in the market, and that means taking short cuts to save money on production. Once there are stock holders, often the triple bottom line ends, and profit is king.

Look for small and transparent companies. Biodiversity in nature and in the food market is good for all.

Examples of quality companies making whole foods products:

Eden foods

Herb Pharm

Bob's Red Mill

Mountain Rose

Rejuvenative Foods

Quinoa Corporation

Dragon Herbs

Woodstock farms

Vital Choice Seafood

Eco Fish, Henry and Lisa's Seafood

There are more

Let's support the small, organic food pioneers. Everyone wins. You get great nutrition and the earth is happy!

Be the change you want to see in the world---Gandhi