Organic Food Budgets: Navigating Through Health Food Stores

Part 1: Separating Sustenance Needs From Whims

In the world of organic shopping, is a food budget an oxymoron?

Years ago I exited my local Whole Foods Market while carrying one grocery bag sagging with midriff bulge, and a wallet $151 lighter -- and I had never left the produce aisle to browse elsewhere. After the shock of that first excursion, I scribbled guidelines that preserved my budget arrangements. These rules have kept me sane whenever I tread past the check-out lanes, in departing that store, or other health food emporiums. Before you venture into the quest for zest, salubrity, fitness:

(1) Ask Yourself, Why Do Health Food Stores Exist?

Is their mission to help you radiate vitality? Of course. Wild Oats Market asserts an axiom, "healthy aging." Yet a subtext resonates. A store that price-marks is in the business of selling. Its aim (respectable) is to make money. Be protective of yours. Using forethought, invest prudently.

Among the myriad of often contradictory definitions, the word "organic" for our purposes, may be described as a process, specially honed, that ensures only the freshest, most beneficial elements enter and impact our physical systems. Historically, organic prices soar far above the conventional counterparts. The inflated cost is due, reportedly, to the extra attention the crops grown organically must receive.

The advantage to frequenting a Whole Foods or a Wild Oats or a less-organic-fixated, gourmet Fresh Market or Trader Joe's, or even a packaged-supplement outlet such as Vitamin Quota or GNC, is customer-health maintenance. These companies attempt to maintain stringent policies, of quality, sanitation, and environmental sensitivity. At my neighborhood Whole Foods, the few times I encountered a moldy potato, or a rotting rutabaga, the amiable workers I notified, apologized and trashed the offending object. They contacted me when acceptable shipments arrived.