How can you lower your risk of cardiovascular disease? Why is chronic inflammation often the heart of the matter? Get answers to these questions and more as you learn about specific nutrients, food and daily habits to help keep your heart healthy. Malia Curran, MS, MPH is a nutrition consultant and speaker, and sees clients in the Boston region.

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently considering whether or not to approve the use of genetically engineered (GE) Roundup-Ready alfalfa. Their report says you don’t care about GMOs in organics. Comments are due to them by February 16th, so read on to hear how you can help. (Or go directly to the True Food Project’s Take Action website.)

As part of the approval process, they are required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a detailed analysis of how the crop will affect the environment, organic and conventional farmers, farm animals, and the public. They’ve released their EIS on GE alfalfa, and here’s how the True Food Network at The Center for Food Safety summarized the issue in a recent Action Alert:

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in a rigorous analysis known as an environmental impact statement (or EIS). USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this type of analysis for any GE crop. Therefore, the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops.

That Environmental Impact Statement, unfortunately, contains a number of questionable statements and conclusions. The part of the EIS that worries us the most is the claim that buyers of organic foods don’t care if those products are contaminated with GMOs (genetically modified, or genetically engineered, organisms). We know that nothing could be further from the truth, and that a huge number of our shoppers care deeply about avoiding GMOs in the foods they buy. We’ve gone to great lengths to keep GMOs out of organic foods and, through our work with The Non-GMO Project, have helped advance North America’s first standards and verification program for Non-GMO foods. We are intent on preserving our ability to provide non-GMO options for our shoppers. Every newly-approved GMO crop erodes our ability to provide non-GMO food, and leads to contamination of organic and non-GMO crops, due to pollen drift and other forms of contamination.

What can YOU do?

The True Food Project has set up a Take Action website to help you easily submit your comments to the USDA. These are due by February 16th so take the time to do it now. Please use the CFS’s form letter as a guide and personalize it as you see fit – let the USDA know exactly why you’re concerned about this issue, what you think about GMOs in your food, and what you think they should do with the approval of GE alfalfa.

In our own comments to the USDA, we emphasized a few key facts:

• Organic and natural foods consumers do care about the presence of GMOs in their food. In fact, avoiding genetically engineered ingredients is one of the key reasons that shoppers seek out organic foods.
• The contamination of organic and non-GE crops by GE material has presented a huge burden for our company and our industry.
• The unchecked proliferation of GE crops will directly harm organic producers and the integrity of the organic label.
• The approval of GE alfalfa would do more harm than previously approved GE crops, since alfalfa is a wind-pollinated perennial crop.

Everyone has their own opinion about GMOs; please tell your story to the USDA via the True Food Project action campaign by February 16th. We’d love to read what you think in the comment section below, but make sure you send your comments to the USDA first!

I’m a chocolate lover; you know that already. And I’m sensitive to caffeine; you know that, too. So, let’s be frank: When you love chocolate, it’s hard to find a replacement with the same flavor and mouth-feel, right? Enter carob. Not chocolate, not really. But a good place to start. In fact, there are plenty of times when I choose carob instead. Why? Unlike chocolate, carob is naturally sweet, low in fat, high in fiber, has calcium, and most importantly to me, no caffeine. And because chocolate is linked to migraines and caffeine-sensitivity for some people, carob definitely has its advantages.

Carob comes from the pod of a tree that grows along the Mediterranean Sea. The pod contains a sweet, edible pulp. Once dried and roasted, the pulp is ground into a powder called carob flour (but more commonly referred to as “carob powder”). It’s similar to cocoa powder in color and can be substituted one-for-one in recipes, but carob is unique with its own special flavor and texture. Read the rest of this entry »

With a documented history dating back almost 1,000 years, only cheese made in one area of Northern Italy – the rolling hills and green pastures that comprise Reggio Emilia, Parma, Modena and portions of Bologna and Mantua – can bear the Parmigiano Reggiano name. There the cheese is handcrafted in small batches to meet the high quality standards of Italy’s Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano Reggiano, who have been preserving the tradition and integrity of the cheese for centuries. Read the rest of this entry »

Brad here from TOMS Shoes. I like it when people ask what I do, because it gives me the chance to talk about all the good we are doing. I tell them about our unique One for One business model – with every pair of TOMS we sell, we give a pair of new shoes to a child in need – and that we’ve now given 400,000 pairs of shoes since 2006. Our success is thanks to a lot of hard work, passionate people and strong partners who really “get” what we do and whose customers are interested as well. That’s where Whole Foods Market comes in. Read the rest of this entry »

Get cozy with a home-cooked meal this Valentine’s Day. You’ll avoid the crowds, save some money, and make exactly what you want! Here are some ideas to help you plan a top-notch homemade Valentine’s dinner.

Easy No-Cook Appetizers

Seafood Cucumber Stacks

Make these pretty little seafood bites, then take a break and enjoy them with a glass of sparkling wine before you tackle the rest of the meal.

Herb Crusted Goat Cheese

Prosciutto, Brie and Apricot Roll-Ups

Simple White Bean Spread

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Whole Trade Month, which means time to celebrate the Whole Trade Guarantee and the hard-working folks who produce these outstanding products. By no coincidence, Whole Trade Month falls around Valentine’s Day, when we often think about chocolate and roses, two of our staple Whole Trade products. But the Whole Trade Guarantee encompasses so much more. From bananas to coffee to body care, we sources thousands of items from producers who share our commitment to quality, the environment and healthy working conditions. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things that our customers love about Whole Foods Market is that they can find products from all over the world. They also love the extensive selection of local products that each of our stores offers. Sometimes that global mindset even finds its way into local products, especially when the producers themselves are originally from other countries.

Here are a few examples of Local Producer Loan recipients who are bringing unique products from their homelands to our customers in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

Sure two’s company but coming up with ideas for feeding two on a budget every day may turn the best of us into someone it’s best to avoid. That’s where The Whole Deal meal planners come in. Our week long meal plan for two paves the way for delicious, affordable meals and takes the pressure off of you. Sit back and enjoy:

MONDAY: Veggie Monday

Try our Winter Greens with Carrots, Feta Cheese and Brown Rice recipe. And then have sliced organic navel oranges with honey and nuts. Leftovers are great for lunch. Read the rest of this entry »

Parmigiano Reggiano is truly one of the incomparable cheeses of the world. We take extraordinary measures to work with a small group of artisan producers in Italy to hand-select the very best Parmigiano Reggiano. Our chosen wheels are carefully aged for 24 months to bring out the best of Parmigiano Reggiano’s nutty and sweet flavors and creamy and crystalline textures.

And now we want to know what you’ll prepare with this fabulous cheese when you get it home!

As part of our month long celebration of this fabulous cheese, we are holding an online recipe contest to find and share fresh and innovative ways to enjoy real Parmigiano Reggiano every day. Post your best, original recipe in the comment section below for a chance to win a $500 Whole Foods Market shopping spree, a gift basket chock-full of Parm and goodies to pair, and an authentic cheese knife set from Italy. Five runner-ups receive prizes too.

Comments must be submitted to this blog post between February 3 and February 10, 2010.

You may enter more than one recipe in the comments (but you can’t win more than one prize) — just make sure they are your original concoctions!

A panel of Whole Foods Market Team Member judges will select six finalists. Those finalists’ recipes will be prepared and served to a celebrity taste panel at our Austin headquarters in the middle of February to determine the Grand Prize Winner. The recipes will be judged based on flavor profile, culinary appeal and the innovative use of Parmigiano Reggiano. See all Contest Rules.

The finalists’ recipes will be spotlighted in this blog later in February so we can all give them a try!

We’ll share more tasty information about Parmigiano Reggiano and our in-store events throughout February, so check back. But for now, hit the kitchen and get creative! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Just enter your recipe in the comment section below.