Gearing up for game day? Good, let’s huddle. No matter which team you are cheering on if your most valuable color is green, we can help you score savings with The Whole Deal value guide. With $46+ in coupons, more than a dozen Sure Deals, new budget recipes and much more, you can easily prepare crowd pleasers without putting your budget on the bench.

Here’s the game-winning plan:

• Fill your roster with budget-friendly recipes like our Slow Cooker White Chili and Creamy Spinach Dip. Our Warm Broccoli Cheese Dip makes an irresistible dip with pita chips and crudités.
• Download coupons before you hit the store.
• Fill your basket with current Sure Deals like salsa, pita chips and wine.
• Look for 365 Everyday Value® products to stretch your dollar without sacrificing quality.
• Shop the bulk aisles to get your fill of nuts, dried fruits and other nibbles. Buy as much or as little as you need.

Game on! How will you celebrate without a big spend?

Since the beginning of the year, we’ve been focusing on stocking your pantry for healthier meals and a healthier budget. If you entered to Win Pantry Staples for a Year, keep an eye on your email — we’ll be notifying winners soon.

When you pick up the items on our $50 Pantry Stock Up list (see below), you’ll be ready to add a few fresh ingredients, herbs and spices to be able to cook 14 of our favorite recipes. We’ve featured all of these recipes individually in these “From Our Pantry” posts on Oats, Soup, Chili and Stew, Brown Rice and Quinoa. This post rounds out the list with a couple of pantry recipes featuring Italian cuisine.

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I no longer believe I have the “best ever” guacamole recipe. Every year about this time, the search for the ultimate guacamole comes up in the office or the blogosphere and I gather another nugget that raises the bar on my personal concoction. New ingredients and theories get added or subtracted – things like the right texture (creamy or chunky) or the right balance of ingredients (simple or complicated). Even the question of if putting the pit back in the bowl of guacamole really keep the guacamole from turning brown is a subject of seemingly endless debate. For some the business of guacamole is a serious, exacting science. For others, you just mash an avocado with a fork and your work is done. I’m somewhere in the middle but my recipe evolves every year.

Rodrigo, our office avocado buyer and resident expert, is crazy busy right now. Avocadoes are very popular and demand is strong year round but in January demand really takes off. This is due in part to very strong, overlapping availability from Chile and Mexico, both of which are producing excellent fruit. But the main reason demand increases in January is football. For the week of the big game, Rodrigo will book more than double the amount of avocadoes shipped in a normal week. This year supplies are much stronger and the fruit is ripening beautifully.

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Here’s a quandary more perplexing than love itself…how do you indulge the one you love while still taking care of his or her health?  Instead of the usual approach of fatty, sugary deliciousness celebrate your sweetie by serving the best unprocessed, whole food available. Choose food that nourishes and excites the taste buds all at once… and helps keep the one you love around for a long, long time.

Here are some of my favorite dishes for a special evening with my special someone. Not only do they look beautiful by candlelight, but they will keep you and yours satisfied and glowing with health and happiness.

Fill your heart with love and your belly with nutrients with these gorgeous main dishes packed with colorful plant foods.

• Pork Stir Fry with Asparagus, Peppers, and Green Onions
• Ancient Grain Stuffed Bell Peppers
• Roasted Fish and Veggies with Quinoa and Pine Nuts
• Baked Salmon with Spinach and Strawberry Salsa
• And what’s cuter than a “rice bowl built for two”?  Cuddle up together and share a Romantic Rice Bowl

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Made by the longest operating Cheddar producers in the world, Barber’s 1833 Cheddar has quite a history. The Barber family has been farming and making cheddar just outside the village of Cheddar, England since 1833. Watch as the Barber’s share the history of their cheese and learn more about it in our blog post, Barber’s Cheddar: A Cheese with Real Culture.

We know that your food choices count toward your health, schedule and budget. Meat can be an easy and healthful solution for weekday dinners when served with veggies and whole grains. Plus, our butchers know the best deals (hint: look for value packs and lesser-known cuts!) and will wrap up just the amount you need for recipes and sensible, affordable portions.

You can serve meat for dinner with ease of mind, knowing that we prohibit added hormones* and demand no antibiotics, ever. The Global Animal Partnership 5-Step™ Animal Welfare Rating on pork, chicken and beef in our fresh meat cases allows you to know how the animals are raised for the meat you are buying.

Here are some easy ways to enjoy meat for a weeknight dinner:

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When Martina put a few cucumbers in pots on her balcony in Brooklyn, New York, she had no idea where it would grow from there. A creative spirit helps her face the challenges of city gardening, such as space…and soil.

Martina Fugazzotto is a graphic artist in Brooklyn, New York, with more than a dabbling interest in gardening. Check out her blog, FarmTina and watch her story in this episode of Grow.

What unusual containers have you used for planting?

At Whole Foods Market®, we’ve got a wide range of stakeholders. These are the people who have an interest or an investment in what we do or sell. Most directly, we’ve got our customers, team members, suppliers and investors. Indirectly, our stakeholders also include members of the public who are watching and commenting (sometimes publically) on what we do, such as environmental and consumer groups. As Whole Foods Market continually works to be the leader in responsible sourcing of food and other products, our stakeholders challenge us to aim high. And this is a good thing! Simultaneously, we must consider all of our stakeholders’ points of view and balance these perspectives so that at the end of the day we have practical standards that the most motivated and innovative suppliers can meet and we have high-quality products to offer our customers.

So, what is a multi-stakeholder process, anyway? Essentially, it’s a forum for bringing different perspectives to the table. Let’s take a real life example. Right now we’re working on developing a new set of Seafood Quality Standards — our standards for farmed molluscs (a.k.a shellfish like clams, mussels and oysters). The process is well on its way and we aim to finish this spring. To create the standards, we studied the published science, visited farms from coast to coast, met with farmers and talked with many scientists to make sure we understood the issues. We also sought input from environmentalists. These discussions occurred during meetings, on the phone and over email. The process can occur in many ways! We’re also holding meetings with all of our supplier partners to review our draft standards point-by-point and get their feedback.

The first farmed mollusc supplier meeting took place January 10^th at our North Atlantic regional office and attendance was great. We hosted Whole Foods Market seafood buyers, representatives from our Quality Standards Team and Global Food Safety teams, and our consultant, Oceanographer Jon Grant from Dalhousie University in Canada. Almost twenty east coast growers participated in the meeting, hailing from Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, Canada.

Together with the growers, we reviewed the standards and had engaging discussions on a range of topics including what makes a production system aquaculture (vs. wild capture), disease prevention, standards for monitoring and preventing impacts to sediments under farms, harvesting, predator control and traceability. We received productive feedback and, fortunately, it looks like we’re on the right track with our standards.

Running a multi-stakeholder process is a lot of work, but it’s worth it in the end because when our stakeholders are involved in the process of developing standards, they’re invested in the outcome and can share in the success.

Look for more details on the farmed mollusc standards this spring!

We love our producers, suppliers and vendors and we think most of them have some pretty interesting stories behind their products too. We’re sharing some of our favorites here in an ongoing series.

Nature’s Path has blazed an organic trail since CEO Arran Stephens founded the company in 1985. Along the way, he’s repeated the same mantra: “Always leave the soil better than you found it.”

The successful company, now 400 workers strong, has remained fiercely independent and family owned, guided by Arran and his adult son and daughter, Arjan and Joyti.

Nature’s Path was an early supporter of the Non-GMO Project, has reduced packaging waste with its innovative Eco-Pacs and EnviroBoxes and has always supported small farms. Arran explains, “One of our main initiatives is to increase organic cropland and support family farms.”

From granola bars to cereals to waffles, Nature’s Path is constantly creating deliciously nourishing organic products while seeking new ways to give back to communities.

Seafood can be mystifying territory for us land dwelling creatures. Well, let’s get one thing settled right now: cooking fish at home can be very easy! One of the best things about cooking seafood is its versatility — it can be grilled, broiled, poached, baked or cooked in a pan. We’ll help you learn how to broil fish and then you can expand your horizon.

Broiled Fish with Citrus and Herbs

Get the health benefits of fish and the budget benefits of cooking at home by using these simple instructions. Feel free to substitute with other ingredients such as water and lemon juice or white wine for the orange juice, dried dill weed for the herbs, and capers or toasted crushed nuts or seeds for the olives.

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