Every Valentines’ Day I rekindle my never-ending romance with chocolate. The darker the chocolate, the better. It is a sensual delight, whether plain or with nuts, spices, dried fruit, a sliver of cheese or a splash of wine. Alas, I am hardly the only one involved in this romantic escapade with chocolate. Annual world consumption of cocoa beans averages about 600,000 tons! And did you know that it takes about 400 of those cocoa beans to make just one pound of chocolate?

Not only are all of the myriad forms of chocolate indescribably decadent and aromatic, the darker versions are also good for us! Here’s what I mean:

• Dark chocolate is packed with high-quality polyphenol antioxidants that may promote overall cardiovascular health.
• Cocoa beans include flavonoids (like those found in tea and red wine), which support healthy cholesterol levels and act as antioxidants.
• Chocolate delivers stearic acid, a unique fatty acid thought to be neutral for cholesterol levels.

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You know what’s sweet? Giving a Whole Foods Market gift card. You know what’s even sweeter, giving a gift card and then getting a little something special for yourself.

Here’s the deal. Right now, and until supplies last, with a Whole Foods Market gift card purchase of $100 or more (whether you purchase one $100 gift card, five $20 gift cards or any other combination), you’ll receive a free The Perfect Sip gift box to treat yourself.**

The Perfect Sip contains three thoughtfully selected bags of whole beans from Allegro® Coffee. Besides being great beans, these roasts also help coffee-growing communities thrive. Here’s how:

• Allegro® African Blend: These beans are sourced from African coffee co-ops that are recognized as Good for All by the Jane Goodall Institute. The Jane Goodall Institute seeks to contribute to the preservation of great apes and their habitats by combining conservation with sustainable livelihoods in local communities.
• Allegro® Costa Rican Dota: This coffee is grown in a high mountain valley region of Costa Rica, of which 87% is a forest preserve. Our nonprofit partner, EARTH University, is dedicated to education in the agricultural sciences and natural resources in order to contribute to sustainable development in the tropics.
• Allegro® Rainforest Blend: This coffee is grown on Rainforest Alliance-certified farms in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Rainforest Alliance farms meet standards for environmental protection, social equity and economic viability.

The Perfect Sip as well as our Snack Express gift boxes are also available to order online, so you can send a treat to your loved ones across the miles. Waking up to a really nice cup of coffee, now that’s a thoughtful Valentine’s gift and a sweet way to treat yourself.

** Receive a free The Perfect Sip gift box with every gift card purchase of $100 or more. Online, new cards only (does not apply to gift card reloads). Offer is only available in the US, while supplies last. Free gift box will be shipped to the billing address of gift card purchaser.

 Get dinner on the table in a flash with quick-cooking seafood choices. In addition to weekly deals, we cut to order and offer great prices on frozen seafood year-round. Remember, fatty fish — like salmon — deliver the omega-3 fatty acids that everyone’s talking about!

If you’re fishing around for information on the seafood we sell, rest assured we’re navigating toward fully sustainable seafood departments. Our farmed seafood is raised responsibly, and we offer seafood from fisheries that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). We’ve also implemented a color-coded rating program that provides you with sustainability status information for all wild-caught seafood not certified by the MSC. This way, you can make fully informed choices.
 
After making your selection at the counter, try one of these simple suggestions at home:

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There are many effective ways to support a healthy heart through simple dietary and lifestyle choices. Listen to this encore podcast presentation and learn about the link between inflammation and plant-based nutrition from one of the doctors who former President Bill Clinton credits with regaining his health. Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. is an internationally known former surgeon, researcher and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic, and author of the book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.

Podcast: Download

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s clinical research and book on preventing heart disease is centered around smart eating for a healthy heart:

• Protection against heart disease through plant-based nutrition has been the foundation of his research and clinical practice strategy for over 25 years.
• He has consistently found in patients severely ill with advanced coronary artery disease that the results of using plant-based nutrition are prompt, powerful and enduring.
• The foundation of this plant-based diet includes a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains, while avoiding animal products and processed oils.
• Additionally, he adds 1000 I.U. of vitamin D3 and 1,000 mcg of vitamin B12 daily to ensure adequacy of these nutrients.

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For six days in January, a group of Whole Foods Market team members traveled to South America, visiting farms, meeting growers and seeing firsthand the benefits of our Whole Trade® flower program. Read part one, Flowers UnCut, and part two, An Elite Community.

Our first day in Quito was an amazing introduction to a place, a culture, and a people unlike any other. The sheer geography at over ten thousand feet in the tumultuous Andes mountain range atop the equator gave the city a powerful and immense character. The region stretches across enormous valleys with drop-off cliffs, rivers and active volcanoes throughout. The land is green and dotted with concrete and cinderblock houses.

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For six days in January, a group of Whole Foods Market team members traveled to South America, visiting farms, meeting growers and seeing firsthand the benefits of our Whole Trade® flower program. Read part one, Flowers UnCut.

Our journey began in Bogota, Colombia, home of one of our largest Whole Trade® growers, Elite Flowers. Despite working for Whole Foods Market, a mission-driven company with a commitment to supporting all of our stakeholders, it can be easy to discount the powerful positive impact a company can have on its workers, their families and the greater community in which they live. Yet we were lucky enough to see that impact in action with a brief glimpse into the community of Elite Flowers, their Foundation and their Worker’s Fund. Through it all I was inspired, impressed and dutifully full on delicious food (if you are ever in Bogota, you absolutely must try Ajiaco soup!). Elite is a large company with over 4,000 employees and the work they do is changing lives on a daily basis, both inside and out of the greenhouse walls.

The Elite Foundation was initially created to improve the lives of the employees’ children, who were largely left at home to be raised by the older children. The goal was to provide quality education, nutrition and expression through art and community. When we established our Whole Trade relationship with the farm, the foundation became the natural recipient for the 10% premium we pay over the cost of the flowers (pre-shipping) that goes directly into important community programs. As those dollars rolled in, Elite was able to expand their overall services and directly fund 150 new children in the program. But to truly understand the importance and impact of these dollars, we needed to see it in person.

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Organic navel oranges are at their season’s peak — and today they’re on sale for 79 cents per pound! This sale is one day only, so be sure to stop by our stores in the US* and Canada for the season’s sweetest and juiciest at a sweet sale price.

Availability and limits may vary by region, so you can contact your store for details. While supplies last. Most of our stores do not provide rain checks for sales like this.

*Due to supply issues, Arizona stores will have organic valencia oranges for the same price, 79 cents per pound, so you won’t miss out on this organic citrus deal!

Navel oranges are delicious from the inside out — from their juice to their zest — and they also make fabulous snacks or lunch additions when eaten out of hand. Best of all, the navel oranges available for our one day sale are organic so you can enjoy them knowing that they were grown in adherence to organic standards!

Here are some ways to enjoy every bit of sweetness from the organic navel oranges on sale today:
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An avid lover of food and travel, Nick Heustis has worked for Whole Foods Market for 12 years and is currently the Associate Marketing Coordinator for the Northern California region.

Flowers are a symbol of celebration and emotion; they convey feelings, life and vitality. They add color and warmth to our homes, and at the other end of the supply chain, they provide jobs, homes and community for the people who grow, harvest and package them. For six days in January, a group of Whole Foods Market® team members traveled to South America, visiting farms, meeting growers and seeing firsthand the benefits of our Whole Trade® flower program. It was a wild ride of planes, buses, cars and missing iPads, and through it all we were inspired by the people, the culture and the practices that create some of the most impressive flowers I have ever seen. This will be the first of three posts, with the hope of sharing our journey with you. Read the rest of this entry »

Stop the insanity! I help with customer inquiries here at Whole Foods Market and we’ve been hearing some wild, off-base stories from folks around the country lately. For brevity’s sake, I’m going to list them here in hopes of dispelling these rumors.

Rumor No. 1: Whole Foods Market has been bought by Monsanto.

No! What crazy talk! We’ve never had any affiliation with that company. We are publicly traded; our majority shareholders are listed in documents filed with the SEC and, I promise, Monsanto is not on the list and never has been.

Rumor No. 2: Whole Foods Market made a secret deal with Monsanto to support the deregulation of GMO crops like alfalfa.

Again, no way! This ridiculous rumor started over a year ago in January 2011 because of the Organic Consumer Association’s (OCA) misleading article titled “Whole Foods Caves to Monsanto.” You see, Whole Foods Market and others in the organic food industry met with the US Secretary of Agriculture in support of farmers’ rights to grow Non-GMO crops.  Because we did not take the exact hard-line stance that the OCA did, they accused us of “being in bed with Monsanto,” and the rumor developed from there. Whole Foods Market has no ties to Monsanto and did not have any interaction with the company concerning this or any other issue. For a good description of what really happened, here’s a solid Washington Post story. You can also read our blog response from last year.

Rumor No. 3: Whole Foods Market recently decided to start selling food with GMOs.

Wrong again! As long as GMO crops have been in this country, GMOs have been in the US food supply. The most effective action we can take now is to label the food that DOESN’T include GMOs. That’s why we’ve enrolled our 365 Everyday Value and 365 Organic product line in the Non-GMO Project Verification Program, and have encouraged our branded vendors to do the same – and many, many have. If you want to avoid GMOs, here’s what to look for in our stores:

• Organic products, since USDA organic standards prohibit the use of GMO ingredients.
• Our 365 Everyday Value and 365 Organic store brand food products are sourced to avoid GMO ingredients and many have been verified under the Non-GMO Project verification program. You can find a list of verified products on each of our store web pages.
• Products labeled with the Non-GMO Project Verified label. For a shopping list of Non-GMO Project Verified products carried by your local store, check your store’s webpage or review brands and products on the Non-GMO project website.

Thanks for reading and now back to your regularly scheduled shopping.

Rose are red.
Violets are blue.
We’ve made a commitment to Whole Trade.
And you can too.

Small choices you make every day can make a world of difference. This Valentine’s Day, why not look for gifts that give back and really spread the love? Our Whole Trade® Guarantee ensures fair prices are paid for products, better wages and working conditions, and sound environmental practices. When you choose Whole Trade products, you not only show your loved ones that you care, you also use your buying power to create new economic opportunities for workers in the developing world.

These Whole Trade items are perfect for your Valentine… (Whole Trade) guaranteed:

• Change the world with Whole Trade chocolate. Eating or giving chocolate is a whole lot sweeter when you know it’s doing good.
• Beauty and body care with a conscience. Help your valentine feel great from head to toe with Whole Trade body care such as luxurious soaps, rich body lotions or sensuous massage oils.
• Love blossoms with bountiful, beautiful blooms. Pick bouquets or assemble your own lovely creation from our selection of gorgeous Whole Trade flowers like roses, Gerbera daisies and mixed bouquets.

This Valentine’s Day will you make a commitment to ethical trade, the environment and quality products?