November 2016

Our wellness department recently added handcrafted, cut-your-own Pacha Soap to our shelves! Beautiful Pacha soaps are scented with pure essential oils and colored with herbs, plant extracts, roots minerals and clays. All ingredients are sustainably and ethically sourced, and contain no sulfates, parabens, phthalates or silicones. The benefit of cut-your-own bulk soap allows you to control how thick you want your soap bar. Special bags are supplied to store your soap. If you need assistance with cutting, our staff will be happy to help you! Pacha Soap is a fast-growing, mission-driven company. When you purchase their soap, a bar is given to someone in need and helps provide careers for men and women in developing nations. To learn more about Pacha Soap's mission, visit their website: www.pachasoap.com.

A new seasonal item has joined the shelves of our produce department, Gourmet Garden Herb Pastes.  We carry 4 of their varieties including: basil, lemongrass, dill, and Italian herbs. Their pastes can be stirred into soups, stir fries, sauces, and dressings or used as a marinade. Their herb pastes can help reduce prep time and will maintain best flavor within 3 months of opening. Gourmet Garden is an herb farm based in Queensland and Victoria, Australia. Their team has dedicated their work to producing and researching fresh herbs and perfecting their herb products. Their herbs are picked at the peak of freshness when the essential oil yield is high which is important for the plant’s flavor, aroma and color. Once picked their herbs are transported in a temperature-controlled vehicle to an herb prepping facility where they are washed, cut and prepared within

  Celebrate art and creativity in our community! On Saturday, November 19th, area Rosemount and Apple Valley High School families and students gathered in-store to take part in Valley Natural Foods’ 15th Annual Visual Arts Exhibition Invitational reception. During the reception, 47 student artists, with fifty-eight art forms now on exhibit around the store, were awarded and recognized for their excellence. The showcased art was juried by two local art professionals, Lavonne Loerch and Beth Torstenson and two Rosemount High School National Art Honor Society members Samantha Jimenez and Kiera Newson.  Dr. Roger McGaughey, retired art teacher at Apple Valley High School, is the exhibit coordinator.  The Valley Natural Foods Visual Arts Exhibition Invitational fulfills the store’s commitment to serve the arts by supporting the flow of creativity and connectivity that helps sustain our youth and creates a healthy community.  The exhibit will be open

A showy variety of locally-grown daikon radish has recently arrived on our produce shelves! Purple Daikon radishes are easy to spot because of their pretty, lavender-colored exterior. When you slice these large tubular beauties into thin circles, you will notice an incredible, vibrant purple & white tie-dye design inside. However, purple daikon is not just another pretty radish, it has great flavor appeal too. They're very sweet and mild, without that spicy sharp bite you can expect from other varieties. Plus, they're super easy to peel using a paring knife or vegetable peeler. Try adding shredded daikon to your favorite coleslaw recipe, or pickle them. You can also just simply slice and and lay out on a tray, and serve with dipping hummus. Get creative with salads by adding them cubed or sliced to salads for a colorful presentation.  If you would like to make something on the exotic side, check out this Radish and Carrot Kimchi recipe from Co-op, Stronger

If you’ve been to Valley Natural Foods recently you may have noticed that we have removed yeast from our refrigerated bulk bin section due to lack of sales.  However, we still carry yeast for baking purpose in small, single-use packages of active dry yeast, and large, 1 pound packages of instant yeast. You can find these packages in our baking aisle (aisle 5) and above the bulk liquid containers in our bulk section. If you're looking for brewer's yeast you can find it in Aisle 6. Yeast has been used for more than 5,000 years for fermentation and bread leavening purposes. It wasn’t until recent years that yeast was identified as a living organism. Yeast is a single-celled fungi that is used today for fermentation, leavening bread, molding cheese and producing useful mold for antibiotics. So how does yeast work? Yeast cells,