My interest in the natural health movement started back in the 1970s. At that time, there were health food co-ops in many cities across the United States. You’d join the co-op by paying a monthly fee and get a discount on the products they offered. If you volunteered to help out at the co-op for a few hours every month, you’d get an additional discount.
For the short time my wife and I lived in Spokane, Washington, we belonged to a food co-opčour first co-op experience. They had a monthly newsletter where I first learned that refrigerating tomatoes caused them to lose flavor.

Later, we participated in food co-ops in Ft. Collins, Colorado and Provo, Utah. In fact, the guy who started the co-op in Provo was a friend, who I encouraged to start the co-op when he told me he was thinking about it.

The co-ops gradually gave way to health food stores. Most of the early health food stores I saw primarily sold supplements (sort of like GNC). I could never figure out why they called them health “food” stores because they hardly had any food. However, I watched stores start appearing that actually focused on carrying food.

For example, a guy opened a nice little health food store on 2nd Avenue in Salt Lake City, not too far from where I grew up. I became friends with him and we were on a radio talk show together talking about the importance of eating whole foods for nutrition. (This was at the beginning of the 80’s.). I watched his small health food store grow into a chain of three or four health food stores. (He even opened one in Flagstaff, AZ.) Later, he was bought out by Wild Oats, as were many other small health food stores and co-ops across the country.

Although I still like to shop at Wild Oats and Whole Foods, there was a different feeling in those early co-ops and health food stores. They didn’t have the “glitz” and “commercial” feeling of these big modern chains. They were an outgrowth of the hippie movement of the 60’s and had a rustic, back-to-nature, back-to-basics feeling about them—anti-establishment and anti-big corporations. They typically featured barrels of whole grains and beans, jars of herbs, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, soymilk, fresh juices and other fairly staple foods. They also had products like Bragg’s vinegar, Dr. Bronner’s soap and Bernard Jensen’s Black Cherry Concentrate, but there weren’t a lot of prepared or convenience foods in them. The new health food stores are big chains, and now big corporations are part of the “health food” movement.

The people who ran these early businesses were seeking to return to a more basic and simple life. The guy who ran the health food stores in Salt Lake brought a bunch of friends from California to work with him on the project. They bought an apartment building, in which they all lived, and bought some acreage in south Salt Lake to start their own organic farm to grow produce for their own stores.

I remember going into the health food store in Salt Lake after Wild Oats had taken over. The first thing I noticed was that all of the whole grain breads had been replaced with products mostly made with “organic, unbleached white flour.” I asked one of the managers why there weren’t more whole grain breads. “There isn’t enough consumer demand,” he told me. “We have to educate people to want them, because what most people want is the white breads.”
I wondered about this, seeing that the previous health food store ONLY sold whole grain breads and had been steadily expanding. So, I don’t think the change had anything to do with consumer demand for organic white bread. It was just the effort of a large corporation to appeal to a larger market segment.

Today’s health food stores are a hybrid of “health food store” and “gourmet grocery store.” We’ve moved from the locally-supported co-op, where you got to know other like-minded people by working with them to meet your co-op work requirement, to the impersonal world of big corporate business. Although I still love to shop at stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joes (Wild Oats just got bought out by Whole Foods), I have to read the labels carefully. I didn’t 20 years ago.

The consciousness has shifted as well. Health food is now “big business,” and that concerns me. It’s not that I’m unhappy that mainstream America is becoming more health conscious. I’m delighted that the local Harmon’s grocery store has a large “health food” section, carries lots of organic produce, recently opened an in-store bakery that makes tasty breads with organic flour and even has a lovely salad bar. I can now purchase lots of items here in Saint George (like organic Rainbow chard) which I used to get at Whole Foods or Wild Oats in Las Vegas to obtain. However, as “health food” moves mainstream, I also watch the steady erosion of the ideals on which this movement was founded.

This is particularly evident when I go to the Whole Foods Expo in Anaheim each March of 2007, as I’ve done every year since moving to Saint George five years ago. The Expo has no relation to Whole Foods Markets—it is a trade show for health food stores. They feature speakers and thousands of booths offering organic food, vegetarian food, herbs, supplements, personal care products, pet products and other items that cater to the “health food” market. It is held in Anaheim each spring and Baltimore each fall. ( If you’ve never been to one, you should go. If you own a shop, it’s free to register.)

I go because I like to check out what’s happening in the industry, what the latest fads and trends are, and to look for interesting new products. Every year I find at least one item that catches my interest. Nature’s Sunshine sends home office representatives to the Expo for the same reason. I usually bump into someone from home office checking out industry trends. Oh, and I also bump into some old friends from time to time, too.

I must confess, however, that all the reasons for attending this event are really just excuses to justify my main reason for attending, which is to sample the food. I never need to eat lunch when I’m at the Expo. I just head over to the food area and start “grazing.” There are samples of grass fed beef, all-natural chicken, organic ice cream, vegetarian foods, vegan foods, food bars, chocolate bars, teas, salsa, chips, drinks, soups, cheeses, breads and of course, prepared entrees.

This year, I could really see the “organic” trend. “Organic” is hot. In fact, it’s so hot that the giant food conglomerates are launching their own lines of “organic” foods. Wal-Mart, as you may realize, has decided to carry organic foods. Frito-Lay now has a line of “organic” chips. These are just a few examples, but organic is now big business, and that means I trust it less.

I don’t know why I’m gifted to be able to see trends, but maybe it’s just because I keep my eyes open. For instance, I knew that as soon as the Federal government took over the organic certification that the organic movement was going to be “watered down.” Already, big businesses are lobbying to have milk from cloned cows qualify for the organic label and other such nonsense. Plus, it’s very easy for big corporations to pay regulators to “look the other way” for minor infractions of the regulations.

But, that’s not the only problem I see with the big-business organic movement. I can see the trend because I’ve been seeing it for years. “Organic” and “natural” are now being used to make highly processed convenience foods appear to be healthy. It’s amazing to me how many “health foods” contain organic white flour, organic refined sugar and even chemical ingredients like sucralose. The organic movement also features lots and lots of convenience foods.

I don’t want to appear negative about this, because I’m not. I just want to clarify a few things so people aren’t misled. So, one the next page of this article there are four points to consider when looking for healthy food.