First trip to Rainbow Grocery in the Mission - the Spoils

I have been weirdly "into" nonconventional grocery shopping lately.  I try to avoid chain supermarkets at all costs, and that includes hoity toity ones like Whole Foods and Draeger's.  Why bother, when there are so many better options in the Bay Area?  (Exception: Safeway is having a $1.99/lb sale on heirloom tomatoes until 9/15, which is a downright steal, and I am a big fan of Nob Hill Foods.)

So it was only a matter of time before I found myself exploring the canyon-like aisles of Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in the Mission, and the only reason was that I didn't get a chance to drop by Berkeley Bowl yesterday like I had wanted to.  

The first thing to greet me was the bulk spices section.  I had never seen anything like it!  Saffron, Chinese 5-spice powder and arrowroot powder by the pound!  I was so amazed...normally I get my bulk spices from Indian grocery stores (where they are SO much cheaper than going to Safeway or even the Mexican market!), but their selection is quite limited and they come prepackaged.  You can't, like I did, get a mere 1oz of dill weed and pay $0.50 for it.

I moved on to the regular bulk foods section where I was dizzy with pleasure - comparable to BB's, but there were quite a few things I saw that were NOT available at BB, like grits and blue cornmeal (they even had blue corn grits!).  

I grabbed some juice--on sale--a 100% organic berry fruit juice mix, then sampled some cumin-spice French black olives, and spooned some bulk pesto sauce into a plastic container (to note, it turned out to be about the same as TJ's prepackaged pesto).

When I came to the produce section though, I was thoroughly disappointed.  Firstly, they had nothing but organic produce.  I mean, often it makes sense to shell out the extra $$ for organic produce (peaches, for instance), but what the heck do I need to buy organic bananas for?  At $1.70/lb no less? It's not like I eat the peel!  (For a more complete list of which foods to buy organic and which you can get away with buying conventional, check out Wendy's blog here.)  Secondly, they seemed to have a much more limited selection of fruits/veggies available.  Like I couldn't find peaches anywhere.

I felt a bit better after I nabbed some excellent cookies in the snack section.  The full list below, clockwise from upper left:

Organic Bartlett pears (not bad at $1.60/lb), Bellweather Farms sheep's milk yogurt with natural fruit filling on the bottom (pricey at $2.29 each, but SO worth it - the most delicious, fresh-tasting yogurt I have ever had), bulk blue cornmeal, bulk cannellini beans, bulk grits, L&A mixed berry juice, organic mission and sierra figs, bulk fried veggie chips (expensive but yummy!), bulk traditional pesto sauce, bulk organic spelt rotini pasta, bulk regular rigatoni pasta, organic portabello mushrooms (SO NOT worth it at a whopping $9.99/lb!  Next time I'm going to Costco!), Pamela's ginger cookies with sliced almonds (so delicious, with the perfect amount of spicy kick, soft texture and pleasing crunch of almonds), bulk dill weed and bulk whole cumin seeds.
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6 responses
Hi Stephanie - A note on organic produce - Yes, of course there is a Top 10 Offenders list when it comes to produce you should absolutely buy organic because of the danger of ingesting toxic pesticides.

*In addition,* consumers should consider the environmental and human impact of conventional farming - Organic farming practices are all around better for the ecosystem - preserving biodiversity (flora and fauna!), preventing chemical run-off, protecting water sources and other crops, etc.

Also, organic farming is healthier for the humans harvesting and tending to crops - so even if the farm isn't particularly fair to its workers (I can't help but be suspicious of some of those mega-O's in CA), the workers are at least passively benefiting by not handling and breathing toxic dust for half the year!

I know organic can be expensive, I don't always buy it, but I try to! :)

oh, and mushrooms:

(Cooked) Shiitake, enokidake, maitake, oyster mushrooms and wild mushrooms if available are the best for you (and the best tasting!!), so if you are going to splurge (9.99/lb !), maybe that's the route to take.

— Stephanie Pereira
@Jonathan Hmm, what exactly are "food miles"?  And it must be great to have fresh local produce so readily available.  Then again, I was just in awe of all the crazy dry foods I could get at this market.  I mean, spelt rotini?
@Stephanie Le sigh... I don't disagree with any of your arguments for buying organic, but the reality is that it is entirely cost prohibitive for me to go completely organic at this time.  So I try to compromise by buying conventional produce with the lowest pesticide load.  As for the mushrooms, I guess I was a bit blindsided - either I didn't think two mushrooms were heavy enough to cost $4.50, or I didn't really realize what $9.99/lb would actually translate into!  Not a mistake I will make again =)  To note, they DID have an amazing selection of other mushrooms (also $9.99/lb).

— Stephanie Lim
You know, I am not entirely convinced that responsible food-shopping is necessarily as simple as "buying local."  The first thing I think of is that it's rather wasteful to produce foods in one area when they can be more efficiently and economically produced elsewhere.  Secondly, I think that by sometimes buying imported foods, I can support the global economy.  It's easy for a bunch of yuppie-hippies in Western urban centers to tout around the concept of "buying local" like it is the best thing since sliced bread.  But anyone who has traveled to non-Western countries may have seen how desperately poor these countries are, with so little industry, and that they need SOMEthing to export.  Is it possible that buy insisting on buying local, we are taking away the ability of food producers around the world to make their livelihoods?
Though to be honest I know very little about why and how the garlic I buy, which comes from China, is produced.  It's entirely possible that the poor farmers in, say, Hebei province never see any of the profits of global export, and that the garlic I buy is grown by ruthless Asian mega-food-conglomerates.  I have no idea.  Just thinking out loud.
Besides, there is the obvious personal benefit of being open to buying imported foods.  Thanks to globalization I can enjoy mangoes and bananas of every variety in the summer and Chilean blueberries in the winter.

— Stephanie Lim
I agree, Rainbow market is so much fun - especially the raw food selection of bulk, produce and snacks!! Does anyone know which phonebook has he 20% off coupon? Apparently if you go on Tuesdays with the coupon it's 20% off your total bill - so you can keep the coupon and go in on Tuesdays all year and save. Sweet!
— Brigitte Center
hi. you simply must try golden produce on church & market in duboce triangle. they sell impeccable produce at very reasonable prices. up the street, their sister store, golden natural foods, sells organic meat, fish, and chicken, as well as other groceries and wine. the only thing lacking in both stores is the cheese department.
— antonia richmond
Thanks antonia!  my other friend just pointed me in the direction of golden produce - I will definitely have to check it out =D
— Stephanie Lim
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