We partnered with Concord Music Group to create four exclusive CD compilations that are perfect for entertaining.  These different styles and themes of music are great for parties, special events, dinners, barbeques or any time you would like to create a nice ambience. 

The CDs are priced at only $9.99 and we will donate 1% of the sales to the Grammy Foundation’s “Signature Schools” program – an organization that works to keep music education in our schools.

Here are the four CDs, with a brief sound clip for each: 

Date Night – Heart & Soul  01 Stuck To You 30

Come on Over – Backyard BBQ 01 Hold On! I’m Comin’ 30

Your Time – Awaken, Inspire, Renew 10 Starting All Over Again 30

Wine & Dine – Prelude to a Kiss  01 Witchcraft 30

When you have something that works so well, it is easy to take it for granted. 

The fact is, your skin is the largest organ of your body, accounting for roughly 10 percent of your body mass. It holds other organs and liquids in, helps to regulate body temperature and acts as a filter, doing its best to keep out harmful things. It synthesizes Vitamin D. It’s extremely elastic but also sensitive, giving us tactile perception of the world.  We can heap a lot of abuse on it but it rarely fails us.

What are some nice things you can do for your skin?

1. Protect it from the sun!

The sun is responsible for 90% of wrinkles, dark spots, damage to collagen and elastin. freckles, dilated blood vessels and an overall look of aging. These facts may not be appreciated at 20, but are starkly real at 45.

Sun exposure also increases the chances of skin cancer, as many of the sun worshipers and bikini donners of the 60’s and 70’s became acutely aware.

Most people are not aware that sunscreens have a shelf life and become ineffective after a few years.  If not exposed to air and heat, a sunscreen may last 3 years.  But once you open it and take it to the beach, air, heat and bacteria go to work.  To be safe, use it up within a year and buy a new one.  Throw out any sunscreen that is older than one year. And be sure to apply sunscreen liberally and re-apply often.

Use a sunscreen with at least an SPF (Sun Protection Factor) of 15. But realize SPF numbers only refer to protection from UVB rays – those that cause redness and burning.  The UVA rays are the ones that damage collagen and elastin and cause premature aging.  Mineral-based sun blocks reflect the sun’s rays and provide UVB and UVA protection.  Also be sure to choose a sunscreen that does double-duty as a skin nutrient.

Don’t rely on sunscreen alone to protect your skin from the sun’s damaging rays. Wear protective clothing and minimize your exposure during the most sun-intense times of the day.

2. Feed your skin.

Eat a sensible diet that is nutrient dense and gives your skin the ammunition it needs to fight off the daily barrage of free-radical producing pollutants and toxins and which gives it the resources it needs to rejuvenate. For more information, see our Health Starts Here program: http://tiny.cc/df9lj

Stay hydrated with water, coconut water, or any electrolyte-enhanced drink that isn’t also loaded with sugar.

3. Don’t put anything on the body that you wouldn’t want in the body.

The thing about the skin is, it has to allow passage of liquid and gasses. To keep us healthy it has to be able to sweat and breathe, but that means it also absorbs many things it comes in contact with. (If you want to know how that works, visit the CDC website: http://tiny.cc/pqgm9) 

Take care what you allow in contact with your skin.  Women used to lighten their skin with arsenic or lead-based creams, much to the detriment of their health, and even today there are still potentially toxic ingredients used in cosmetics. Here’s a little video that outlines the fact: http://tiny.cc/yre2z

It is easy to avoid the toxins.  Gentle plant-based skin care = good, petroleum-based skin care = bad. Aluminum in deodorants = bad. Lead in lipstick = bad. Carcinogens = bad. Having a retailer care about and carefully assess the ingredients of the skincare products they sell = good.

At Whole Foods Market we maintain our own high standards for body care and will not carry products that violate these standards: http://tiny.cc/ti1e0

In summary, take care of your skin as well as your skin takes care of you!

So, we’ve got these 10-inch Helen Chen bamboo steamers for sale and I got to wondering what to do with such a thing. In my discovery quest I found out:

Most kitchens in Asia do not have ovens, therefore baking or roasting are not commonly used cooking techniques while steaming and stir fry are commonly used.

Cooking by bamboo steaming is one of the best ways to retain nutrition and color.

Cooking food in bamboo is said to give the food a subtle but distinctive taste.

The bamboo absorbs the steam that would otherwise drip back down onto what you are cooking so it doesn’t get diluted or mushy.

Herbs may be placed in the water to impart flavor to the food cooking above.

The broth that remains after steaming the food may be used as a soup base.

One can cook several courses of a meal in different compartments of the bamboo steamer.

The attractive steamer can be brought right to the serving table.

It is versatile. It may be used to steam dumplings, vegetables, fish or cook other dishes and can even be used to freshen up stale bread.  It is also excellent for re-heating food that might otherwise dry out in an oven.

Rice steamed in the bamboo steamer turns out more plump.

Bamboo is a grass and one of the fastest growing plants that exists, so it is extremely sustainable.

Instructions are included and there is a lot of information out there, as well as instructional videos and recipes available.

Selling here for $19.99 while they last.  You can get them online for a couple dollars less, but you have to pay shipping charges and you can’t use it right away. 

Let me know if anyone out there cooks with a bamboo steamer.  I can’t wait to try it!

Taking an intuitive rather than scientific approach to nutrition, Martha has devoted her career to healthy eating. She is the co-founder of LA’s Venice Cooking School and has written more than 25 books. Martha will be cooking dishes from her recent release, “The Very Best of Recipes For Health” which includes 250 recipes taken from her very popular series Recipes for Health in The New York Times.

The holiday-themed menu will include Wild Rice and Brown Rice Salad with Green Beans or Asparagus, Sweet Potato Puree with Apples, and Pan-Roasted Brussels Sprouts. This is sure to be both a delicious and nutritious way to kick-off the holiday season!

Really, I’ve never known a kitchen appliance to have engendered SUCH a cult following.

Go ahead, try it!  Enter “obsessed with my Vita-Mix”.  Or “hate my Vita-Mix”.  All you’re going to find is a love-fest.

Why?

This super-appliance practically does it all. Our language had not yet developed a word for what the Vita-Mix is so it is referred to as a “blender”.  But the initiated know better.

Put in fresh produce, seasonings and water and viola! 4 – 5 minutes later you have hot soup from scratch without ever removing anything from the Vita-Mix.  You can make fresh sorbets, ice creams, sauces, nut butters, whole food smoothies (so you get the full benefit of the seeds and all). You can make flour from whole grains with your Vita-Mix then add ingredients to make bread.  It will even knead the bread for you.  (You DO have to put the bread in the oven – I’m afraid the Vita-Mix won’t cook it for you.)

The Vita-Mix can be your best buddy to get more fruits and vegetables into your diet.  Fun and healthy. Kind of the Dance Dance Revolution for the kitchen (but not really).

Starting on the 27^th of October and going through the 31^st, Vita-Mix is coming to the Beverly Hills Whole Foods Market to conduct food shows using the Vita-Mix 5200.

So make room Big Lebowski!! Move over Rocky Horror Picture Show! And you, Harold and Maude and Night of the Living Dead, make way ’cause there’s a new show in town!

Come see the Vita-Mix show and find out what it’s like on the other side.

And then there is fire and food.  Grilling, pan-frying, poaching, steaming, roasting, baking, stewing, toasting, boiling, deep-frying, broiling, sautéing, braising, searing, microwaving. 

But Prometheus’ gift notwithstanding, Raw Foodists seem to thrive on their uncooked diets and claim benefits including healthy weight maintenance, more energy, clear skin and improved insulin tolerance.

Proponents say the reasons are:

• You eat less to satisfy your needs.
• Essential nutrients and enzymes have not been destroyed by the heat of cooking.
• The good balance of water, nutrients and fiber brings about more energy.
• Raw foods are very flavorful, so less salt, sugar and spices are needed.
• Since enzymes are kept intact and there is plenty of fiber in the diet, the processes of digestion and elimination function well. It is said that if you eat a well-balanced raw food diet, symptoms such as heartburn, gas, indigestion and constipation disappear.
• Cooking can create free radicals, which are a major cause of accelerating aging and have been linked to cancer. Eating raw foods lowers the number of free radicals while boosting your immune system.
• Raw foods are easy to prepare and save us natural resources since very little power is used to prepare the food. Nothing is heated 46 – 48 degrees Celsius (or around 115°F – 118°F).

For those of you who want to learn how to make raw food dishes, raw foods aficionado Blythe Metz will be in-store to demonstrate enzyme-rich, raw, vegan dishes. 

So if you would like to go raw, join us on October 24^th at 4:30pm for a variety of fall flavors, including how to prepare sprouted wild rice with ginger dressing, live tomato and red pepper soup, live butternut rosemary soup, chia seed crackers and a chia seed breakfast.

(For those of you who would rather have ready-to-eat raw foods, we offer plenty of selections throughout the store. But join us for the class to learn their benefits.)

Where can you find a bicycle-powered blender, a Zen monk, and an inspirational author?
 
In the same place where you’ll find sustainability that merges personal peace and well-being with environmentalism.  None other than “The Natural Kitchen” from Deborah Eden Tull!
 
And this Sunday, October 3rd at 4:30 pm, you can experience “The Natural Kitchen” yourself at the Beverly Hills Whole Foods Market where we are honored to host a guest lecture by Deborah Eden Tull.
 
With a unique expertise garnered from her experience as a chef, author, Zen monk, organic farmer, and green consultant, let’s just say that if the Beverly Hills Whole Foods Market was looking to hire a mascot, we wouldn’t need to look farther than Eden Tull.  Lucky for our customers, this wise woman behind the brand new book “The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution,” will be live in-person to take us on an all-natural journey from soil to seed to the meal on our plate.  
 
Learn how to adopt an eco-friendly connection to food that will transform how you shop, cook, eat, and work in your kitchen.  Witness the magic of a blender that spins its blades via spinning.  Be inspired to make healthier choices and live more mindfully.  Enjoy discussion and Q&A along with complementary hors d’oeuvres.
 
Deborah Eden Tull’s guest lecture is free to all who wish to attend and will be held in the dining area of our store.  Early arrival is suggested as space is limited.  For more information on Deborah Eden Tull or to buy her book “The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution,” please visit her website at the following link:  http://www.deborahedentull.com/.

Here’s how your family can enroll your shopping cart in a little Nutrition 101:

Take Your Kids to Class – That is to say, our Youth Cooking Classes, Feed Your Brain Series.  Every Sunday from August 15^th through September 5^th the Beverly Hills Whole Foods Market will be conducting hands-on, cost-free children’s cooking classes.  Led by Chef Shelley Janson, founder of the Epicurean School of Culinary Arts, these crash courses will feature lessons on healthy snacks, superfoods, the science and math of kitchen activities, and how to be mindful in making delicious decisions.  The four classes will run from 10:30 am – 12:00 pm in the dining area of our store.

Support the Salad Bar Project – Whole Foods Market has teamed up with Chef Ann Cooper, or “the Renegade Lunch Lady,” to redesign the menus at school cafeterias across the country.  Last year we raised awareness (see www.thelunchbox.org) and this year we’re set on raising enough money to put a salad bar in at least one school in every community around a Whole Foods Market.  Optimizing our children’s healthy choices at over 300 schools in America is a big goal and we can accomplish it a lot quicker with your help.  Join our efforts by donating $1, $5 or more at check-out.  For more information, go to our website at http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/beverlyhills/the-salad-bar-project/ 

Copy Notes from Our Shopping List – Stocking up on school supplies doesn’t just mean new pens and notebooks.  Being prepared for every period means being prepared for the lunch period too.  Luckily, The Whole Deal for August/September focuses on back-to-school deals and has over $45 in great coupons. Pick one up in the store or access it (and the coupons) online: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/wholedeal/index.php

Learn Something New – There is a lot of information out there on raising healthy families.  What should you feed your kids?  When should they eat?  How can they maintain a fit weight?  Which vitamins?  What about vegetarians?  To answer the questions and more, the experts at Whole Foods Market have simplified the steps for wising up the wellness of your household.  Read over the guide at: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/nutrition/nutrition-kids-teens.php.  Feel free to make flashcards but don’t worry, there will NOT be a test later…

For an all-natural, thirst-quenching experience, there’s no one thing you can say about O.N.E. Coconut Water. It just has too much going for it! O.N.E. – which stands for One Natural Experience – is prized among many of its consumers for its energizing and electrolyte replenishing benefits. Coconut water is rich in calcium, phosphate, magnesium, sodium and it even has more potassium than its tropical brother the banana. In fact, coconut water was used in World War II and the War in Vietnam as an intravenous solution for wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Talk about staying in the game, huh? It’s no wonder why all-natural athletes chose to drink O.N.E. Coconut Water over competing sports drinks.

Not to be mistaken with coconut milk, coconut nectar, and definitely not a coconut cream pie, coconut water is the liquid inside young green coconuts. It possesses a mildly sweet taste.  O.N.E. 100% Coconut Water contains only 60 calories a serving and absolutely no chemicals, preservatives, GMO’s, added sugars or fat.

Also on sale at the Beverly Hills Whole Foods Market is O.N.E. Amazon Açaí which is naturally enhanced with berry flavor and empowered with antioxidants (it contains 157 calories per serving). O.N.E. Active is available as well in its single serving boxes featuring the flavors of lemon-lime, grape berry, and cranberry grapefruit for 40 calories a drink. To learn more about O.N.E. Coconut Water, visit its website – which provides nutritional information, fun historical facts, and even recipes – at http://www.onenaturalexperience.com.

Here’s a little-known factoid: Did you know you can buy coconut water at McDonald’s in Brazil? That’s right. Catering towards South American demand, the fast-food chain known as a pioneer of supersized soda cups is now serving one of the purest beverages born of the earth. How refreshing is that?

Stop by Whole Foods Market Beverly Hills on July 21st from 1 – 4 pm to sample O.N.E. Coconut water and other products to help you enjoy the sun without sacrificing at our Sun Worship without the Wrath event!

When is the best time to pick cherries?

Well that depends.

In the world of pure processed sugar, the best time for cherry picking is right when a bag of candy is opened so you can nab up all the red ones before anyone else…

But in the world of Whole Foods, the best time to pick cherries is none other than RIGHT NOW since the fruit’s peak season is underway in the Beverly Hills store where the Produce section is already abounding with summertime cherries.

Our California cherries are red and ripe, sweet and bright, firm and light – it’s stems and stems worth of all-natural goodness just waiting to be plucked off for your dining pleasure! Even the core of these cherries can hardly be considered the pits! So delicious they are that it almost makes you wonder how one of the all-time most popular flavors found in anything from throat lozengers to snow cone stands can taste so uniquely refreshing in its original form.

Health-wise, it’s no surprise that cherries can be incredibly advantageous for those looking to improve their eating habits. If you’re the type of person who falls weak to the afternoon sugar fix, easy-to-grab cherries can be the perfect snack substitute. If the after-dinner hour has you craving a somewhat dangerous dessert, try dishing yourself out a bowl full of cherries instead. Being high in antioxidants, an excellent source of fiber and vitamin C, and containing only 90 calories per one cup serving size, cherries rank at #13 on the Top ANDI Fruits list. (ANDI stands for Aggregate Nutrient Density Index – the scale that Whole Foods Market uses to rate a food based on a range of micronutrients.)

The Beverly Hills Whole Foods Market will be stocked with the freshest picks of California’s locally grown red Cherries and their pink and yellow kin – the Ranier Cherry – all season long. So here’s hoping you’ll stop by and treat yourself to a summer that tastes good. No, better than good. It’s good with a cherry on top!