'Don't Panic, Eat Organic' are wise words to live by during the pandemic or any time

DIRTY DOZEN: I buy organic strawberries at Whole Foods Market in Paramus because conventionally grown strawberries top the Dirty Dozen, 12 crops that farmers typically use the most pesticides on, according to the Environmental Working Group. And they are most likely to contain pesticide residue even after they are washed, AARP says.

CHEAPER THAN AT COSTCO:  I also buy Organic Carrots at Whole Foods Market because they are cheaper by the pound at the Paramus supermarket than they are at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

AARP article distills new book

on organic food, eating local

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- With the U.S. death toll from the Covid-19 virus passing 50,000, many of us are spending more time at home preparing our own meals and taking another look at what we eat.

Many people in quarantine are stocking up and binging on cookies, cakes and other sweets, according to news reports.

But in my home, we are pretty much staying the course, trying to buy as many organics as possible and eating only wild-caught seafood, and meat and poultry free of harmful antibiotics.

Now, AARP, the nonprofit interest group for older Americans, is exploring whether the health benefits of eating organic and locally grown food are worth the cost.

The short answer is yes.

Eating organic

"Why Eating Organic Matters" is the main headline over an article in the March 2020 issue of AARP Bulletin, a glossy tabloid, adapted from a book by Mark Bittman and Dr. David L. Katz.

The book, "How to Eat: All Your Food and Diet Questions Answered," cites a recent study in France, where researchers found "a significant difference in cancer incidence between those who eat organic routinely versus those who don't," AARP reports.

"Those people who ate organic had the least cancer, as you'd expect," according to the article.

ORGANIC V. NON-ORGANIC: Organic apples can have no more than 5% of the pesticides in conventional produce, but 80 percent of non-organic apples are treated with diphenylamine, which is banned by the European Union as a potential carcinogen, AARP says.

If you can't afford organic?

"A non-organic apple is better than no apple, and better than most other choices," the AARP article reports.

"So, yes, get the non-organic apples and wash them well [to reduce pesticide residue]. It's almost safe to say, 'Never pass up an apple.'"

As for eating local, AARP says, "No one but a fanatic could eat only local food, but concentrating on these attributes would mean you are eating better, more ethically, more sustainably."

"If you know your produce is being grown on a local farm where chemicals are not being used, you know that you are avoiding those chemicals," AARP reports.

Grass-fed animals

"When animals graze on grass, as opposed to grains, they keep the soil healthy and produce better meat."

"And pasture-raised animals may have lower risks of industrial food-borne scourges, like E. coli 0157:H7, a strain that can cause severe infection and even kidney failure," the AARP article says.

The article concludes:

"It's ... important to have a plant-dominant diet, along with balance and variety."

Costco Wholesale carries 100% grass-fed burgers (beef or lamb), Polish sausage and sirloin steak.

AARP headlines

Thanks to AARP Bulletin for the headline on this post, "Don't Panic, Eat Organic."

But I disagree with a subheadline that says "organic and locally grown foods are all the rage."

The organic movement began decades ago, and residents of New Jersey (and many other states) have always prized local food, including Jersey tomatoes, corn, wild-caught fish and other seafood.

I'd also like to point out the Your Health article on why eating organic matters contrasts with others AARP has published in recent years on food of dubious quality:

Read: The last place seniors

 should go for nutrition advice 

MORE AFFORDABLE: On Thursday, I shopped for organics at Whole Foods Market in Paramus during the senior hour -- 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.  Above, as an Amazon Prime member, this woman, like me, gets special deals and an extra 10% off on sale items. I also get 5% cash back by using the Amazon Prime credit card to pay for my purchases.

LINING UP TO SHOP: At 9 a.m., a long line of shoppers under 60 year old began to enter the natural and organic food supermarket.

TURNING A CORNER: The line wrapped around the corner of the building at the Bergen Town Center.

Grocers give preference to older shoppers, but not all are ready for the early business

PROTECTING EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS: At the Whole Foods Market in Paramus this morning, employees arriving for work had to stop to have their temperature checked, one of the measures put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic.  

NO LONGER A GATHERING PLACE: The seating area where the mandatory temperature checks are made once was filled with shoppers stopping for coffee or eating lunch from the prepared food buffets. Regulars included groups of elderly Korean-American men brought to the store in small buses from senior citizen centers.

Editor's note: This post has been edited to add material about the reopening of the Korean  supermarket in Ridgefield known as H Mart,  and one-way aisles at the ShopRite in Paramus. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Did you hear about the Whole Foods Market near Jupiter, Fla., where customers 60 years old and older are the only ones allowed to shop in the first hour the natural and organic food store is open?

After 9 a.m., the supermarket is empty -- given how few young people live in nearby retirement communities.

In New Jersey, however, there are plenty of younger customers at the Whole Foods in Paramus, where I shopped this morning starting at around 8:30 a.m.,during the hour devoted to older Americans.

A week ago, I waited on a long line of other shoppers like me who are 60 years old or older and who had been waiting -- 6 feet apart -- for the 8 a.m. store opening. 

Today, around 8:30, I just showed my I.D. to the employee outside the front doors, and walked in to get a cart and sanitary wipes.

Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, ShopRite supermarkets and the Korean supermarket chain known as H Mart also are giving preference to older shoppers in their first hour of business.

At the Costco Business Center in Hackensack, "senior hours" are 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Costco and other food stores also have changed their policies on returns, and most won't be accepting them during the pandemic.

The Paramus ShopRite's special hours for older Americans are 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. That sounds more like punishment than accommodation.

H Mart reopens

But I haven't seen any other supermarket outside of Whole Foods that checks the temperature of employees as soon as they walk in the front door.

On April 4, the large Korean supermarket known as H Mart in Ridgefield closed temporarily for cleaning and restocking after an employee came down with a "suspected" case of the coronavirus, according to a notice on the front door I saw last Sunday.

After the store reopened on April 16, only customers 60 years and older were given priority in the first 30 minutes the store is open.

Previously, shoppers "with disabilities, compromised immune systems and expectant mothers," as well as customers who are 60+, were able to shop by themselves in the first hour.

Signs of trouble

Today, as with my shopping trip to Whole Foods on a week earlier, I found missing or inaccurate price signs in produce and fresh seafood.

Besides apples, sweet potatoes and parsley -- all organic -- I picked up mangoes, clementines and a few pounds of boneless pork loin chops after I saw the chops were on sale for $5.99 a pound (normally $8.99 a pound).

But when I checked my receipt, I saw I wasn't given the discount for the chops or the extra 10% off for Amazon Prime Members.

I had to hunt down a customer service employee (no one was at the customer service desk). She took my receipt and went to the butcher section in the rear of the store, then returned to give me a credit of $15.59, including 1 pound free and my extra 10% Prime discount.

SAFETY BARRIER: Today, I saw large plexiglass barriers put up to separate the cashier from the customer at Whole Foods Market. Costco Wholesale in Teterboro and the Costco Business Center in Hackensack had similar barriers in place at the end of March. Another benefit is that Whole Foods customers no longer have to self-scan their Prime Member code on their smartphones, which was a ify proposition, because the new barrier blocks the scanner.

SOCIAL DISTANCING: This customer had a shopping cart full of produce and other items and packed them all by himself. But at Whole Foods, Costco and ShopRite, social distancing or keeping 6 feet away from other customers is difficult because of narrow aisles and shoppers who barge through store intersections with full shopping carts. Customers of the Paramus ShopRite largely ignore one-way aisles.

TODAY AT 9:20 A.M.: When I drove away from Whole Foods Market, I paused to look at the younger shoppers waiting on line to get into the store.

From Victor's Healthy Kitchen (YouTube): I'm going wild over fresh Sockeye Salmon

A difficult wild salmon season has ended, but I can still taste that incredible Sockeye

In early July, I bought a beautiful fillet of fresh, wild Sockeye Salmon from Whole Foods Market in Paramus for the Prime Member price of $13.99 a pound, grilled serving portions on the stovetop and made breakfast sandwiches with leftovers straight from the fridge, below.

My wild Sockeye Salmon sandwich used ends from Dave's Killer Bread, an organic loaf from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, usually with Dijon mustard, organic spring mix and tomato, but I also used pesto, reduced-fat Swiss cheese and silken slices of smoked, wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon, also from Costco.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- There is nothing in the wide world of fish that looks or tastes as good as fresh, wild-caught Sockeye Salmon.

This past summer, I enjoyed this wonderful, heart-healthy fish -- called Red Salmon in Alaska -- grilled on my stovetop or baked in the oven, and for the first time, sliced raw in a sushi restaurant.

But the 2018 salmon harvest in Alaska fell short of the preseason forecast of 147 million fish by about 31%, state officials said in late August.

I don't know for sure, but is that why I never saw any skin-on sockeye from the famed Copper River, usually the first fillets to go on sale at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro in early June?

All of the wild Sockeye and Coho Salmon I saw at Costco through last week was labeled "Wild Caught Product of USA" and none specified "Alaska."

I did find Sockeye Salmon from Alaska at Whole Foods Market, but the Paramus supermarket sold Copper River fillets for as much as $39.99 a pound.

"The three largest Alaska commercial salmon harvest on record occurred between 2013 and 2017; looking back to the mid-1970s, harvests between 100 [million] and 150 million fish, like 2018, are far more common...," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said on Aug. 23.

In Western Alaska, state officials said, Bristol Bay "experienced the second-largest Sockeye Salmon harvest on record (nearly 42 million fish), and the fourth consecutive season with a harvest exceeding 35 million Sockeye Salmon."

From June 8: Wild Salmon is hard to find

I've grilled serving portions of fresh, wild Sockeye Salmon on the stovetop, and served them with grilled Romaine lettuce and grilled ripe peaches. I've also spooned on warm red salsa from Costco Wholesale, adding fresh lemon juice and fresh mint leaves from my garden, above and below.

In July, August and September, Costco's Teterboro warehouse was selling fillets of fresh, wild Sockeye Salmon for $9.99 a pound -- only a dollar more per pound than artificially colored but antibiotic-free farmed Atlantic Salmon from Norway.

My stovetop grill straddles two burners, and I grilled Sockeye Salmon on both sides for a total of 7 minutes to 8 minutes.

During our August vacation in Alaska, I ordered fresh Sockeye Salmon served over pesto at Simon & Seafort's, a fine-dining restaurant and my pick for the best seafood in Anchorage.

In Whittier, Alaska, we ordered takeout from the Wild Catch Cafe, and I ate this juicy Wild Salmon Sandwich and a baby spinach salad on the Glacier Discovery Train back to Anchorage. 

The first time I enjoyed melt-in-the mouth raw Sockeye Salmon was on the last day of our vacation in Alaska at Arctic Sushi, a restaurant in downtown Anchorage, above and below.

Wild Sockeye Salmon has it all: Color and flavor.

Food shopping: A few good buys at Costco, Whole Foods Market, ShopRite + H Mart

These hothouse-grown Cluster Tomatoes at the Costco Wholesale in Teterboro and the Costco Business Center in Hackensack are from Sunset, and they are sized between the Campari Tomato and the Beefsteak Tomato. A 4-pound box was $5.59 or about $1.40 a pound. I used them in sandwiches and cooking, but for maximum tomato flavor, stick to the pricier Campari Tomato.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Amazon's bid to cut prices and make its Whole Foods Market subsidiary more attractive to budget-conscious food shoppers got off to a slow start.

Last week, though, I was able to pick up organic table grapes, organic carrots, sparkling water and grass-fed leg of lamb from Iceland at great prices.

The butterflied leg of lamb ($7.99 a pound) was from free-range sheep that have been raised on the big North Atlantic island since the year 878.

Whole Foods also is the only supermarket to give you a credit (10 cents) for bringing a reusable bag.

And you can keep up with sales and coupons by downloading the Whole Foods app to your smart phone.

My Whole Foods purchases supplemented others from Costco Wholesale, ShopRite and H Mart in Little Ferry, the three places where we spend most of our food dollars.

Second Nature-brand Naked Medley - GMO-free raisins, whole almonds and cashews with no salt or added oils -- was $7.99 after an instant coupon at the Costco Business Center, 80 S. River St. in Hackensack. That's about 50 cents for each 1.5-ounce bag. The regular price is $9.99.

Organic red or green seedless table grapes were on sale for $1.69 a pound at the Whole Foods Market in Bergen Town Center, Paramus. A-5-pound bag of Organic Carrots was $3.99.

A pack of a dozen 12-ounce cans of 365 Everyday Value Sparkling Water with natural lemon, grapefruit and other flavors was $3 at the Whole Foods in Paramus.

A 2-pound bag of Organic Blue Mussels from Canada was on sale for $4.99 at ShopRite, Forest Avenue and Route 4 in Paramus.

Large Golden Pineapples were on sale at the Paramus ShopRite for $1.99 each last Thursday, and the sale continued today, when I picked up two.

But the Paramus ShopRite was out of 3-pound bags of sweet potatoes last Thursday, so I paid $1.99 a pound for 2 pounds of what were labeled "sweet potatoes" at the Englewood farmers market on Friday. They were twice the price of the ShopRite sweet potatoes and not as sweet after I boiled them with garlic cloves and mashed them with extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings.

Fresh whole, wild-caught Porgy were $2.99 a pound at H Mart, the Korean supermarket at 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry.

ShopRite's antibiotic-free chicken gets new name, wine-cork recycling and more

ShopRite supermarkets have introduced a new name and label for the fresh antibiotic-free chicken that was sold for many years under the Readington Farms label. Wholesome Pantry Organic Chicken also is being introduced. The label says, "Hatched, raised and harvested in USA."

Wholesome Pantry is part of an initiative to remove artificial ingredients from products sold at ShopRite, the supermarket cooperative says. Click here to see those ingredients.

Although Perdue has introduced its own line of antibiotic-free chicken, the ShopRite at Route 4 and Forest Avenue in Paramus carries only the company's original low-quality poultry, above.

One of the great pleasures of the table is a glass of red wine with dinner. You can recycle corks at Whole Foods Market in the Bergen Town Center, Paramus.

If there is no shortage of corks, why recycle? "It's good for the environment," an employee in Whole Foods' wine and beer department said.

At Whole Foods, pricey wine from the wealthy Monmouth County town of Colts Neck, N.J., above and below.

At the Paramus Whole Foods, I gravitate to the many bottles of red wine for under $10, including Three Wishes Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot ($2.99 each), above and below.

Costco Wholesale in the Teterboro Landing Shopping Center continues to add organic produce and other organic food. Organic Gala Apples were about $1.64 a pound last Monday.

But Organic Honeycrisp Apples were a pricey $3.36 a pound.

Conventionally grown Honeycrisp Apples were about $2.73 a pound. Unfortunately, Honeycrisp are my favorite apple.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from ShopRite ($1.50 for a 1-pound package) dressed in a homemade sauce of organic diced tomatoes, anchovies, mushrooms, garlic, chopped black olives, red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, seasonings and dried Italian herbs.

Organic Sweet Potatoes from ShopRite ($3.99 for a 3-pound bag), mashed with extra-virgin olive oil.

In a covered pot, I boiled the sweet potato sections and peeled garlic cloves for about an hour, then drained them and returned them to the pot.

I added Kirkland Signature Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, plus seasonings I had on hand, many from Costco, including curry powder, cinnamon, black pepper, red-pepper flakes, coriander and granulated garlic, then mashed the potatoes in the pot.

I made a frittata with whole eggs, liquid whites, grated cheese -- 3 cups to 4 cups of liquid in all poured into a preheated 10-inch non-stick pan with olive oil. As the crust set, I added slices of a large organic tomato.

After I removed the frittata from the oven, where it finished cooking under the broiler, I added Costco's Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto and leftover Victoria Vodka Sauce, which is made without cream.

At the H Mart in  Little Ferry, above, workers are renovating the vacant half of the former Valley Fair building at 260 Bergen Turnpike, photos below, even though the Korean supermarket chain hasn't formally announced whether a new store and food court will occupy the space.

Seaweed rolls stuffed with rice, vegetables and a crab substitute, made from pollack, are a great appetizer.

I found five fat Finger Maki from Pinocchio, an outside caterer, in the refrigerated case with other Korean side dishes, opposite the fresh fish department at the Little Ferry H Mart.

Organic Carrots at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro are only about 70 cents a pound, if you buy a 10-pound bag, so to use that many carrots, we've started oven roasting them. We trim the fat end, cut the carrots in half, brush them with olive oil, add a little salt and organic no-salt seasoning, and roast them at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes to an hour. 

-- VICTOR E. SASSON