Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Healthy Vegan Eats in San Diego: La Jolla Whole Foods



The kids and I are on vacation in San Diego for two weeks while Vineet starts work at Qualcomm. Yes, we will be having lots of fun adventures, especially those of the veggie kind, whilst Vineet works hard at his new job. I don't feel bad about it because I think he is having fun too :)

So the first place I needed to go to upon arrival in San Diego was Whole Foods!  Not because it's my favorite store (it's not) but because it was 5 minutes from our hotel.  Trader Joe's is a little further, but we will be going there sometime this weekend or next week.

I made sure that we stayed in a hotel with a full kitchen so I could stock up on lots of fresh fruits and veggies to have on hand for snacks and salads.  I really wanted to bring my Vitamix with us.  We just had too much to carry without bringing it. 

Eating healthy on a vacation is key for me to have a good time.  I cannot have fun when I feel like crap from eating processed food, heavily oiled/fried food or minimal variety due to a lack of vegan options.  And my kids like to eat super healthy too.  Give them a choice between chips and celery and they will always pick the celery.  They don't like to feel yucky either. 

Some people like to eat like a "gourmet foodie" or like they are at a 24/7 Birthday Party while on vacation.  It's their time to go wild.  Whatever floats a person's boat, but that is not us!  If we indulge, it's something like a vegan smoothie, non dairy ice cream or a raw vegan dessert.

Upon arrival at the La Jolla Whole Foods we discovered the beautiful local organic berries.  These were from Carlsbad Farms only 19 miles away and they were $10 for a set of three different berries.  We jumped on that deal and will be going back for more.


I thought this was a fresh idea!  A prepared Kale Salad with a recipe for the dressing on the back.  We don't have this at our Whole Foods in Florida.

Can you believe how freaking red and shiny these tomatoes are? These were local too. It's been a long while since I've seen tomatoes beyond my backyard look this fresh.  And they were juicey!


And here's something you can't find in Florida...Cultured Almondmilk Yogurt!!  Whole Foods corporate website says they are carrying it in all of their stores but I guess they are starting with the west coast first?  We got the Peach, Blueberry and Strawberry flavors.  Ksenia and I love them.  They are similar to the cultured coconut yogurts.  I will be requesting these at our Whole Foods and Hoover's Essential Health Market when we get back to Florida.

There will be a series of posts on our San Diego trip, so check back again this week!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gretchen

Teach us to make our own almond milk yogurt. Does it work the same way with the yogurt makers from Williams Sonoma. Yes, Cali is a cornucopia of beautiful produce. I miss it.

Gretchen said...

Hi Elizabeth, You absolutely can use your yogurt maker to make any non dairy yogurt. There's a great video on "How to Make Almondmilk yogurt" that Kevin and Ann Marie Gianni from Renegade Health made. I will post it on the blog :)