Top "Green" Food Marketplaces: You're "Go To" Locations for Natural and Organic Foods

Looking for places to buy healthier, natural foods? Wanting to buy organic foods, but not spend a fortune? Here are some places to get you going in the "greener" direction.

Trader Joe's

With hundreds of stores nationwide, Trader Joe's is your ideal place for fresh food, snacks, and home items. Not only are most of their foods all natural, but the stores also offer a wide variety of organically grown and raised food items such as produce, meat, and dairy products. They have all natural "to go" meals and salads, all natural cat pet food with out any by-product fillers, all natural toothpastes, organic oatmeal, and a whole lot of other all natural and organic products that you can possibly think of. Their pricing is very decent, with items costing the same or even less than regular grocery store staple brands. They also have home products that use biodegradable containers or are made of post-consumer and recycled content. They also offer a discount if you reuse a Trader Joe's paper bag or bring in your own reusable tote to carry your purchased groceries in.

Fresh & Easy

A newly opened chain market with stores in California, Arizona, and Nevada, Fresh & Easy is a simple as its name sounds. Although on the smaller end in size, this store carries everything from natural gelato to organic cereal. They do also carry regular commercialized products such as name brand paper towels and so on. With simplicity and convenience in mind, the store's checkout operations are kept to a minimum, meaning, instead of having an actual cash register person check out your items for you, you check out your own items via their self-checkout stands. This eliminates extra cost and brings the extra savings to you. Their pricings are also decent compared to other regular grocery stores out there.

Henry's Farmers Market

Probably one of the biggest of the all natural and organic food markets, Henry's offer everything from meats to fresh locally grown produce, to natural beauty products to organic snacks. They offer in-store ads once a week, and if you visit the store on Wednesdays you get to apply the savings from the previous week's ad and the current add for double the reward. Unfortunately, Henry's Farmers Market locations are only in the state of California for now.

Local Farmer's Market

You have probably heard of "farmer's markets" in or near your town, but have you actually visited one? Many of these events take place once a week and feature locally grown fruits and vegetables from neighboring farmers. The bonus of this is that these food products are usually organic and don't require the produce to be trucked from far away locations thus preserving the freshness of the food. Pricings can vary depending on the individual vendor, so look all around the venue and settle on the one that suits you best.