Super, Duper Healthy Lunch at Whole Foods Market

The alternate title of this entry is “How I ate like a vegan for one meal.” Except for some chicken that came with a pasta salad everything on this plate was vegan. To those who know me eating vegan would the last thing on earth I would do. But after the excessive and sinful eating in San Francisco I decided my first meal in Virginia would be healthy and cleansing.

I arrived in Virginia at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am.  I would like to thank my cousin Sharon who picked me up at the airport at 6:00 am. She then dropped me off at our cousin, La’s house so she could go the gym and work.  I went in to a house full of sleeping people. They were blissfully unaware of my presence as I unpacked my luggage in the kitchen and lugged the rest of my clothing down to the beautiful basement which was to be my home for the next 6 weeks.

When my cousin La and her kids finally woke up they found chaos in the kitchen where I left all their presents. After all greetings and opening of the presents were done and the kids were picked up by the school bus, La and I went to Whole Foods Market to buy some groceries and have lunch.

I have always loved going to Whole Foods not for the healthy stuff in the grocery aisles but for their wonderful array of prepared appetizers and cooked food. These are just from the cheese section. La and I get a lot of inspiration there for what we can make at home.

Why didn’t I buy some of that Chocolate Goat Torta with Bourbon?

Whole Foods had 2 huge buffet style counters with prepared foods. One was all healthy salads while the other had cooked International food like curries from India, noodles from Thailand, chicken from China and a lot more. I’ve always been curious what the food from the healthy section tasted like so I finally took the leap and tried some.

Our favorite was the quinoa salad which tasted a little nutty and had a slight crunch to it. I loved the vinaigrette dressing and the sweetness from the oranges and grapes and texture from the cashews. It was like eating rice and salad at the same time.

quinoa w/ grapes, oranges & cashews

My second favorite was the tempeh. Tempeh is a cake made from soybeans. It tasted like peanut butter to me. Strange but true. It was nutty and dense.

spicy tempeh salad

The wheatberry salad was just ok for me. It had a harder consistency and it soaked up less flavor than the quinoa.

curried wheatberry salad

More berries in this salad. Gogi berries, mulberries, and different nuts. Not my favorite either.

superfoods salad

Here I am holding the plate of salads while in front of the pizza, roast chicken, prime rib. Sad huh?

La and I actually shared that plate of salads. I did get some caesar pasta salad with chicken and smoked chicken and tomato salad so the meal wasn’t totally vegan. La also had a cup of tomato bisque. Unbelievable but we were both full after this tiny bit of food. Oh I forgot we also had some of the flatbread and truffle mousse paté beside our tray. By the way this wasn’t cheap. The plate of food and soup cost about $8.

I really liked the the healthy choices we ate. It’s a good thing to eat like this from time to time but I don’t think I can eat like this forever. How will I survive without burgers and pizza? Well cake, cookies, chips and chocolate are vegetarian. Hmmm…. I can survive!