During my childhood in the 1970s, I remember the suburban landscape being dotted with self-proclaimed “health food” stores. From what I remember, accompanying my parents to a few during their shopping excursions, the stores were really quite small – nothing like a Whole Foods or organic/natural food supermarket of today. Also unlike today’s yupscale organic supermarkets, I really don’t recall health food stores stocking much actual food to speak of. The bulk of inventory seemed to consist of vitamins, powders, and various grains and seeds; I recall a LOT of wheat germ, for some reason. No produce, no bread, no canned goods - nothing really edible except different varieties of raw cereal grains and seeds.
A two-part question:
What was “health food”?
What do the remaining 1970s-style health food stores stock?
There are a bunch of General Nutrition Centers (GNC) still around and they are roughly like you describe. I know of a couple of independent stores just like that around as well. They stock weight gain and weight loss powder, all kinds of herbal extracts and weird things like wheat grass that will clean you right out. Some of these stores have a smoothy bar as well.
I went into a GNC once and noticed the smell–what is it? Just sheer quantities of vitamins, or is there some product that gives it that smell, or what?
Seems like the B-complex tablets tend towards being stinky, so that’s a likely source. Many garlic capsules (garlic is touted as having heart benefits or something) are also very fragrant.
There’s a Health Food store here in town (at least, I call it a Health Food store), and in addition to the multitude of herbs & extracts and whatnot they have, you know, food. It’s all sustainable, socially-conscientious, organic, whole-earth, macrobiotic froo-froo food sold in recycled, biodegradable, earth-friendly containers. It’s ridiculously overpriced ($5.99 for a 16-oz box of cereal).
I’m 23 and I remember a local health food store like the OP described when I was a teen. It didn’t sell produce (or meat of any kind), but had a variety of meat subsitutes and stuff like tofu, tempeh. If you knew the code word you could also buy some delightful hemp products .
Yesterday’s “health food” is todays “organic” or “unprocessed” or “natural” food. There were no Whole Foods stores, the groceries had no organic produce (or tofu), and lots of people ate prepared, highly-refined food from boxes–it was sort of quaint of hippy-ish to cook from scratch in the early 70’s, or else high fallutin’ or intended to make a point. “Vegetarian” food meant “brown rice” or “udon noodles with cabbage.”
For me the smell of those stores wasn’t vitamins (“Like, you don’t need vitamin pills if you eat like a balanced diet, man”) but slightly rotted vegetables.
The difference being I am fairly sure Whole Foods isn’t especially “healthy” stuff as it is quite appetizing and the stuff in those old stores – nah. Most of the “healthy” stores like WF today are thinly-veiled gourmet/gourmand markets, and not just peddlers of nasty bulgur wheat cereal or whatever was on the shelves of the old-style places.
There’s one in town. It sells vitamins and supplements and things like that, as well as instant foods you can either microwave or put in boiling water. The food half is divided into two sections, vegetarian and vegan. I used to go there all the time to buy vegetarian gravy, but now that the supermarket sells it (they actually added a whole vegetarian aisle), there’s no need.
In the early 80s, we had one in our neighborhood. Basically, as another poster has said, it was very hard to fine anything “wholegrain” or not overly processed in the grocery store. Wanting fiber in your diet or avoiding corn syrup or preservatives were definitely considered mild forms of crackpottery. You certainly wouldn’t find soy milk (or tofu), flour other than wheat flour (or corn meal) or anything like that outside the “Health Food Store”. Since my dad was a vegetarian, he would go there for grains and legumes more varied from what he could find in the standard grocery. Nowadays, even smaller, rural chain grocery stores have at least some items like this (maybe not a huge selection but they’ve heard of tofu and lentils).
Over the years the store in my parents’ neighborhood expanded and now its like a mini neighborhood Whole Foods with produce, organic milk in returnable bottles, organic and vegan cheeses, etc. as well as the dried fruit, wide variety of grains & beans, and vitamins it always carried. (it occupies 3 storefronts).
The local Health Food store I grew up with started out as described, mainly supplements and tofu. Nowadays it has a produces section and deli. Also somewhere along the way it became okay for vegetarian food to taste good.
From my childhood being taken into the local whole food store, I remember a lot of carob, whole wheat, whole grains, oats, bulk foods, frozen yogurt, and a peanut butter machine.*
I’m sure there was more - but from a child’s point of view, the peanut butter, carob, and whole wheat everything were the most noticeable items.
*You put peanuts in the top and it mashed them and peanut butter came out of the bottom into a bag. Like a coffee grinder. I thought all peanut butter came that way. My parents did not allow Skippy.
My Mom bought into that craze in the mid-70’s and one day the Pop Tarts and Snack Pack Puddings were gone forever.
There was a place in West L.A. called Mrs. Gooch’s that Mom just loved. I remember the weird smell and the bulk bins full of granola, oats, brown rice and various other things. There were expensive proto energy bars, fresh squeezed juices, alternative newspapers and incense for sale.
Now there are all kinds of stores like that but they are larger, cleaned up and way more main stream.
Yep, this is what I remember, as well. Mom would buy the oats for our homemade granola, the wheat germ that was sprinkled on just about everything I ate, the whole wheat berries she’d grind at home in the flour mill Dad made her, the carob she’d try to pass off as chocolate, and at the check-out, I’d get to have an orange flavored chewable vitamin C tablet (they had a dish of them out for the taking). Good times!
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