Bristol Health Food Store

If you’re a novice and don’t know the difference between certain products, don’t go here. My husband and I are embarking on a food-​style change (I say that because I’m not sure the other aspects of our life will be changing that much, so can’t say if it’s a life-​style change or not). He got the book FORKS OVER KNIVES for his birthday and I looked for a recipe that sounded tasty. I don’t know much at all about «health food» so I drove up to our local store in Bristol, TN.
FIrst off, they don’t have a lot of «food» stuff; it’s mostly vitamins and herbs/​herbal remedies. That’s great, but I needed: nutritional yeast, almond milk, brown rice syrup, porcini mushrooms, green lentils, whole grain pasta, brown rice pasta, stuff like that.
The woman who helped me was VERY NICE, but didn’t seem to know a lot about health «food» and wasn’t familiar with some of the products I was looking for. To begin with, they didn’t have green lentils or Mellow White Miso. I asked for almond milk and she directed me to the cooler where they had «Vanilla Almond Beverage.» I asked her if this was the same thing (milk vs. beverage) and she said, it depends on the company what they choose to call it. Well, it is NOT the same thing. This tastes very sweet and way too «almond-​y.» It tastes more like one of those artificially flavored coffee creamers. She also gave me Brewer’s Yeast for Nutritional Yeast. I understand that may not be a big deal, but the recipe I was making was a No-​Cheese Sauce for pasta. This was my first recipe out of this cookbook and a whole cup of Brewer’s Yeast in that sauce made it taste more like cardboard than cheese.
I ended up getting the rest of the items on my list from the Health Center in Abingdon. Great supply of everything I needed and a wonderfully informed and helpful staff. She gave me cooking tips and suggestions on what to do with the veggies from the vegetable stock I was making.
SO, BOTTOM LINE: If you’re looking for nutritional supplements, go to the store in Bristol, TN. I think they can help you! But if you’re looking for a more full-​service health food store, make the short drive up to Abingdon, VA.