We read every label for you; we don’t allow these guys at the store.
At Elroy’s Fine Foods, we’re extremely diligent about only offering the highest quality, sustainable, ethically sourced and healthy products on our shelves. We have tried, tasted and personally use everything we sell, so we care more about making sure it is good for you than the average grocery store. When we started out, creating an Uncommon Market is what drove us. We knew we wanted to be different than other grocery stores. We wanted to be the grocery store that you could trust – without having to read the labels. So, we started our search with a comprehensive list of things we wouldn’t sell before we chose the products on our shelves.
Today, we are sharing that list with you! These ingredients are banned from our store, so you can shop without worrying if these bad guys snuck into your snacks.
Artificial and High-Fructose Sweeteners
It’s no secret that most people love sweets. But when it comes to sugars, we only allow the real deal on our shelves. We have banned artificial sweeteners like saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose, which are sweeter than natural sugars and can contribute to sugar cravings and the urge to overeat. Even though these sweeteners are low-calorie, their hyper-sweetness can overstimulate our sugar receptors, leading us to find naturally sweet foods like fruit unpalatable.
And then there’s the king of unhealthy sugar: High fructose corn syrup. We ban this bad guy because it’s linked to insulin resistance, high triglycerides, and unhealthy weight gain.
If you’ve visited us, you know we love our sweets (just take a peek at our in-house baked goods if you’re skeptical). But when it comes to satisfying your sweet tooth, we go the natural route, only allowing sweeteners like cane sugar, honey, coconut sugar, dates, and fruit.
Food Additives
Preservatives, stabilizers, and thickeners, oh my!
The traditional food production industry adds all kinds of chemicals to processed foods to enhance flavor, increase shelf life, add visual appeal, and achieve certain textures. The problem with these additives is that they can contribute to diseases like cancer (propyl gallate, carrageenan, camauba wax, magnesium sulphate), and conditions like headaches, nerve damage, and seizures (MSG, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate). Some can aggravate or cause conditions like asthma (Azodicarbonamide) or digestive or endocrine disruption (Olestra, Parabens). That factory-made bagel you’re munching could be causing real damage to your body!
We believe natural foods don’t need to be stabilized or chemically modified. So we keep these nasty chemicals out of our store.
Artificial Food Coloring
They’re not just dyeing your food unnatural colors…they’re also doing unnatural things on the inside! Food dyes show up on ingredients lists as a color and number–for example, Blue #1, Blue #2, Yellow #5, and Red #3. But there are also harmful food dyes that are a little sneakier: Caramel coloring, Brown HT, Orange B, Bixin, Norbixin, and Annatto.
Food dyes have been linked to thyroid, adrenal, bladder, kidney, and brain cancers. And be sure to be on the lookout for artificial food coloring when shopping for your kids–these ingredients are linked to hyperactivity and asthma in children.
Mother nature doesn’t need any help making food beautiful. Everything in our store is free from artificial colors and dyes, so everything you see is in its naturally beautiful state.
And the worst offenders…
Sodium Nitrate and Sodium Nitrite. These are added to processed meats to stop bacterial growth. Sounds great, right? After all, who wants bacteria in their meat? Unfortunately, these ingredients are linked to cancer in humans, as well as metabolic syndrome and possibly diabetes.
What’s the answer? Allowing only fresh, locally and sustainably raised meat inside our store. At Elroy’s Fine Foods all of our animals lived as nature intended, giving you a selection of naturally delicious meats to choose from.
To make sure everything we sell is not only good, but good for you, we have banned 50+ ingredients from the shelves. That’s part of why we are the Uncommon Market…only the finest foods get the Elroy’s Fine Foods seal of approval for our customers!
