Local economy, public health, resource conservation, foreign oil, personal spending... all these issues weigh into the choice of what to buy at the grocery store. Or whether to join a CSA (community-supported agriculture, which allows you to buy a share of a farm's harvest). Organic vs. conventional is just the beginning of the food debate.

Apple & Eve has just launched Sesame Street Organics 100% Fruit Juice Boxes.They are available in supermarkets, club stores, health food stores and retail outlets across the country, including Whole Foods, Toys R Us and Costco. Please visit www.appleandeve.com or email rebeccas@businessdevelopmentgroup.com.

Whole Foods says it wants to eliminate disposable plastic grocery bags at all its stores by Earth Day, April 22. To kick things off, today the organic grocer is giving away thousands of reusable bags at checkouts.

The beauty of organic foods is that they are not only body cleansing foods but are grown without chemicals, no preservatives and no added artificial coloring to enchance flavor like most of the foods we get when we go shopping at the grocery store.

Starting February 2008, UK brand, Organic Apoteke will be available in two specialty stores in the US, namely, Henri Bendei in New York City and Studio@Fred Segal in Los Angeles. The brand is currently only available at Whole Foods Market in the US and its UK distribution point based in London.

A health food store is a type of grocery store that primarily sells organic foods, local produce, and often nutritional supplements. Health food stores often offer foods for people with special dietary needs, such as people with allergies and diabetics, and also for vegans, vegetarians, and people living entirely on raw food. Health foodThe term health food has no official definition. Some terms that are associated with health food are macrobiotics, natural foods, organic foods and whole foods. Macrobiotics is a diet focusing primarily on whole cereals. Whole cereals, along with other whole foods, are foods that are minimally processed. Whole cereals generally have their fiber, germ and hull intact and are considered more nutritious. Natural foods are simply foods that contain no artificial ingredients. Organic foods are foods that are grown without the use of conventional and artificial pesticides and must meet certain organic standards. History of health food storesMany foods which are now commonplace in groceries first entered the market in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Efforts by early health pioneers such as Sylvester Graham, Horace Greeley, John Harvey Kellogg, George Ohsawa, Ellen White and others spurred an interest in health food. As early as the 1920s and 1930s health food stores started opening in the United States selling products such as blackstrap molasses and brewer's yeast. Health food stores became much more common in the 1960s in connection to the newly emerging ecology movement and counterculture.Many health food stores are worker owned cooperatives and consumers' cooperatives due in part to their growth of popularity during the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the ability of cooperative buying power to bring lower costs to the consumer.Over the last decade, health food, and especially organic food, has entered the mainstream. Companies such as Whole Foods Market, a large multinational corporation, have profited greatly and grown substantially during this expansion.