Snacks!

If you browse the snack aisle in any grocery store, it is wall-to-wall plastic. Dried fruits, nuts, chips of all kinds, cookies, everything in plastic or plastic composite packaging. There are a few tortilla chip brands that come in paper bags with little plastic windows, so those are available as a last resort. Although I love to cook, making chips is really a hassle when buying them is so easy - they are everywhere! I could make my own tortilla chips of course, but tortillas all come in PLASTIC bags. So I could make my own tortillas. Which I actually do sometimes, having a tortilla press. Anyway...

The bulk aisle of most stores, Whole Foods included, has snacks but these are mostly in the form of nuts and dried fruits. Thom likes peanuts but not other nuts, and he's not big on dried fruit. So I was really happy when I went to Ballard Market and saw the selections they had. They remodeled the store in 2018 and the bulk foods section is the largest I've seen so far (although Central Market, part of the same group, is even larger - I will have to check that out). It's also nice that they encourage you to bring your own container. They provide plastic bags but I brought my own paper ones.

The picture below is only half of the snack section - the other half has lots of dried fruits, a half wall of nuts of all kinds, and lots of seeds, too. But in this section, there in the bottom row, fifth bin from the left, are peanut butter stuffed pretzels, which are a big hit with Thom. Lots of other great options, too.

Jackpot!

In addition to the snack-and-candy section shown here, there are legumes, rices and grains, a few pastas, flours, sugars, salts, spices, chocolate of many forms and hues, coffees and teas, and a wall of olive oils and vinegars. This is the place to be!