Memorial Day I strolled through the only grocery store in the North East San Fernando Valley with a decent selection of fresh, organic, gluten free and now VEGAN options: Fresh&Easy.
It’s a fairly new grocery store, and nestled near the 210 freeway entrance. I don’t often shop at Fresh & Easy. Trader Joe’s is along my drive to and from work.
For beginning vegan converts, this is one of the toughest and most frustrating part of the conversion: grocery shopping with in a 15-20 mile radius. It’s becoming easier with market stores like Fresh & Easy and now Wholefoods is polling their customers to locate where their commuting from:
Wholefoods is out of the economic purchasing power range of our community, so Fresh & Easy is our best bet for the time being.
Its not all that bad either. The shelves have stuff you need from Vallarta, affordable alternatives and meat substitutes, individually packaged food for busy bees, and an expanding selection of organic, gluten free, and vegan food. They sell coconut vanilla ice cream–completely vegan. This is as luxurious as a grocery store we are going to ever get.
The Gardein brand is opposite of the packed produce in the first aisle, directly facing the entrance door. You can toss these soy substitutes in with your stir-fry veggies, stack them inside pita, or asperse them in your salad for low caloric, chewy “meat.”
Here is more info that from the company website:
