Donna - You are looking for specialty items that are not readily available. Whole Foods didn't make you organic. It's something you do and WFs meets your needs. But look around you next time you are in the store. The majority of customers are yuppies who are there so they can say they shop there for overpriced product and be organic for the weekend. LOL Or brag about how much they spent for cheese. Ever check out their classes? Some local "celebrity" chef will show you how to slice a carrot and make salad for a mere 45 dollars per person or so. LOL Then there is the special parking for hybrid autos. How elitist is that? Really when Whole Foods was just a little store I used to shop there for fresh produce once in a while. But around where I live they are popping up like Starbucks and drawing the same customer base. Fortunately I live in an area with lots of alternatives plus I am not into the organic thing that much. If I want fresh produce I can garden. I can go up into the mountains and pick my own organic apples and not have to pay 4 dollars an apple. I can go to little ethnic shops that deal in simple old fashioned foods. I don't want my grocery shopping to be an event. It's food. Cooking is science, it's no mystery to me. I don't want a massage in a grocery store either. I have issues with all the supplements people take because they are "natural". Whole foods sells loads of them. Seems to me if one is eating so healthy one wouldn't need to be buying all those supplements. Call me cynical but if one has special food requirements and WF meets their needs fine. But that doesn't seem to be the case where I live. I have friends who just love to spend their weekends at WFs. They are the same people who think Olive Garden is Italian and Benihana is real Japanese. I just smile and keep my mouth shut. ;-)

I like Whole Foods but if I shopped there regularly, I'd have to choose between paying the mortgage or buying groceries. LOL That store is just too expensive. Sprouts has an awesome bakery section. The apple pull apart sticky bread is my favorite but they are also pretty expensive overall. I go to Trader Joe's every once in a while and find them to be cheaper. Most of my grocery shopping is done at Fresh and Easy. I like their products and the prices on produce. I only buy meat from Costco. I go once a month and I divide and freeze my meat for the month. We also have some Sunflower health food store but I haven't been in there. They advertised organic milk for $8.00 a gallon on sale so I knew I wouldn't like their prices.

While looking at the above government link, I notice San Jose, CA, has high sodium (Na) in their tap. My sister there has high blood pressure, while my blood pressure is low. But my risk of heart attack is higher than her, see below excerpt from WebMD "Higher doses of calcium increase the chance of having serious side effects. Some recent research also suggests that doses over the recommended daily requirement of 1000-1300 mg daily for most adults might increase the chance of heart attack. " http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-781-CALCIUM.aspx?activeIngredientId=781&activeIngredientName=CALCIUM Also see http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/256791.php "The finding came from a new study by a team of experts led by Qian Xiao, from the National Institutes of Health, and supports prior research from last year which indicated that calcium supplements are linked to a higher risk of heart attack." UPDATE: Bought 3 different brands of cherry juice to see if they help with sleep. Trader's Joe cherry juice is too sour & bitter. Indian Summer cherry juice is too watery. Neither of these help with my sleep. The cherry juice that helped was one from nearby Wisconsin (1 hour away) ... its FRESHNESS was what worked. In my experience, FRESH grapefruit works better than STALE cherry juice that was cooked (pasteurized), which destroyed the enzymes. Here's an excerpt from below link: http://bembu.com/foods-to-help-you-sleep 2. Grapefruit Eating grapefruit before bed has been an old wives’ tale for years, but as it turns out there’s a reason why this has been known to help sleep. It contains lycopene, an antioxidant in the body that has been shown to improve the way you sleep. Grapefruit can also help you lose weight if needed." I also notice that fish oil is very effective for good sleep. I took NOW fish oil, since it's the cheapest & best rated on Amazon, only 14 cents. I'm switching to NOW liquid fish oil, lemon flavor, since I get more Omega-3 per price-unit. Fish oil works when magnesium and cherry juice failed. There's days that I could not sleep, and fish oil did the job when nothing worked. I'm going to try cod-liver oil, to see if that helps with sleep & better skin & my vitamin D deficiency. Will report the result later. Both vitamin A and D is known to help with hormonal imbalance.

vgkg - yep, I've seen similar here. Aldi has raised their Sea Scallops twice in the last few months. They had been $9.99 for 12 oz. back in the early spring and then went up to $11.99 around May and just went up again to $13.99. Still a lot cheaper than the price you are seeing. I haven't seen snow crab for $5/lb here for over a decade. They have been in the mid teens per pound since pre-covid with an occasional sale around $10. Now I don't even bother to look at them. I'd rather have King Crab but I'm not paying what they are asking these days.