Wholw Foods or Trader Joes, which one is better....

Kristinemomof3

It's been a long time since I've been to Trader Joes. I've never been to Whole Foods, I mainly want quinoa, I know I can get it through a food co-op cheaper, but I want some now. Will get a little and order more. Anything else at either store worth getting? Dh & I are out of town and there are both stores in opposite directions, I only have time to go to one.

kls13la

If you're going for Quinoa, go to Whole Foods. Thy have bins of different types. Trader Joes doesn't have that. To me, they are very different stores. The only similarity is that both carry a lot of organic products. Be careful at Whole Foods, though--it's very easy to spend a ton of money!

clh126

They should both have quinoa, so that's not a problem although as the prior poster mentioned, whole foods may have it in bulk or more than one variety.

We go to whole foods and trader joes regularly but for totally different things. We only go to whole foods for produce and if we're buying meat (we rarely eat meat, so this is not common and good b/c whole foods meat is generally expensive). They have high quality produce and you often see things that you won't find in the regular grocery store like passionfruit, garlic scapes, etc. Much of the produce there is comparably priced to our overpriced traditional grocery store here, but some items can run very high, particularly if it is organic. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally picked up a small bag of organic cherries positioned sneakily close to the regular ones - $11!

Trader Joes is pretty much our regular grocery store since it is so much cheaper than the alternatives around here. We go there for things like their greek yogurt, almond milk, cheap frozen veggies, nuts and dried fruit. There's a whole thread here about what are people's "must haves" at trader joes http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/589318-list-your-trader-joe-s-favorites-here?hl=trader+joes Their produce usually isn't as good, particularly the fruits, but I did get some great oranges here recently and they have the cheapest organic carrots I've seen - 89cents per bag last time I looked.