Kensington High Street – Leila + London

I like wholesome and healthy food and I like slightly unusual food. This means that I like Whole Foods Market, which is an American chain of food stores featuring wholesome organic food with no unhealthy additives. The store is a bit (or a lot) on the expensive side, so it is not where I do my daily grocery shopping, but there are certain products that I do come regularly for.

My closest Whole Foods Market is located on Kensington High Street.

It takes up three floors: there is the supermarket on the ground and lower-ground floors and food court on the first floor.

The first thing you see as you enter the store is bread. Artisan freshly-baked bread, which smells so heavenly that I highly recommend coming here after you’ve had a massive meal, otherwise I doubt you’d be be able to resist it!

The store has quite a big alcohol section.

Right next to it, very conveniently, are the cheese and charcuterie sections.

One last thing worth mentioning on the ground floor is this salad bar. I love salad bars in general, and this one has a really impressive selection.

Things I usually buy at Whole Foods are mainly concentrated on the lower ground floor, so this is where I am heading next. First of all, there is this massive section with organically grown fruit and veg.

I rarely buy any here, though, unless I need something really unusual. Everything else is much easier to get – and cheaper – at my local Waitrose.

Fishing is a very important issue in sustainability matters, and it is nice to see that they focus on green fishing, at the same time, wild-caught fish is much better for health than farmed fish. If only it was more affordable as well, I’d be contributing to sustainable fishing a lot more!

Without exaggeration, this is my favourite part of the store! It has literally every kind of nut, grain, seed, pulse that possibly exists.

However, I don’t buy nuts here, other than pecans and Brazils, as I get my hazelnuts, walnuts, pistachios and almonds from Baku, where they are cheaper and taste much better!

Those are freshly-roasted coffee beans, which you can either buy whole, or grind them right here to your desired degree of coarseness: the grinder has settings for espresso machines, French presses etc.

Superfoods are very much ‘in’ now, thanks to all those healthy bloggers and Instagrammers. I don’t have the answer to the question whether they are really amazing for health, or just massively overrated, but I like trying them out of curiosity.

Who would have thought that beetroot powder is a superfood? And who would have thought that yacon or camu camu are not just funny words, but something that actually exists on Planet Earth?

The dairy section has a huge selection of dairy (and non-dairy imitation of dairy) products, including good old Caucasian kefir. There is even coconut kefir (that’s the non-dairy imitation of dairy I was talking about)!

This is just a small section of the cereal aisle, and it has my favourite brands of muesli and granola. Especially that Ultimate Organic muesli by Rude Health in the red box approximately in the centre of the photo is simply to die for!

Another food product I’m literally obsessed with is nut butters. And there are all sorts of them right here – mostly brands of peanut butter, of course, but also almond butter, hazelnut butter, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter and probably some others.

I like experimenting with different kinds of flour, so I am a regular visitor of this section as well. Out of the ones I tried so far, I like coconut, peanut and chestnut flours. Quinoa flour is not my favourite, though, it’s bitter and has a weird aftertaste.

Not being much of a pasta fan, I haven’t tried any of these pasta products, but I have to say they look pretty interesting, especially the coloured ones. Looks like those products are wheat-free and made of chickpeas, lentils, spelt, etc.

This whole area is dedicated to world foods, so it’s something to keep in mind if you want to make sushi, or Thai curry, or fajitas at home.

Here’s some less edible stuff – mainly dishes and utensils for cooking.

I’m always so much tempted to buy more and more cookbooks, but somehow always manage to convince myself that it’s an unnecessary waste of money, as any recipe can be easily found on the Internet.

There’s a big part of the store called Whole Body, where they have quality body care products, and also food supplements, like for example these protein powders.