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Natural Foods History Growing from seeds
It is difficult to imagine just how bare was the British cupboard and diet of the early Sixties. You could count London’s Arabic, Thai and Greek restaurants, combined, on the fingers of one hand. The only take-away food was fish ‘n chips and if you wanted anything resembling a bottle of real wine you’d have look hard for a specialist Italian food seller. There were a handful of Indian and Italian restaurants. Words like “Natural foods” “wholemeal” and “organically grown” were not in the language. In a 1965 health food shop, you could find but of handful of what we now expect to see in any healthy foods retailer. There were a few things like rolled oats, white basmati rice, kidney beans and cornflakes made with brown sugar – but none of it was organic. For that you’d have to travel to Wholefoods in Baker Street, the only retail shop in the country selling organic foods. Gregory and his brother Craig introduced a wide selection of new foodstuffs into the British diet, from brown rice to soya sauce; soba noodles to seaweeds; sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds; popcorn to (edible) peanut butter. There was Seed Restaurant, Sprout, and later Green Genes café, the first places to ever serve brown rice; Ceres Grain Shop, the country’s first natural food shop; Ceres Bakery, the first dedicated wholemeal one in the UK; Ceres Bookshop, selling a wholefood, organic, and esoteric selection of reading matter. Then came Harmony Foods, with an expanding range of natural foods, many of them organically grown, which were packaged and sold to health foods shops around the country, and to newly opened natural food shops such as Infinity in Brighton, Suma in Leeds, Community Foods in Camden Town, On the 8th Day in Manchester, Realfoods in Edin`burgh, and a few others. Harmony developed into Whole Earth Foods in the early 1980’s and thrives to this day, www.wholeearthfoods.com/about/our-roots/ In 1968/9, Gregory single-handedly put together three issues of Harmony Magazine, for which John Lennon dedicated an 8-frame cartoon. Crudely duplicated and assembled in his bedroom, it was the first publication in Europe dedicated to organic and green ideas for living. Then, at the end of 1971, with their father Ken as Editor and Chief, the two brothers became involved in publishing SEED, the Journal of Organic Living which ran for nearly seven years, dispensing monthly news and information about what would come to be termed “green consciousness.” John Lennon cartoon - telling the story of John’s change of diet in the cartoon he drew to support Harmony Magazine. Macro Menu No.1 - the first Seed Restaurant menu, later re-named Tomorrow’s You Harmony Magazine No. 1 Nov1968 - download PDF Press: Sunday People Article 1968 - Pop stars say "Nuts" to a juicy steak Ceres Grain Shop - Britain’s first natural food shop, at 8a All Saint’s Rd, moved later to Portobello Road (the only photo we have) Ceres Bakery Price list – when a loaf of wholewheat cost 15p Yin Yang Four - our cool photo for the Harmony Foods Xmas card 1971 Fiesta Article - A young Gregory pictured in Seed Restaurant, illustrating an article Food Moguls - a self-explanatory cover from Seed magazine Seed Magazine scans as PDF downloads Harmony Foods range 1973 More information on the story of wholefoods from my brother Craig’s site at: www.craigsams.com/index.html |
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