SUMMERTIME AT PILGRIM'S: Aah...summer in North Idaho… loving where you are and what you are doing is undoubtedly a great skill to develop for mental health, but living in beautiful Coeur d’Alene just makes it so darn easy! Well, I hope you are ready to download some factoids and announcements because I have a lot of them this time! Let’s get right to it…
PILGRIM’S EDUCATION CENTER: If you have been a Pilgrims customer for more than a year or two then you will remember the hundreds of amazing classes and activities that we have hosted for over 20 years. I promised that our Education Center would return, and it gives me great joy to announce its return in October. It will be across the street however at 1411 N 4th Street in the old Make Wine – Make Beer space. Oh, and we are looking to hire someone to coordinate the events and to help Lori with our popular food DEMO’S. Please apply or share the opportunity with an interested friend! visit pilgrimsjobs.com.
PILGRIM’S BEVERAGE CENTER: The CDA Press beat us to the punch in terms of announcing our Beverage Center but I still gotta announce it myself… We are converting a building across the street and north, to a Beverage Center and our Education Center as well. We will be making all sorts of fun and functional beverages, beers and delightful infusions. We have already hired a crack team that have been busy developing tasty recipes and more. What’s more you ask? Well, we are going to be re-using glass bottles for the program, just like we do with the glass jars that hold our precious Cultured Mama products. Recycling in our area is dismal so a re-use program like this is a big win for the environment via a reduction in heavy liquids being shipped across the country and a reduction in glass, plastic and aluminum cans ending up in the landfill. We are very excited about it and you can actually start helping immediately… For our carbonated functional beverages we will be re-purposing the GT’s 16oz clear and amber bottles. Please start returning them to our cashiers and we will pay you 50 cents for each qualifying bottle (No lids necessary). We also hope to expand the program into our grab-n-go deli foods. We would love to reduce our dependance on plastic is at all possible.
SPLENDA - NOT-SO SPLENDID: America’s most popular sugar substitute was recently found to break down human DNA, posing potential risks to human health. The study was conducted by North Carolina State University and was published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. Epidemiological research has indicated a connection between the rise in colorectal cancers, inflammatory bowel disease and dietary choices coupled with dysbiosis, potentially suggesting an association with sucralose consumption. Yikes! If you or a loved one need to reduce sugar consumption then choose more natural substitutes like stevia, monk fruit or erythritol. Even some nutritive sweeteners that are lower on the glycemic index than regular sugar like agave or dates can be a good choice for some. For reference, cane sugar has a glycemic index of 60 and agave is 11-19. That’s a big difference. Gt’s is making a root beer and a cola beverage in which they use stevia, erythritol and maple syrup and best of all there are only 20 calories and 5 grams of sugar yet it tastes delicious. It’s my new favorite, so I highly recommend it. Pilgrims is riddled with products with safer and tastier sugar substitutes and don’t forget that probiotic rich foods improve gut health which is one of the primary concerns from Splenda. Our probiotic-rich MRH (Made Right Here) Cultured Mama foods are in my diet every single day!
CERTIFIED ORGANIC IS ONLY SAFEHAVEN - Deadly herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease: 50 countries have banned paraquat due to its extreme toxicity and adverse effects on health. A single sip is lethal to a human and as of mid-March 2023, 2,998 lawsuits filed by farmers are on their way to Federal court. Go to mercola.com to learn more. Certified Organic foods are your best bet to minimize and even avoid exposure to a host of toxic agents just like paraquat.
NEIGHBORS HELPING NEIGHBORS: We try to be good neighbors, so we recently allowed some baseball players to set up a fund raiser at the entrance to our store. They were excited to tell us that they raised twice what they did when they set up outside a nearby corporate store nearly 10 times our size. What does this really mean? It means that YOU, our customers were that much more generous so thank you for being a great neighbor yourself! Always remember to make good choices, continually educate and improve yourself and love one another! The more you give the more you will get. Be Well!
-Joe, Team Captain