I pinched these links off the 'What I now know' thread, thanks dbd33!

http://www.bfinickys.com/products.html
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

Just wondered if anyone else had any brilliant websites/recommendations for those of us planning the 'big move' to save time trawling t'internet and high street when we get there, such as the ones above.

Any tips on healthy/organic foods and favourite restaurants, markets or good places to visit would be much appreciated, we're still a good 4 years off getting there but a bit of forward planning never hurts !

Cheers guys.

Whole Foods is excellent shopped in the Oakville location a few times. Be aware there are only three in the whole country though !!!!

There's a huge one opening in London, UK soon.

The big organic food place in Oakville is called Alternatives, it's a small chain (also one in Port Credit), but I'm not sure how many branches there are. The Big Carrot on the Danforth is the major established organic vegetable place in Toronto. Great Ocean is the equivalent in Halifax.

Organic food though is often sold through coops or buying clubs, my "exe" has run one in Mississauga for twenty years or so; the way it works is very low tech, people phone in their orders, a truck drops pallets in the driveway and people collect their food from the house. I hope to have access to the coop written in to the divorce agreement as brands like Muir Glen are less than half retail purchased that way.

The big supplier of organic meat is called Rowe Farms, their products are available from Alternatives and from many butcher's shops, it's all very high quality but, oh my, it's all very expensive. We go for the cheaper alternative, we get the 40lb box of beef for $250 cash from here:

http://www.rawhide-adventures.on.ca/ride/index.html

In general there is very little in the way of food that cannot be purchased from either http://www.stlawrencemarket.com/ or here http://www.kensington-market.ca/ the latter is better for foods of Hispanic origin.

Restaurants I like and frequent include:

http://www.lamaquette.com/

http://www.bartowel.com/regions/brussel.phtml

http://home.istar.ca/~feathers/

http://www.torontolife.com/guide/res...food/starfish/

http://www.dine.to/bellinis

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...47/ai_20380040

http://www.restaurantica.com/restaurants/1603/

http://allens.to/?M=A

One I quite often go to without much liking is:

http://www.thebiermarkt.com/

Eating; it's the best thing about Toronto.

Wow thanks very much for the replies, v. helpful!

Was also thinking: living in Bristol at the moment, every year we have a huge Organic Food Festival which is brilliant, spent a fortune there this year and would really miss it! Is there anything similar in Toronto or Vancouver?

I've seen mention of Farmer's Markets on here as well - are there lots and do they tend to be reasonable prices & well stocked? At the moment ashamed to say that most of our shopping gets done at Tesco (they're taking over the world!!) - well it's convenient and they're waking up to healthier foods quite quickly. How are the Canadian supermarkets doing at this?

I don't know of an organic food festival.

We sometimes go to the farmer's markets in Kitchener and St. Jacob's but don't find them to offer either good quality or good value, if you're going that far out of town you may as well stop at farms along the way and buy direct. That way you get quality and value and a glimpse at another world; out that way the farmers are Mennonites and their primary farming tool is the horse.

The major supermarket chains here offer a wide range of organic products. How good they are, and how good Tesco's organic foods are, rather depends on why you want to buy organic.

:scared: I know!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfSi0D7KESk



The west coast has many organic-natural-fresh-freefrom type places but I've been away for awhile and I'm not sure what still exists, what's new, what moved, etc... but all that hippy dippy food is plentiful there.

If you're ever in Victoria, BC... my old haunt:
http://www.rebarmodernfood.com/

Almost everything in Canada varies a great deal from province to province and sometimes even from city to city within the same province.

Speaking for Calgary, the city in which I live, it is far, far behind Vancouver when it comes to the availability of organic food, vegetarian restaurants, etc.

I've finally remembered the name of a a chain of shops in Vancouver (it's been driving me nuts):
http://www.capersmarkets.com/

:scared: :scared: :scared: !!!

That's brilliant I love the Prince Harry!

Oh Judy, this made me laugh - here you're lucky if you can find somewhere to eat out, never mind whether it's organic or veggie! Life in the boonies!!

If you're planning on moving to Toronto then have a look at www.nowtoronto.com . It's a free weekly that has some great listings of what's on for the week and restaurant reviews etc.

Undoubtedly the best (and possibly only) organic restaurant in Calgary, is The River Cafe The food is exquisite

A good organic store in the NW is Amaranth, in Arbour Lake (just behind Crowfoot Cresecnt).