Hello,

I'm wondering if someone can help me out.
I'm looking for the following ingredients but having difficulty finding them in dutch.
Surprisingly although they are in every grocery store in North America, they dont have them here in the grocery stores so I'm looking for an organic health food store online that would be able to have these products.

Does anyone know what ' carob' is in dutch? It's a chocolate substitute?
I need to get it in a powder form or chips ( like chocolate chips).

I'm also looking for the following products:
brown rice flour: Bruine rijst meel ( i think thats what it is in dutch)
baking soda: Zuiveringsalt or bicarbonaat
whole wheat: volkoren tarwemeel
whey protein: wei-eiwit. Only the most natural for baking
molasses : melasse

THanx

snk888

You can get Arm & Hammer baking soda at the Kingsalmarkt in Amstelveen.

Have you been to the Natuurwinkels here yet?

Surprisingly??? Sorry I couldn't resist

You can find baking soda in a toko often as well. You should be able to find whole wheat flour in a decent sized supermarket, I see it here. I think I found molasses here once, but I forget now. If you can substitute then rietsuikerstroop might work. I see that there is also rietsuikermelasse, but I'm not certain if it's exactly the same.

I have no idea about bigger city health food stores, but the ones where I live are pretty awful. We went to Germany yesterday for our monthly grocery shop, cheaper and better selection, and I always stock up on certain things because of the lack here, especially in the small town where I live. I'm lactose and gluten intolerant but you'd think I subsisted on the blood of virgins for the lack of edible food.

Try:
http://www.bestelbio.nl/ - health food home delivery
http://www.denatuurwinkel.com/nw/ - Natuurwinkel franchise locations
http://www.foodlexicon.net/ - translation of food terms

You realize of course that ORGANIC and so called Natural foods have now been proven to be no more healthy than others?

Not sure where NL is on GM Foods but here there is a huge resistance to them not being LABELLED as such!

I personally never believed they were. However, the OP's shopping list didn't specify "organic" anything...just products that aren't usually found in the AH. A lot of them are standard in grocery stores where we're from, but here we have to go to a Dutch version of a so-called "healthfood" store.

baking soda: I pick mine up at Tokos.

whole wheat: Albert Heijn carries ww flour as well as a decent selection of ww pasta, crackers, etc. Anything beyond that I have to make a trip to a health food store for things such as ww couscous.

whey protein: I'd imagine you'd need to find a health food store for this. However, I just go to sporting stores and buy the flavored stuff myself. I found the vanilla is pretty tasteless in baked products and smoothies. The particular brand I like is ewit 85 i and is about 26 euro for a big container at the Decathon at Amsterdam Arena.

molasses : the only place I've been able to find actual molasses is in an American food store at insanely high prices.

I saw it yesterday in the Turkish store at the Botermarkt in Haarlem. Don't know about the price though...

Just be careful with picking up molasses at the turkish/asian stores. There's a variety (can't remember exactly what it was called) that says it's molasses but it's the most disgusting stuff to come out of a jar. I tried making gingerbread with it one year hoping it would taste better than it smelled but it didn't. Not even the garbage disposal fiance would touch it.

What I do realise is that for one piece of research you know of that says it is not, I could show you 10 that say otherwise. The point being, nothing is proven. Otherwise these studies would not need to be continually re-run.

Besides, health is but one of the many reasons to go organic. Even if they were only equally as healthy, there are other good reasons to buy organic (if you can afford it), e.g. less pesticides, less chemical fertilisers, good for wildlife...

FYI - organic and natural are 2 different things. I believe you are only referring to organic.

Lastly, you do need to go outside the main supermarkets to find healthy products, as CW has pointed out above, as the Dutch only consume bread, cheese, stamppot and FEBO (fast-food outlet) items. I assume things are different in France.

@ the OP - good luck finding the items you need.

Yep, I know this.

I believe it's purely a marketing scheme. No one can ever prove that the food I am buying in those shops really WAS produced ... organically.

You just have to take their word. Sooo what's wrong with that statement?

I just always assumed organic meant "grown without using pesticides". Nothing more than that.

Thanks for the information on baking powder - I was trying to find it when I visited in June and no one, no one had it. Quick question:

well, maybe not so quick...but here goes:

Is anyone having difficulty converting recipes using the butter in NL? I find it has far less solids than American butter and melts if you even look at it wrong. Now while that's desirable sometimes it is making my cookies flat and crispy. I can't even stick the dough back in the refrigerator to firm it up.

Help!

Oh I don't bake, so I haven't a clue. The butter doesn't seem that different to me unless Canadian and American butter is different from each other as well!

You know, nothing would surprise me. I am super flexible about all of the changes associated with moving into a different culture, excited even, but pissed as hell that this cookie recipe I spent all summer perfecting doesn't work in NL.

Back to the drawing board (or, in this case, the mixing bowl)!

For baking, I use the big blocks of bluebell (I think that's it) butter. If it's supposed to be just softened then I leave it out for a few hours to room temp, but chop it up into smaller pieces.

I've used this for all sorts of baking, including buttercream frosting. ;-)

Organic isn't just about how the food is grown. It's about the welfare of animals and what they are fed on. I have found a butchers near Amstelveen where you can actually go to see the livestock in fields not far from the shop, where they source their meat.

If you don't mind eating chicken, pork etc. from animals who have been caged all their life and feed disgusting food and hormones then that's everybody's choice. It's not even about taste in the long run, it's about animal welfare and the amount of pesticides used on food.

I for one will continue to eat ethically sourced produce until they can prove that pesticides are actually good for you ...

Oh okay, I had no idea that that was considered "organic" as well...So many labels floating around...