Americans are always talking (but not acting) about eating better, but signs from small retailers indicate that more and more people are taking healthy eating to heart by stocking up on kitchen tools that make it easier to cook a bit lighter.
By far the hottest product, retailers say, are the plethora of spiralizers: tools that shred such veggies as zucchini into pasta-like strands that dieters can dump into a bowl of steaming sauce and not worry about portioning out a teensy amount of real starch. Rather than pasta, a bowl of zucchini, rutabaga or carrot strands can be immersed into the sauce, dusted with parmesan cheese, and still hit one’s calorie/carb/ or Weight Watcher points count for the day.
And it is a trend across the country.
“We’ve got four different spiralizers, from the hand-held to the professional style,” says Dave Weldy, owner along with his wife Mary of The Culinary Apple, in Chelan, Wash. “Healthy eating is on the top of a lot of people’s minds. Instead of having pasta we will spiralize a zucchini.”
That’s true in the South as well. “Spiralizers are our number one seller,” says Dan Saklad owner of Whisk Carolina, in Greensboro, N.C. “You can’t have too many of them. Every vendor has a spiralizer now. I could put six different spiralizers on the floor at the same time and people just pick and choose. It doesn’t seem to matter. You can’t have enough.”
“Sprializing continues to be popular here,” says Martha Nading, owner of The Kitchen Store, in Greensboro, N.C.
And in the Midwest, Jill Foucre, owner of Marcel’s Culinary Experience in Glen Ellyn, Ill., notes that spiralizers not only sell well, but also are a teachable product in her cooking school. As are other healthy cooking products, like non-stick cookware she adds. “It is about adding flavor without adding calories,” she says.
But healthy cooking products extend beyond the stove top. For many retailers like Foucre, it is about selling herbs, spice blends, non-stick cookware like Swiss Diamond and even some DIY products to encourage the theme of healthy cooking.
“We sell a lot of canning equipment,” Foucre says, noting jars are a staple product. “It is about making the most of everything you are cooking with, even carrot tops.” Canning and preserving does not have to be a complicated process, she adds. Dismiss the notion of our pioneer grandmothers and the wretched process they had to go through to preserve food.
Today’s cooks have microwaves, modern pressure cookers and an assortment of kitchen preservation tools that Laura Ingalls Wilder and the rest of the Little House on the Prairie generation would envy. Preserving food is easier now, and smart retailers play up the healthy cooking aspect of canning and freezing. These techniques offer the convenience factor many home cooks seek. What could be easier (and more crowd pleasing) than uncorking a vat of homemade marinara?
“Make it simple for people. You don’t have to block out three days to do it, just take 10 minutes after dinner to quick can or freeze it,” Foucre says.
And while preservation tools are also high on retailers’ healthy cooking lists, especially around harvest time, vacuum seal products also sell year-round, she adds.
“It is super easy to use a vacuum seal bag and slip things into the freezer,” Foucre says, which helps preserve the seasonal home cooking from the fall harvest for the bleaker days. Something Laura Ingalls Wilder well knew.
For more information on spiraling, see The Inspired Home’s article, Spiral-Wise:” Recipes to Try with Your Spiralizer.
