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Health food store celebrates 20 years
Health food store celebrates 20 yearsBy Bill Walsh
Times-Democrat Staff Writer
Shelley Lehrer is a little confused over exactly how long she has been running Natural Marketplace on Waterloo Street in Warrenton. The health food store is celebrating its 20th anniversary on Saturday, yet in an interview last week, Lehrer said she was pretty certain that the shop opened in 1989...19 years ago.
No matter. Her vision about what the store does and how it serves its Fauquier clients, is crystal clear.
Healthy food, of course, but more to the point "people can find things in here that can replace the things that they are eating that are made with really unhealthy ingredients," Lehrer said. "You talk about cookies or chips or salsa or whatever that they are getting from commercial venues; here we have items that don't have the sugars and the hydrogenated oils. Everything is made in a healthier way. So as you are transitioning into fresh foods, but you don't want to give up your chips, you can still have those things.
Lehrer and her staffers "live in this" the real world, she said, "and we aren't all about being vegan or vegetarian or macrobiotic or whatever."
Lehrer moved to Warrenton 26 years ago, and soon decided that "Warrenton needed something like this. Health food stores are an important part of communities, and this community didn't have one. "
The community was missing a source of top-of-the-line vitamins and supplements. It didn't have an outlet for organic food, nor a deli where such goodness is prepared. It sure didn't have massage and crystal light therapies.
Natural Marketplace began expanding beyond stocked shelves by offering therapeutic massage within a few years of opening because "there is so much more to health than just eating properly," Lehrer said, though eating properly is certainly where it all begins, she emphasized.
"It's stress reduction, relaxation, your spiritual life, whatever that may be for you. We just wanted to incorporate as much of that in one building, all the things that a little healing center would have."
Over the years, that has meant visiting acupuncturists, and, more recently, live blood-cell analysis. Crystal healing therapy is the newest kid on the block.
"It is a little off the wall for a lot of people," Lehrer concedes, "but doctors are saying energy healing is the healing of the future."
Lehrer bought her crystal light therapy bed in Brazil and shipped it to Warrenton where, she said, it works to harmonize the body's energy fields. It is, she said, "probably the most potent thing we have in the store. It is very cutting edge."
Being out in front is a familiar position for Lehrer and her staff of 12. "We are," she said, "always about 10 years ahead of NBC News."
Natural Marketplace is a retail outlet, but it is much more, Lehrer said.
Natural Marketplace employees are interested in healthy living and are well educated on a variety of related topics. Their employer spares no expense in providing continuing education and training.
Still, "we are not in position legally to prescribe or diagnose," Lehrer said. "We encourage people to learn on their own. We can only tell them what has worked for us. It may not work for you."
Lehrer eats an amazingly good diet of fresh food, organically grown, yet takes a number of vitamins and supplements every day. The rest of us, generally, don't eat so conscientiously, and supplementation is even more important.
"The average person doesn't need electricity, either," she said by way of example of supplementation's importance to the diet, "but most of us chose to use it. Food from the standard grocery comes from soil that is depleted, that has been covered with pesticides. The immune system of plants is depleted. We all need an extra boost of vitamins, she said, and, ideally, we would get most of them through food-based nutrients, such as she sells at 5 Diagonal St.
Lehrer has developed a list of the daily "healthy 7" — a multivitamin, probiotics, omega 3 fish oil, digestive enzymes, extra vitamins C and E, plus calcium/magnesium.
How much does all this cost? "Less than you spend at the doctor's," she said.
The celebratory open house is Saturday, Dec. 6 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors will receive a gift bag stuffed with free samples, they can graze a buffet of complimentary food and organic wine and get a chance to win one of many door prizes.
Call (540) 349-4111 for more information..
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