REVIEW: Back to Basics in Payson, AZ

As I mentioned over the weekend, I spent the last few days visiting my grandmother in Arizona. I joined my sister, my mom, and my aunt and uncle in the town of Payson, Arizona for the trip, which was enjoyable. However, I was concerned about finding healthy food in the town, and for good reason.

Payson is a small town at the base of the Mogollon Rim, and through it runs one main street where most businesses reside. Driving through town, you can find a Super Wal-Mart, a Safeway, a Dairy Queen, a KFC, a McDonald’s, a Pizza Hut, and other fast food locations. Until this trip, I thought that the only food available in Payson could be found at a large conventional food retailer or a fast food joint.

I was doing some blog reading before I left on my trip, and one site I found offered good advice for finding a health food store in just about any town where they exist in the US: Googling the name of the town along with “health food store.” I tried this before I left home, and it worked. The name of Back To Basics, a health food store right there on the main street in town, popped right up in the Google results.

Back To Basics is a small store, but despite its size I found the selection to be good. Some of the products I buy at the Whole Foods at home were on the shelves at Back To Basics, though their inventory sometimes consisted of just one or two of each product. The store didn’t have a bulk section, but the array of whole grains, legumes, and flours more than made up for it. Their tea selection was good, and though I didn’t venture into their supplement section, it looked like it was pretty thorough. My mom, who accompanied me to the store (and actually, she and my other family members already knew about the store before this trip, so I was the last one to know), found a good quality ginger supplement to calm my sister’s sensitive stomach on the curvy roads.

And, in case you’re wondering, I did print out the 10%-off coupon before I traveled, though I completely forgot about it once in the store. And do I think that Back To Basics deserved to have been “Voted #1 Health Food Store in Payson”? Yes, yes I do. Does it much matter that Back To Basics is the only health food store in Payson? No. No, it doesn’t.

If there’s a decent health food store in a town where Curves and the Mazatzal Casino top the list of things to do, then there’s probably a health food store just about anywhere. While Whole Foods and other larger stores offer convenience to those who live near them, options do exist for consumers in more remote locales. Google is always useful, and in cases of travel to places like Payson it’s especially handy.

The moral of the story is less about one health food store than it is about all of them: they do exist, and they can be found. All it takes is a little research and a little motivation. You don’t always have to eat poorly when you travel. My mom and I bought some Amy’s Kitchen vegetable lasagnas and stuffed shells for dinner one night. Though we had a kitchen in which there was an oven, we could just have easily popped these entreés into a microwave in a hotel room. Travel doesn’t mean you have to compromise your standards, and Back To Basics is proof of that. The next time your travel plans include a small town, get your Google on.