Barry; the owner of Uncle Sam's; is very knowledgeable about a person's health; and; well being!…read moreCall ahead to speak to him about a consult! You will get answers!

I have been a customer of Barry for over 20 years now! I hadn't thought about how long I'd been…read moreshopping there until I started reading reviews. Barry, the owner, will not let you down. He's so knowledgeable and has a real gift (and passion) to heal. He's our very own medicine man. Over the years, he's suggested and recommended many different treatments for me and my family, and every single one has worked. He's also one of the kindest people I've ever met and his smile always reaches his eyes. He will always go above and beyond to help you. He even opens brand new packages so he can give you a sample! The best! This store is a treasure trove of natural healing and wellness. If you are unsure of what you need, or are skeptical, I promise you'll find your answers at this store. You really should give it a visit, then you'll know what I mean.

Fantastic selection of Gluten Free Products at great prices! Vitamins, skin products, etc are…read moregreat too! Denise and her staff are great! Never hesitate to place a special order for an item and are always very helpful! Hats off to a small community Health Food Store that packs a huge punch!

The best/ only real organic market in the immediate Albany area. Prices at Honest Weight sometimes…read morearen't the best. It's unfortunate that they don't open up a bigger one more into Colonie/Guilderland area.

A friend who misses The Bread Butler, maybe even more than I, told me that there was an excellent…read moresourdough bread being baked by Anicca Bakery in Troy and sold at the Honest Weight Co-op. I was at the Co-op the next day. A variety of their breads are located in a shelf display across the aisle from all the other breads. I saw sandwich rolls, French baguettes, plain sourdough, three seeds sourdough, whole wheat sourdough, plain challah, everything topped challah, and a couple of variations that I don't recall. Some of the loaves are also available in half-loaf sizes. I purchased a loaf of 3 Seed Sourdough ($8.69) and a loaf of Everything topped Challah ($7.29). Both are excellent in their own right. The 3 seeds on the sourdough are organic dry roasted pumpkin, organic dry roasted sunflower, and organic golden flax seeds. Anicca makes a point of stating that they make every attempt to obtain all their ingredients within 200 miles of the Troy bakery. The sourdough has a nice chewy crust and a decent sour flavor. The challah has a softer crust than the sourdough, just a bit of sweetness and a slightly lighter colored crumb. The challah is also double bagged for some reason. The loaf is placed in a plastic bag before it is placed in the outer paper bag. Maybe that was to protect the everything topping? If you visit their web page https://aniccabakery.com/ you will learn that you can order online and pickup your order at Alias Coffee Shop in Troy. You may also notice that their web page does not mention all the varieties of bread that I saw at the Co-op and shows a more limited production schedule. Maybe their web page is just not up to date. Another issue I ran into was knowing whether the bread was fresh. Glancing at the information on the label of my two choices, I saw that the sourdough was labeled as "Date Baked on10/29/25" (GREAT! That was today), while the challah was labeled as "Date Baked 10/30/25." WAIT!!! How can that be? 10/30/25 is not until TOMORROW!!! I checked several other packages and found that all the packages of challah were labeled with tomorrow's date. As an aside, does that mean I wouldn't be able to eat the challah until tomorrow? LOL Or better yet, if I eat it today does that mean the carbs don't exist yet? Still, LOL. In any event, a Co-op employee noticed my confusion and insisted on informing management while wondering if this meant the sourdough could have actually been sitting on the shelf since 10/28/25. Today or not, but probably tomorrow also, both breads were excellent. I'm looking forward to trying a whole wheat sourdough.

There's a little bit of everything here, but not necessarily a lot of anything. That means if you…read moresee something you want, because they might not have a lot of that item on the shelves (that may be due to space). I was greeted immediately when I entered and asked if I needed any assistance. The selections of vitamins and supplements, dried herbs, and dried fruits/nuts/etc., covered all the basics and a bit beyond. But there were also several completely empty areas in the store, and I'm not sure what was supposed to be in those spots. I also got a discount on my supplements. I'm still a little spoiled by places I could visit in the Hudson Valley (e.g., Mother Earth), but this is fine for basic items.

Great place for your nutritional need. Lots of herbal medicine's. If they don't have what you're…read morelooking for, they'll order it for you. Prices are a bit high however you're paying for their knowledge. The staff is friendly and well versed with all herbals.

New business cards for Creme de la Creme Puffs! And a new…read moreprodr review, Angel Food Cake with Chocolate Whipped Cream. It is so light and airy yet flavorful, the chocolate whipped cream enhances the flavor without overpowering it.

Yes, it's only taken us about 5 years to make it, but we finally got to see what the fuss was all…read moreabout! Of course, by early November the outdoor market has moved indoors and we have little idea what the waterfront outdoor market looks like, but I've gotta say I'm impressed. I'm impressed with the organisation of the so many vendors in different corners of the two-floor space, and the variety and quality of the goodies available. Pretty much all cooked foods were upstairs with tables and chairs dotted amongst vendors, and the offerings ranged from West African and Caribbean American to dumplings, crepes, and empanadas. There was a "makers" room with clothing, jewlery, pottery, and other knickknacks, and produce, Belgian sugar waffles, and dried flower arrangements lined the middle section of the ground level. Probably the biggest room was in the back corner across from the 'booze' section, and this is where we see the dairy, dips, honey, peanut butter, gourds, pickles, and lots of baked goods, some of which we couldn't resist. We ended up with a small haul from Golden Blend Bakehouse, Our Daily Bread, and The Placid Baker. I'm be sure to follow up on how the baked goods go but the farmers market was impressive and I'm glad this has become a real landmark in the Capital Region. Parking is available among the street (mostly metred) and near the waterfront. We'll be back.

I decided on giving up gluten for Lent this year…read more Gluten is the new bad boy in the health food world. The naughty neighbor in the starch village. It's very fashionable to hate gluten right now and hater be hatin'. I sometimes give up beer, so taking the next step to gluten should be an interesting prospect. Having Somebody Upstairs keeping an eye on me, it makes it easy not to deviate. As a newly minted glutard, I had to find substitutes and how. Luckily for me Uncle Sams's is just up the road. The have a full line of gluten free products and it's actually not that hard to make when you have them on your side. I really don't like the term gluten free. I don't want to avoid something by having to say it all the time. It's like begging for the things you hate. You don't see real estate agents calling communities "crack whore free". They say "lovely neighborhood" Anyway, a pleasant byproduct of being dietary choice empowered is that I just cant get processed shit from fast food places. I used to stop at DD to get a egg sandwich sometimes, or a wrap from Buckaroos, but I just cant do that any more. I also cant have sandwiches, so I'm eating a lot more salads. It's been a week and I really don't feel any different, but I don't really care, I'm having fun.

Convenient location. I love the organic item of foods. Specially candy bar and natural food stuff…read moreis good. Good price

I'm relatively new to GF eating and was looking for a source of healthy ready to roll meals that I…read morecould take with me to work for lunch or have for dinner on a night when I didn't feel like cooking. The food here is delicious. Even my husband agrees and he's not gluten restricted in any way. We've both really enjoyed the chicken and waffles, the chicken enchiladas, turkey bulgogi and honestly the salads (it's all about great dressings!) are some of the best I've ever eaten. So grateful to have this gem of a spot in the capital region.

Tip in advance or be punished!!!…read more I paid with a card, no pre-tip. The girl behind the counter pulled my receipt, looked at it, looked at me, and the mood turned dark. She became agitated; slamming ingredients around at the blender, yelling to the other girl in the back. I should have cancelled and left right then and there. Store was dead -- one couple waiting at the pickup end, nobody in line. She wasn't slammed. Five, ten minutes go by. She hands the couple their order, makes another smoothie in a blender and sets it on the far end of the pickup counter AWAY from me without a word or a glance my way. It's bright red. I ordered strawberry-banana-blueberry. This had no blue in it anywhere. I figured it wasn't mine. Another five or ten minutes pass. She's glancing at me from afar now and then. Still no blue smoothie shows up. Finally I walk back down and ask about it. She tells me the red one from ten minutes ago was mine. I realize she had let me stand there waiting as retaliation for not tipping upfront. Dirty trick... Here's the part that gets me: I tip in cash, at the end, based on how the service goes. That's the whole point of tipping. But the second she saw no tip on the card screen, she'd already assumed how this was going to go and fulfilled her own prophecy. Places need to stop showing employees who tipped in advance and who didn't. I've watched this same thing happen at Five Guys -- tip upfront or face slower service and vaguely deniable hassles like mine. Never going back to this one.

I stopped by Smoothie King in East Greenbush for a smoothie break recently, located in the old TCBY…read morespace in a small strip plaza in front of Target. They offer a good variety of healthy smoothies including fruit blends, vegan, energy and immune boosts and acai bowls. I ordered a small Gladiator Cold Brew smoothie ($6.99 plus tax) which was made to order quickly and had a blend of protein, bananas, cold brew, ice, and milk, blended together. This smoothie was cold, sweet and had the coffee flavor I needed on a hot and humid day outside. They also do mobile orders with the pickup counter in the front. The smoothies and bowls are made ahead of time for those orders and kept cool in a glass cooler until the customer or delivery driver comes in to pickup.

It's hard to imagine a more dangerous place for a food lover…read more Adventure in Food Trading supplies gourmet provisions to some of the best restaurants in the region... and they are open to the public... selling amazing food at wholesale prices! Seriously, once you go wholesale, it's impossible to return to the world of retail shopping. Granted, some items come in wholesale quantities. For example if you want some pork belly, you have to buy an entire eight pound pork belly. But theirs isn't any pork belly, it's Berkshire pork, which is a prized heritage breed. I went in for a pack of fresh grass-fed skirt steak, which at the time was less than $6 a pound, and came in convenient two pound packages. However they were out of stock so I left with a pork belly (and a bunch of other delicious stuff). If you go, bring a jacket. You'll want to spend some time in their walk in refrigerator, and you may want to spend time in their walk in freezer (that's were all the farm-raised game lives). Also bring a sense of adventure. None of the prices are marked, but the staff is incredibly friendly and loves talking about food. They are incredibly knowledgeable, and will gladly look up prices for you. Since my initial discovery of the place, I've now started an account. So I can show up without any money and they'll just bill my card. And that's pretty dangerous. Because it's really inexpensive for what it is. But when you are confronted with duck and foie gras sausages, tubs of duck fat, cured Ibierco loin, Old Chatham Sheepherding Company cheeses, bottles of extra virgin olive oil, caviar, and cured salami made from happy pigs, it requires a lot of willpower to leave the caviar behind. Oh, it's also hard to find the place, the below link has the right address and directions. It also is another love letter I wrote about my favorite store in the area. http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2011/03/22/adventures-in-food-trading

Giant capers on the stem. Wild boar meat. Python. Antelope. A 1-oz tin of saffron for $103. Are you…read morein your car yet? Then there's Korean citron juice. 3 liter bottles of white balsamic vinegar. Green peppercorns. Lavender buds. Truffle salt. More cheese than you can shake a stick at. And did I mention the Kobe and Waygu beef and the pigs' tongues and trotters? And the pheasant and squab? Adventures in Food Trading sells mainly to the restaurant trade, but Jordan in the warehouse is super friendly, will show you around, and is happy to sell to you in small quantities. Prices are fair, not inflated, and you don't pay shipping as from some web gourmet shop. This place is REALLY hard to find, in an industrial park just before the bridge over the Hudson to Troy. Look for the Midlands dairy facility, enter at the public road south of the facility, then proceed past Ace Hardware and Midlands and turn right on a private road. From there, wander around until you find it. If it's a hot day, be sure to bring a cooler, but Jordan will be happy to throw in a cold pack. Open Monday-Friday only, from 8 am till 4 or a bit later.