Natural Food Store Offers Healthy Foods, Advice

During a recent shopping trip at the Natural Choices Health Food Store in New Lenox, a customer got a thorough lesson on the cause of some digestive issues. Impressed, the customer wondered what type of medical degree the owner, resident Sue Dite, possed.

"No degree, just 40 years of experience," she said.

One advantage of visiting Dite is the vast knowledge she has about the products she carries and their direct effect on the functions of the body. A small frame house along North Cedar Road is home to Natural Choices, which has been open since 1988.

Before running the store, Dite was a part of a health food cooperative in which members met monthly to exchange and share healthy foods and information. She also ran the healthy eating program at the Guardian Angel Home for four years. That was her inspiration to open the store for health foods that she always wanted.

One part of the store is dedicated solely to gluten-free foods. Dite says these are her most popular items because people, with or without certain diagnosis, are realizing that the gluten-free items are easier to digest and do away with a lot of digestion related issues. 

The variety of gluten-free items she carries is second to none in the area. Customers come from all over to buy the products she carries. The store carries pancake and muffin mixes, flours, pasta, a full selection of prepared frozen items, snacks of all kinds and much more.

"People are very impressed with our selection and say we offer more than stores like Whole Foods and other large stores," Dite said.

Her daughter, Kris Geigner, was helping out at the store last week and talked about the benefits of healthy eating and its effects on a person's overall well-being. 

"Everything is connected to what you put into your body" she said. "Instead of treating the symptom, you need to look at what caused the symptom in the first place and fix that."

One customer who browsed through the large selection of gluten-free items said she had recently learned, after an endoscope procedure to evaluate acid reflux, she was suffering from an allergic reaction to glutens, wheat and soy. 

She was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis, an allergic inflammatory condition of the esophagus. After excluding gluten, wheat and soy from her diet, she's seen a noticeable difference in the way she feels and functions. She was at the store shopping for everyday items, including gluten free pasta and flour.

Dite pointed out the right side of the store—which has various household items, including aromatherapy oils, aluminum-free deodorants and flouride-free toothpaste—while dropping nuggets of knowledge along the way. ("The aluminum in most deodorant makes its way into the body and is not healthy, especially for women through the glands under their arms.")

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