Sandy Pomeroy: Queen of the Kitchen

If you’ve been to a Goodness Me! store in the last few years, you’ve probably seen her name, heard her voice, or even taken one of her classes.

If you’ve eaten from our prepared foods department, you’ve likely enjoyed one of her creations (maybe without even knowing it), and if you’ve ever taken a peek inside one of our publications, including Discover the Power of Food, Share Goodness, and Nourish magazine, you’ll find her recipes waiting there for you to try. She wears many hats at Goodness Me!, from leading recipe creation in our eatery, to teaching Lifewatchers and healthy cooking classes, to sharing healthy recipes with customers and staff. She’s part of the heart and soul of Goodness Me!, and she’s definitely the queen of the kitchen around here. We want to celebrate that. Who are we talking about? Sandy Pomeroy.

Sandy has worked for Goodness Me! for nearly twenty years—which is more than half the time we’ve been in business—and during that time, she has contributed so much to so many different areas of the company. She loves cooking healthy meals, helping people discover how great food can make them feel, and watching people fall in love with real, whole food. Even when she was a young girl, Sandy loved cooking. She would reserve the Betty Crocker Home and Gardens Cookbook from her school library every Friday and spend the whole weekend creating recipes, spending all her money from her part-time job on ingredients. And indeed, food is where Sandy got her beginnings here at Goodness Me! as well.

“The best part about my job is helping others and watching them heal and get healthy. It is a wonderful, humbling feeling knowing that you made a difference in that person’s life.”

Years ago, she accompanied a friend to a cooking class that was being run at one of our first locations by Janet Jacks, Goodness Me! founder. At the time, Sandy had already loved cooking, but she found the healthy additions that Janet suggested very intriguing. After that first class, she came to another, and then another, until eventually she started making her own healthy concoctions with the information she gained at the classes, and shared them with Janet. One day, Sandy suggested Janet lead a class about a certain cooking topic, and Janet turned to her and said, “Why don’t you teach it?” Right then and there, a legacy began: Sandy’s cooking classes.

She started out leading store tours and answering customers’ questions about healthy living, and soon enough was hooked on teaching. Her cooking classes have spanned the years and have covered every topic you can think of—soups, salads, Mediterranean flare, desserts, appetizers, baking, paleo, gluten free—you name it, Sandy has led a class on it. Not only are the recipes in her classes delicious, but Sandy also explains why each ingredient is healthy and how it will impact your life and your health in a positive way. Her classes truly are addicting—as is evident by “Sandy’s posse”, the group of ladies that regularly sign up for her cooking classes to get new recipes and try new things—and part of that is simply Sandy’s personality.

Sandy’s passion for helping others and providing healthy, healing recipes is evident, and her approach to healthy living and cooking is relaxed, easy-going, and approachable. If you ever see her grocery shopping, you’ll likely see a customer right at her side, asking her a question about food or health—and she is always happy to give an answer or a healthy cooking tip. It’s like having a best friend with you as you go along your healthy living journey.

"Healthy living can be so easy. It doesn’t always start out that way, but when you start feeling better than you ever have, it is easy to stay motivated.”

After teaching cooking classes for a few years, Sandy helped Janet create the next step of learning for Goodness Me! customers: our 10 week healthy living course called Lifewatchers. This course has run for over fifteen years and has helped thousands of people create their own unique success stories, and runs at all of our Goodness Me! locations (check online for more information!). Lifewatchers combines the two things Sandy loves most: cooking and sharing information that helps people transform their health. As one of our leading Lifewatchers instructors, Sandy spends ten weeks with her class participants and guides them through the healthy living, eating, and cooking principles that we teach as part of a healthy lifestyle. Time and time again, people in Sandy’s Lifewatchers classes will rave about how wonderful of an instructor she is and how comfortable and easy she made the learning and changes—and Sandy loves it, too. She loves teaching the classes and watching the healing that people experience throughout the ten weeks, and helping every person find a delicious way to enjoy healthy food. Even if you have allergies or a health condition that restricts the foods you’re able to eat, Sandy can help you create recipes that taste so delicious, you’ll find it hard to believe they’re healthy. It’s certainly one of her gifts, and she’s always excited for the next challenge.

Sandy’s involvement with Goodness Me! doesn’t end with her cooking classes or even with leading multiple Lifewatchers courses each semester. She also works alongside our prepared foods department as the lead chef to help create delicious and healthy recipes for our customers. In our eatery, we pride ourselves on creating prepared foods using ingredients of unparalleled quality at pricing that makes sense. That’s our goal, day in and day out, and Sandy makes it easy to achieve this goal. She helps create new recipes, unique concoctions, and healthy alternatives for people who enjoy our prepared foods every day. If you’ve tried our Detox Salad, any of the soups or smoothies in our Eatery, or other prepared hot tray or salad bar items, you can take comfort knowing it’s a Sandy Pomeroy creation.

“Cooking is my therapy and I just love creating new dishes. The most rewarding thing is when people tell me how good my food is. I am so fortunate to teach Lifewatchers and be able to pass on invaluable information to participants and then watch the healing process!”

And her recipe influence doesn’t end there! Sandy is the main recipe contributor for all of our Nourish magazines—which often contain dozens of recipes. No matter what ideas or suggestions she’s approached with, Sandy never says “no”. She figures out a way to make recipes taste delicious, incorporate healthy ingredients, and support the healing lifestyle that Goodness Me! is all about (and it’s not a terrible job being a guinea pig for her recipes as she tests them out, either!). Check out some of her newest recipes in this issue of Nourish, or look for her recipes on our blog online—most of the recipes up there are from past magazines or flyers that Sandy has contributed to. Even Discover the Power of Food, the best-selling book by Janet Jacks, has some Sandy-original recipes, as does its companion, Share Goodness. Whether in print, online, or in our Eatery, there are so many ways to enjoy her delicious recipes.

Sandy does all of this for Goodness Me!, but it’s her passion and enthusiasm for her job that is truly a gift. She has often said that her favourite part of the job is watching people be astounded that something so healthy could taste so good, or hearing people’s success stories after ten weeks of Lifewatchers. Cooking is her therapy, and being able to share that gift with the staff and customers of Goodness Me! for the past twenty years is something that Sandy feels blessed to do, but also something that we at Goodness Me! are incredibly grateful for. She is living proof that eating and living healthy can be simple and exciting, and she truly believes that once people taste and feel the difference of real, healthy, whole food, they will never go back. And if you’re going to start out cooking healthy, we recommend starting with Sandy. Try her recipes in our eatery, take one of her cooking classes, check our blog for her signature dishes, or join Lifewatchers. You won’t be disappointed, and Sandy will be with you every step of the way.