The Eufaula Herb Shop is located on 10 Oak Ave, Eufaula. Store hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.
Health food store offers customers
advice on diet, lifestyle Story by Emily Every
R
ic Fornell has been a health food store owner for over 20 years and a healthy living advocate even longer. In Fornell’s eyes, eating well is living well. “This is the only body that you’re going to have. If you feed it carefully and nourish it properly and take care of it, it’ll last for a long time. If you don’t, it’s not going to,” Fornell said. Fornell founded Eufaula Herb Shop & Health Foods in August 2000. In the 21 years since, the store has been serving the health supply needs of
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Summer Edition 2021
its local community. The store, located at 10 Oak Ave., Eufaula, was once a hair salon. Fornell renovated the building, knocking down a wall to open up space for his health food and nutrition wares. Despite occasional flare-ups of popular fad diets and bunk nutritional advice, Fornell says he has noticed an increase of sustained interest in healthy living in recent years. “Healthy food is becoming a way of life rather than something people just want to try for a little bit,” he said. A major advantage of frequenting health food stores is that they can handle questions and discuss nutrition more knowledgeably than a big-chain grocery store. “You can’t go to the grocery store and get any kind of help. They don’t know anything about nutrition,” Fornell said. “We’re kind of the rock of the
