Tips for Eating Organic & Healthy in Istanbul

While eating healthy might not normally be a top priority, if you have kids like me, that opinion will likely change as you probably want your kids to eat as healthy as possible. Fortunately, I’ve spent a lot of time looking into this and will bombard you with tips and locations based on my experiences for eating healthy in Istanbul. As I am a mother of a four-year-old girl and a 15-month-old boy, “healthy food” has become a priority for me, dating all the way back to the start of my pregnancy. During my first pregnancy, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and I had to adapt to a diet program with zero sugar and very small amounts of carbohydrates. Being a potential diabetes patient in the near future, I am doing my utmost to teach my kids how to maintain a healthy and balanced diet, setting the right habits to prevent diabetes as it is in their genetic inheritance. As a result of my selective perception on the matter, I offer these tips to guide you as best I can.

The market for organic products in Turkey is relatively new but growing rapidly due to increasing demand – a large portion which is coming from mothers who are more and more concerned about providing their kids with healthy food. The expected size of the market for 2020 is over $170 million.

While it is true that prices are higher than for normal products and we consumers think twice before buying organic food, it is expected that with increasing demand, prices will lower in the near future. It is always good to know that there are places where you can access organic food whenever you need. If you have a baby starting to wean, your shopping list is a short one, which hopefully allows you to buy organic products. One carrot, one potato, one onion, one apple will be enough for your little one’s daily menu.
I recommend you to first visit organic bazaars, because it is cheaper and more entertaining than regular markets. For those living on the European side, you can visit Feriköy’s organic bazaar held on Saturdays, and Asian side shoppers can go to the bazaar in Göztepe Özgürlük Parkı held every Wednesday.

If you have time to shop during the week, I recommend going to Göztepe because it is not crowded and there is a public garden inside. Therefore, you can both do your shopping and also spend some time at the playground with your kids. The one in Feriköy/Bomonti is the one I frequent most. You can go there with your family and even have breakfast, as they serve gözleme and such. In the bazaar, there are fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

Please don’t hesitate to chat with the seller. Generally, I’m not keen on the ones pushing their products and prefer the more humble ones. Once you become a loyal organic consumer, you will likely be buying from the same person. Prices will likely shift over time, but as of the date of this article, a kilo of bananas is around 11 TL, a kilo of carrots is 8 TL, and a kilo of apples is 7 TL.

Kanyon shopping mall is also organizing an organic bazaar under the name of Organikanyon every Friday. It is located in the event area on the B2 level and easily accessible via Metro. As you may have noticed, many bazaars exist in Istanbul and also in Ankara, so please make your own research and discover many more for yourself.

If you don’t have the time to go to a bazaar or if you need immediate access to organic food, then you can go to organic food chains. The most common one is İpek Hanım’ın Çiftliği.

This farm is named after its owner’s daughter, İpek, and is located in Nazilli, Aydın in the Aegean area of Turkey. A few years ago, in order to buy İpek hanım’s farm products, you had to order directly from the farm and they were delivering it few days later. But now, there are two shops in Istanbul so it is easily accessible – one is located in Balmumcu, Beşiktaş and the other one is in Göktürk. I live very close to Balmumcu and have the chance to shop in Balmumcu store. What I like the most there, is that they have special products for babies. For moms who have babies starting to wean, they offer special “Lor” cheese with less salt for example and they call it “baby cheese”. You can also buy daily milk and fresh yogurt every day. The balmumcu store is at the same time a café where you can sit with your friends and taste the daily prepared organic deserts – I strongly recommend the cheesecakes. In terms of fruits and vegetables, the product range is not wide, so you buy what you find. Regarding flours, herbs, spices, etc., you can easily find everything that you need and even more.

If you can allocate more of your budget, then there are other organic chains. City Farm is one of the first brands to enter the Turkish market. As ‘organic food awareness’ did not really exist before, the brand was unique and thus very expensive but now with all its competitors, the prices are more reasonable – but still more expensive than organic bazaars. Many local brands arrived to the market such as Juico (healthy juices), Gekoo (healthy snacks), and Ekoloji market. As I said before, the market is growing every single day and mainly thanks to local producers.

For those who work or those who are very busy, don’t worry because you can even buy organic products in the common market chains where you always do your shopping. Macrocenter offers a big range of organic vegetables and fruits, as do some Carrefour stores. Sometimes, you will see iyi tarım on labels, these are also ‘healthy products’ but bear in mind that it is not organic because some chemicals are used in the production process. But still, when I can’t find any organic products, I prefer to buy these products because I believe that it is healthy. The same applies to products where you know about the production process, the seller, the brand owner, and the production location. From time to time, we buy our vegetables from the local market in Yalova and we see the difference of taste compared to products sold in the manav in Istanbul. So, investigating is quite important. If you can find out the origins of the product, it makes a big difference.

Organic dairy products are easier to find in markets. Organic milk, yogurt and eggs are accessible in many stores under well-known brands such as Pınar, as well as organic brands such as Ada, Yoncadan, etc. In Turkey, families – especially those with kids – are more and more often producing their own yogurt and bread. I am also preparing yogurt myself. If you want a perfect result, you can use a yogurt machine. But you can also always follow a ‘grandma recipe’ to prepare it. It is very healthy and economical. Regarding bread, even if you can’t find organic bread everywhere, in every fırın, they offer whole wheat bread nowadays. The government is very strict about bread production processes.

For babies, you can always buy Hipp products, as they have organic vegetable, fruit purees, organic biscuits, and juices. My kids are crazy about Hipp’s apple biscuits. For their afternoon snack, I offer them biscuits and yogurt and they are the happiest.

Another option you have if you are really busy and don’t have the time to go to the market is to order from Tazedirekt. Tazedirekt was a start-up, bought by Migros, and is one of the biggest market chains in 2016. For online shoppers, this is an organic, healthy online shopping alternative.

If you are not a connoisseur of healthy food, then before doing your shopping, the best thing for you to do is to be coached. Elçin Oflaz, an ex-New-Yorker, is a coach & chef specialized in raw food.

She organizes workshop with different themes but the goal is always the same – teaching people how to eat healthy. Once a month she organizes a workshop for moms and kids, preparing healthy recipes with the help of little chefs. You can go to the workshop with your kid and prepare a gluten-free pizza or a healthy granola bar, a very good occasion to spend some quality time together. Generally, she prepares one of her recipes – which by the way is also in her book Elçin Oflaz ile Raw Food Mucizesi and while cooking, she gives little tips about shopping for healthy ingredients as well as other very helpful lifestyle tips. If you don’t speak Turkish, don’t worry because as she is an ex-New-Yorker, she speaks English very well.

All images courtesy of Katarzyna Piekarczyk.