Whole Foods Quackery

Above the Market ^ | 04/29/2014

[The Great RJ]

The grocery chain where I have shopped for years is expanding the “Health Market” section in their stores where they sell those over priced organic products. The profit margins on these products are huge so grocery chains are eager to cash in. I can’t believe that people are willing to pay $6 per gallon for “organic” milk or $1 per pound for “organic” bananas especially when study after study shows there is absolutely no health advantage and we are all struggling with higher prices on regular food.

[pierrem15]

That's because they can't afford to eat much at WF :-)

More seriously: the White Hut was trumpeting reduced childhood obesity rates as though it were an effect of their policies: it isn't, it's an effect of the massive food price inflation we've had the past few years.

[muir_redwoods]

At Whole Foods all I buy is French blue cheese and the 70% cocoa Icelandic chocolate bars. It’s expensive but I’m worth it.

[9YearLurker]

Nice story re: your brother!

And since you follow the diet yourself, I don’t see it as insulting.

[Jane Long]

We see EBT cards in our Whole Foods. Particularly began noticing them sometime around the beginning of 2009. (I think a lot more businesses began accepting EBT then.)

It's an option (LoneStar card, here in TX) on the the CC swiper, at WF and the other grocery stores we shop.

[pierrem15]

" but it is known that GMOs cause significant health problems in laboratory animals."

I've seen the studies and the pics: stuff any animal until it's 50% past its optimal body mass on a uniform diet and it will get sick-- there's a high correlation between fat and cancer inducing metabolic changes.

All the food we eat has thousands of organic compounds that have never been tested: at the least GMO stuff _has_ been tested and someone actually knows what its genetic structure is.

There are also many foods (organic or not) that are toxic if not properly prepared (potatoes and rhubarb, for example).

I'm much more concerned about the antibiotics and hormones in dairy and meat, which is why I prefer organic milk and meat (which I can find at not much of a premium over the regular stuff where I live).

I also find it tastes better and has much longer shelf life.

[Bon of Babble]

Anyone using an EBT card at Whole Foods is going to see his balance go down or run out - and quickly...

[kevkrom]

Even more overpriced than their stock is their merchandise. Seems that if you slap an organic sticker on something that gives you the right to double or triple the price. There is no proof that organic foods are healthier than non-organic foods.

But as long as people are gullible enough to buy it, it's not over-priced.

[Black Agnes]

Agreed on the shelf life of the organic milk/meat. We get organic milk on markdown for ~ the price of regular name brand milk. Even if the use by date is that day we usually have a week or 10 days past that before it turns. The exception is the 0% milk. That’s only 3 or 4 days past the use by date before it turns.

My kids eat organic meats, hubby and I try to IF we can find it on special often enough.

[9YearLurker]

Testing GMOs in animals is pretty simple: some critters get fed the GMO foods and some get the non-GMO foods.

We’re not talking about giving animals thousands of times the normal exposure to some obscure chemical.

[9YearLurker]

Testing GMOs in animals is pretty simple: some critters get fed the GMO foods and some get the non-GMO foods.

We’re not talking about giving animals thousands of times the normal exposure to some obscure chemical.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Whole Foods consistently has better meat and poultry than the major supermarket chains. You can taste the difference. Stores like Star Market sell the caged chicken. Whole Foods sells the free ranging chicken. I don't care about the organic chickens, as long as I can get the free ranging ones. The flesh in the caged chickens is filled with fat. Dinnerware sticks to the fat like glue.

I'll find comparable produce and dry goods elsewhere, but I will only eat meat and poultry form Whole Foods.

The employees at Whole Foods look happier that those at the major chains. I'm guessing they are better compensated.

[Rebelbase]

The only time I’ve ever shopped there routine was for one product, a 365 brand juice drink called Cherry Crush. They lost that biz when they stopped carrying it.

Now, shopping at whole foods is reserved for splurging only, like buying a gouda so old the cheese is crystallizing or a bohemian culinary concoction in the bakery/deli.

Even at that they are high priced.

Once I went to Aldis and Whole foods on the same day. Aldis had thin stalk fresh asparagus from Peru for $1.99. Whole foods had the exact thing in the exact Peru box for $4.99.

[reformedliberal]

Aldi’s has super produce for really cheap. I wish mine was closer so I could shop there weekly. They rival the store in the same city long known for its excellent and inexpensive produce.

[Wuli]

It really gets me how the “organic”, “healthier” & “green” marketing ploys are consumed so energetically by Liberals and particularly younger Liberals.

In Manattan in the north end of “the west village” (west side of Grenwich Village), home to New York University, The New School, Cooper Union and Baruch College, the 14th Street Whole Foods store is packed to the rafters with customers from late afternoon until evening week days. I guess many of the idiot parents who send their kids to extravagant NYU ($50k+) also don’t mind their kids extravagant grocery bills.

[jttpwalsh]

I was visiting my Mom, in Seattle. My ultra hip sister dropped by, and asked if I would watch my young nephews, while she ran a few errands. The boys got hungry, after awhile, so we looked over the offerings, and they requested a (non organic) banana. Sister walked in a minute, or so, later. From her reaction, you’d have thought I was feeding them bars of cyanide !

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

So silly. And because bananas have thick skins, the soft part inside that you eat, is of course more protected from insecticides....so buying organic bananas is a complete waste of money.

IMHO since organic foods aren’t being treated with insecticides and other chemicals they should at least be less expensive than non-organic produce.

[jttpwalsh]

Very True ! Thanks

[Gay State Conservative]

An MIT student submitted a piece to an MIT student publication a few years ago that was,IMO,right on the money.She said,in essence,that shopping at Whole Foods isn't about health,it's a conspicuous demonstration of wealth.

[radiohead]

People have been modifying plants since the Egyptians. I’m not against that, but I would like to know if my food contains GMO elements. Just label the darned stuff; why is Monsanto so against labeling?

One of the secondary issues with GMO foods is how Monsanto treats farmers, lawsuits when GMO seeds have accidentally blown into a farmer’s field, etc. I’d rather not be part of that, so if food is labeled, I know who not to support.

We don’t have a WF, but I’d shop there sometimes if we did. Choice is nice.

Regarding homeopathy, the author may be right, I do think it is a little hit and miss and not everything works for everybody, but I know people who feel better with homeopathic treatments, so why complain? If you don’t like them, don’t use them. I have terrible leg cramps some times. The only thing I have found that helps at all is Hyland’s leg cramp pills. I swear by them. So, if I’m stupid for using homeopathic medicine, OK, but I’d rather be stupid and not in tears from leg cramps, than smart and hobbled over in pain.