How many of the groceries sold at Walmart would be banned by Whole Foods?

Pioneer Press/Slate ^ | 2-20-14 | Ben Blatt

[TurboZamboni]

Whole Foods, one of the largest health-conscious grocery stores in America, maintains a list of “Unacceptable Ingredients for Food.” The store's blacklist is 78 ingredients long and contains many well-known villains in the eyes of health-conscious eaters—aspartame, MSG, and high fructose corn syrup, to name a few.

Though Whole Foods has grown over the years—it currently boasts more than 300 locations nationwide—it's still a small operation in comparison to Walmart, which runs more than 3,000 food-selling supercenters in the U.S., making it the largest grocery store in the country and indeed the world. Walmart does not ban any of the ingredients on Whole Foods' restricted list.

In fact, approximately 14 percent of food items sold at Walmart could not be stocked on the shelves of Whole Foods simply because they contain high fructose corn syrup. When all 78 ingredients banned by Whole Foods are taken into account, roughly 54 percent of food items sold at a Walmart would be prohibited at Whole Foods.

[BuffaloJack]

I wonder if they post a list the 78 banned ingredients.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Never been in Whole Foods. Does Michelle Obama work at the checkout counter?

[BuffaloJack]

Found it:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/about-our-products/quality-standards/unacceptable-ingredients-food

[Common Sense 101]

Who cares?

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Isn’t Whole Foods, for being a healthfood store, in a bit of a pickle with some on the left because they’re somewhat supportive of Republicans?

[Russ]

I do...

[Varda]

Whole Foods is owned by a right winger. I love driving by there seeing all the lefties handing their money over to a conservative. I bet they wouldn’t do it if they knew.

[freedomfiter2]

So what? Walmart has a growing selection of whole and organic food.

[Vaquero]

I go there because of food allergies I developed years ago at age 50. I can’t stand the smug attitude of the employees and patrons. These Pius(sp.)drivers love to smell their own superior farts. I am glad to know that a right winger owns it and laughs at the hippies, who fund his lifestyle, all the way to the bank.

[rktman]

Ugh! I let my wife talk me in to going into one once. ONCE! Sure didn’t take long for me to tell her that too. She agreed. Most of the patrons seemed snobbish and had that kind of air that they were/are superior to the “ignorant” shlubs who might shop at wal mart. When we got to the cereal aisle and I saw the wide variety of “enviro kids” cereals available, that was it. The containers were covered with tips for the kiddies on how to save the earth and be a good “citizen”. There are no doubt items there that some folks may “need” but it all seemed a little, I don’t know, creepy to me. Not that I want the earth to go away or anything. Plus the prices were markedly higher on a lot of the items. Costs a lot to save the earth. ;>}

[gr8eman]

I go there to drink good beer (yes they have a bar) and watch all the good looking girls...lots of yuppies!

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I don’t think I’d call him ‘’’rightwing”.

From Wikipedia.
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s editorial on August 11, 2009, in The Wall Street Journal criticizing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act produced a storm of controversy.

“In a debate in Reason magazine among Mackey, economist Milton Friedman, and entrepreneur T. J. Rodgers, Mackey said that he is a free market libertarian.[12] He said that he used to be a democratic socialist in college. As a beginning businessman he was challenged by workers for not paying adequate wages and by customers for overcharging, during a time when he was hardly breaking even. He began to take a more capitalistic worldview, and discovered the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.[13] Mackey is an admirer of some of author Ayn Rand’s novels.[14]

Mackey co-founded the organization, Freedom Lights Our World (FLOW), to combine his commitments to “economic and political freedom as well as personal growth, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship.”[15] He supports such changes as green tax shifts, environmental trusts, world legal systems to allow the poor to create legal businesses, and a citizen’s dividend to help the poor in the developed world.[16] The name and focus of FLOW have since become Conscious Capitalism, Inc., which was initially created as a program of FLOW and evolved to the point at which it became the organization’s principal focus. In 2010 the name of the organization was formally changed. The Conscious Capitalism Institute was chartered in 2009. In 2010 the original FLOW group merged with the Institute group to become one unified organization.[17] In 2013 Mackey was interviewed in Harvard Business Review’s Ideacast podcast about his views on Conscious Capitalism.[18] Mackey said, “If you want to be competitive in the long term, your business needs to have discovered its higher purpose and it needs to adopt a stakeholder philosophy.” He eschewed the conventional thinking that “business has to be sort of ruthless and heartless to be successful”.[19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mackey_(businessman)

[School of Rational Thought]

Got that right. Good looking women with money.

[Varda]

There’s a beer store and bar in the local one too. Grocery stores around here mostly have decent cafes and beer. Whole Foods does OK here but it’s got competition.

[Domandred]

I love how they targeted Walmart specifically but their grocery section sells the exact same stuff as every other grocery store in America.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Hmmm. Nothing there about castoreum

[Varda]

He was called a right winger by someone who met him. I’’m not sure that wikipedia page says anything that’s evidence against that.

[tomkat]

Who cares ?

[tomkat]

looks like i should've quoted you .. lol