Posted on 04/29/2014 8:03:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Fortune has a puff piece out on Whole Foods Market (WFM, a stock in which I have no interest and no intended interest), the up-scale purveyor of excellent prepared food, overpriced groceries with multiple claimed but unsubstantiated benefits, phony health remedies, and the oxymoronic concept of “healthy indulgence.” It made its reputation by pushing healthier living and selling food that doesn’t contain the pesticides and additives that are often staples of “regular” food.
The Whole Foods approach has worked in that its share price is up about 12-fold since its November 2008 recession-era low versus 130 percent for the S&P 500 index. “Great brands impose a view on you,” WFM consultant Kevin Kelley says, and Whole Foods is no exception. “One of the faults that traditional groceries have is they believe the customer is always right.” Today, Whole Foods has a list of 78 banned ingredients, ranging from aspartame to foie gras to high-fructose corn syrup. You may want a Coke, but you can’t get one at Whole Foods.
However, when I took a look at the ingredients that provided Whole Foods its success, the whole thing became far less appetizing. The Whole Foods emphasis on “natural” foods is obviously silly. There is no such thing as non-natural food. Moreover, at least in the United States, it has no consistent meaning. Indeed, the federal Food and Drug Administration explicitly discourages the food industry from using the term. But that doesn’t stop Whole Foods. After all, it’s working.
Oh that a bit of silliness were the only problem. Despite broad scientific consensus that genetically modified food poses no greater health risks than other types of food, Whole Foods says it will require all its vendors to label products with GMOs by 2018 and suggests (at least by inference) that such food isn’t really good for you. Whole Foods would also have you believe that organic produce (which is, not so coincidentally, much more expensive than “regular” produce) will help you stay healthier, even though a major study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (nicely summarized here) examining hundreds of scientific studies over many years found no evidence of health benefits from organic foods. “There’s a definite lack of evidence,” emphasizes Crystal Smith-Spangler of the Stanford University School of Medicine and an author of the study.
But these issues aren’t all that much to be really upset about. If people want to overpay for something they think will make them healthier, the fact that it doesn’t isn’t too big of a deal. Nobody’s getting hurt and people are stupid all the time. However, the Whole Foods story gets still worse – much worse.
As reported by Michael Schulson in The Daily Beast, Whole Foods pitches homeopathic remedies (such as homeopathic remedies for allergies, homeopathic remedies for colds and flu, Boiron homeopathic medicines and even cures for cancer) as well as other foods and “drugs” that make medical claims that are simply false. Homeopathy is, after all, pure quackery. Whole Foods also sells probiotics — live bacteria given to (allegedly) treat and prevent disease – but it’s a total scam: “If you are a normal human, with a normal diet, save your money. Probiotics have nothing to offer but an increased cost.”
Phony claims such as these are far more damaging than simply pushing “natural” and organic foods. That’s because such fake remedies often cause people to forego substantive medical care that might actually help. For example, such an approach may well have cost Steve Jobs his life, to his obvious regret.
Sadly, it isn’t just customers who have fallen for the Whole Foods hype. “They’re a leading national authority on health and nutrition,” says BB&T Capital Markets analyst Andrew Wolf, “and unequivocally the leading retailer on the link between food and health.” As if.
My friend Josh Brown even fell for the WFM nonsense: “There’s a lesson in the Whole Foods brand that I think carries a great example for my organization and possibly yours as well: The customers are not always right and, more importantly, they sometimes wants [sic] to be told what’s best for them and to have harmful options taken away from within their grasp.” Unfortunately, what customers are told is all too frequently in error and obviously bad for them, as Whole Foods so aptly demonstrates.
Happily, I have every confidence that Josh is doing right by his clients. And I completely agree with Josh’s conclusion: “Zealous advocacy is not fascism, and steering a customer away from something they don’t need or shouldn’t want is just as important as the actual suggestions you are making.” But Whole Foods is far from a good example of “doing [what] is superior and in the clients’ best interest.” In fact, Whole Foods should be a cautionary tale rather than an exemplar.
Maybe there really is a sucker born every minute and Whole Foods will continue to survive and even thrive despite its bogus marketing. But I’d like to think that truth will out, at least eventually.
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.
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.
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.
Nice story re: your brother!
And since you follow the diet yourself, I don’t see it as insulting.
It's an option (LoneStar card, here in TX) on the the CC swiper, at WF and the other grocery stores we shop.
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.
Anyone using an EBT card at Whole Foods is going to see his balance go down or run out - and quickly...
But as long as people are gullible enough to buy it, it's not over-priced.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 !
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.
Very True ! Thanks
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.
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