Posted on 06/04/2006 11:08:53 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart, the bane of all limousine liberals and aging hippies, has entered the "crunchy granola" market:
Beginning later this year, Wal-Mart plans to roll out a complete selection of organic foods — food certified by the U.S.D.A. to have been grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers — in its nearly 4,000 stores. Just as significant, the company says it will price all this organic food at an eye-poppingly tiny premium over its already-cheap conventional food: the organic Cocoa Puffs and Oreos will cost only 10 percent more than the conventional kind. Organic food will soon be available to the tens of millions of Americans who now cannot afford it — indeed, who have little or no idea what the term even means. Organic food, which represents merely 2.5 percent of America's half-trillion-dollar food economy, is about to go mainstream.
With organic food about to become as "mainstream" and "middle America" as Ford Explorers, Kraft singles and "American Idol," how long before the so-called "elites" find it no longer has the same "counterculture" appeal as Volvos, brie and NPR?
I wouldn't mind Wally World if I didn't have to fight the Walmartians when I go there. However, I have discovered Target. It used to be pretty Walmartish years ago, but gee whiz, the one here is really nice and clean and a whole different group of shoppers. Plus their selection is way better than Walmart. I'm not a Walmart basher, but I really dislike the one in our area.
susie
Peter: Look, my Alpha-bits are scary..."Ooooo."
Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.
Really? Well, of course I was raised on those tv dinner things back when they were really tv dinners. Instant mashed potatoes, mystery meat, spam....so, pretty much I will eat anything. Probably why I'm so....um.....plush!
;)
susie
You are of course, correct. Very unlike my home state (TX). I gotta admit that that I lied when I said the Whole Food in Boca was the rudest place. The Boys is actually worse! I only shop there during the off season, and even then I have to wait until I'm having PMS so I can hold my own.
susie
True. I actually used to like old folks....til I moved here. I actually avoid Publix near my house and shop instead at Albertsons. Mainly because it's not very crowded, so I can avoid the rude people easier.
susie
Why do you have to call fellow Freepers nazis? Not one of them wants to force you to eat anything.
I did not call any Freepers nazis. Read the article.
C'mon, yer blowin' smoke with that one. What kind of dog do you have? Is it spelled D-O-G?
FMCDH(BITS)
There are always people who are snobs. It applies to anything, a friend from high school liked Guns and Roses until they were "popular". Was the music any different? No, but its a way some people consider themselves elite.
My friend thinks I am a beer snob since I won't drink Bud and some other domestic brews. I would rather drink a soda before I had a Bud, because Bud really messes up my stomach and I pay for drinking Bud the next day.
Regardless of what the name "Organic" implies, you can still get a case of E-Coli from vegetables fertilized from "organic" cow manure.
To get rid of birds, you need "sight" alarms. Get some plastic kiddie snakes or a fake owl (you can get those at Walmart (garden area)) and set them up in the tree.
I'm always amazed at the number of organic food shoppers who are on botox.
Because it means that it is no longer special.
It is like good coffee. Now that everyone and his brother can make gourmet quality coffee the anointed ones have moved on to tea.
Me, I like coffee. :)
I have been blessed with a farmer's market, a health food store and a mega-mart in easy shopping distance. There are only a few things I buy at the HFS, a lot of the exact same processed organic foods are carried at the mega mart for about 20% less and the produce at the farmer's market is fresher because of high turn over.
But the farmers market and the megamart aren't trendy.
I've done that! Mexican Walmarts sell very good ceviche (which, as raw fish, is not all that different from sushi). I've eaten it and I'm not dead yet.
I'm not particularly a beer snob, but I won't drink Bud either. Tastes bad, more filling!
Here in the "granola belt" of Western Wash. State there has been a big proliferation of organic food retailers. No big surprise there. It's gotten to the point where one of the local yuppie/upscale supermarket chains was driven into bankruptcy. Even the "blue collar" supermarket chains here have two or three aisles for organic and "natural" foods. There is a second Whole Foods being built near me about 10 miles from where another one opened a year or two ago.
I prefer organic for certain produce...things like strawberries for example. Organic processed foods --- organic potato chips and tortilla chips, etc --- are overpriced and often funky tasting to say the least. I'd rather buy a quality locally-produced brand, whether it is organic or otherwise.
Sorry, thought you were doing a pre-emptive strike on some Freepers. I see that pulled here all the time and I had no right to accuse you of that.
Because anything, no matter how natural and healthy, has to be EVIL if any liberal anywhere actually partakes of it.
Now, anyone who pauses a moment to think it through would realize that food lacking traces of pesticides and chemical fertilizers -- indeed almost identical to the food found in the average vegetable garden in that regard -- has to be better for one than something dosed in chemicals. However, we are dealing with unthinking knee-jerkism here and not rationality.
May have to try that. I'm stuck with skim milk because milk fat does not agree with me. Anything with more flavor, but without the drawbacks has got to be on my shopping list.
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