I just found out today that a Whole Foods is going to be built close to my neighborhood. Too bad it’s not an Earth Fare.
While many crunchy, green mamas might rejoice at Whole Foods coming to town, I am in mourning because Whole Foods is basically on par with your “neighborhood”  Walmart.
There is nothing “neighborly” about Walmart or Whole Foods.
What a joke.
Whole Foods is just another cutthroat Corporate Bully dressed in organic, “let’s save the world”, “buy local” disguise with the shareholders in full throttle, profit taking control.
While Whole Foods is undoubtedly counting on health conscious Moms like me in the neighborhood cha-chinging away at the brand spanking new registers, let me just share with you that you won’t see The Healthy Home Economist browsing the aisles there.
I’ll be shopping at the 2 small, local healthfood stores less than a mile away where I’ve shopped for the past 15 years. Â That’s where my business loyalty lies.
I spend almost all my food money with local businesses and local farms. Â Not Whole Foods.
How could I possibly rationalize shopping at Whole Foods which has recently rolled over on the GMO issue in the United States by suggesting that we all need to “learn to live with GMO’s” by accepting the USDAs proposal for “peaceful” coexistence between organics and genetically modified foods?
Here is Whole Foods’ official statement on the matter:
The reality is that no grocery store in the United States, no matter what size or type of business, can claim they are GMO-free. While we have been and will continue to be staunch supporters of non-GMO foods, we are not going to mislead our customers with an inaccurate claim (and you should question anyone who does). Here’s why: the pervasive planting of GMO crops in the U.S. and their subsequent use in our national food supply. 93% of soy, 86% of corn, 93% of cotton, and 93% of canola seed planted in the U.S. in 2010 were genetically engineered. Since these crops are commonly present in a wide variety of foods, a GMO-free store is currently not possible in the U.S. (Unless the store sells only organic foods.)
Since the U. S. national organic standards do not allow the use of GMO ingredients and practices in the growing or production of organic foods, choosing organic is one way consumers can avoid GMO foods. The other is through labeling, of which we are strong supporters.Â
Hey Whole Foods, here’s a novel idea:  How about selling only organic and local foods then? That would solve the problem nicely wouldn’t it?
I don’t know about you, but that statement screams “sell-out” to me. Even more damaging, Whole Foods recently endorsed the peaceful coexistence option with regard to GE alfalfa rather than an outright ban. The unrestricted planting of GE alfalfa that starts as early as this spring threatens the entire grassfeeding dairy industry over the long term as alfalfa hay is an integral part of winter feeding.
Whole Foods is all about corporate profits and management can shade it and couch it any way they like, but the message is loud and clear: Â corporate profit and shareholder gains are more important than sticking to the basic sustainability ideals Whole Foods was founded upon.
Do you want your neighborhood healthfood stores and farmer’s markets to suffer revenue losses from business ruthlessly stripped away by a Whole Foods coming to town?
If not, you can choose to stay away like me and treat Whole Foods like just another supermarket or Walmart: Â a place of last resort where budget dollars are rarely if ever spent.
Note: as of July 2012, it appears that Whole Foods is still sourcing much of its “organic” produce from China which provides further verification of the video below.
In addition, as of June 2015, Whole Foods’ new veggie rating system can rank conventional produce grown in another country ahead of organic, local produce!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
I get my produce, meat, milk and eggs from a local farm and don’t go to Whole Foods very often. I did not know about the 365 store brand organic veggies being from China. That’s disgusting. I don’t buy frozen veggies typically so I never would have known. WF is like any other business. As a consumer, I like to have information so that I can make informed choices.
Sarah, thanks for bringing this to our attention. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned from reading your website! I thought I was pretty diligent and scrutinizing of the advertising and media industry, but you’ve opened my eyes about so much of what’s in our food. Thank you for what yo do! It truly makes a difference.
I don’t view the issue as black and white. My WF buys from local organic farmers as well as big food corporations. I pick and chose what I shop at WF. I think there are worse “natural foods” stores to buy from, like Sprouts and Sunflower markets, than WF.
I work for an agency that leases land for agriculture to many “mom and pop” conventional and organic farmers. The organic farmers will rotate their crops to conventional when their weeds start getting out of hand and they need to use herbicide. I have a hard time deamonizing anyone because they use herbicides or grow GMOs when I have personally met conventional farmers. I may not choose to buy my foods that are grown non-organically, but I’m not going to boycott a store because they do sell GMOs or conventionally grown foods.
I also struggle with which is worse: driving half an hour or hour to buy my pastured meats and eggs and organic veggies from a farm or buying conventional foods at my local grocery store that I can walk to. Sometimes, I decide to buy conventional because I can’t stand to think how much pollution I’m going to cause doing all that driving.
We have a couple of gardens in our yard which pretty much provide all the veggies and hopefully this year, most of the fruit we eat during the year. My husband hunts so we have most of our meat local and organic, we just need to find somewhere to buy local raw milk/cream/cheese and we’re set
My boyfriend works at Whole Foods and he’s so unimpressed, more like completely frustrated. More often than not, people come in there because they heard Dr. Oz talk about a particular product and they come running in there and they don’t have a clue. Also, they sell some of the worst “health” foods available and promote TVP, edamame, tofu, “organic” canola oil, soy, almond, and rice “milk” (yuck, yuck, and YUCK!)…you get the point! I only shopped there because I was able to get some items found on the WAPF shopping guide (I need to update to the 2012 guide). Besides, he doesn’t make enough money to shop there and I’m better going online or finding a farmer’s market.
I agree with Sarah.
I completely agree with you, Sarah, and I would stand on principle if I could. Unfortunately, my family’s income has been halved since I lost my job and we are now on food stamps. WF is one of the few options for buying healthy food in my area. The locally owned health food stores and farmer’s markets here don’t accept food stamps but WF does, so I shop at Meijer and WF.
I was getting a milk delivery once a week from a local farm here in TX. (Low-temp pasturized, non-homogenized, grass-fed Jersey. Unfortunately the closest source of raw milk is over 1 1/2 hours away) I was paying $7 a gallon for the milk and I had to drive about 1 hour round trip to get it every week, but I did it faithfully. A few weeks ago I went into my local WF which is about 10 min from my house and lo and behold, there was my dairy’s milk!! I was so excited! Now it’s more convenient to pick up and we don’t have the hassle of being out of town and missing the delivery day until the next week, etc. Oh, and it’s a dollar cheaper per gallon!
Yes, WF has problems. (I mean, Veganaisse! Gross!) Tons of soy products, organic milk, etc. But they also have grass-fed meat from local farmers and many other healthy items. I do buy from farmer’s markets in the summer, however, I think some of these can be just as deceiving since not all of them have a commitment to no pesticides, herbicides and so on.
Sarah, I have learned a wealth of information from you and your blog. I try to take that information with me when i shop, WHEREVER I shop, to get the best quality food I can by reading labels, asking questions, and not just blindly buying something because it’s in a ‘healthfood’ store. But I’m also grateful to WF to an extent because they have given my local farm the opportunity to sell more of their product, which makes them more profitable, which gives them the resources to continue farming. And I feel like that’s a good thing.
At least in my area Whole Foods is creating a large enough market for local and regional pasture based farmers to have a market to sell into. I have no problem with that.
Mine too. I have been LOVING seeing my local farmers grass fed beef and heritage pastured pork sold @ my WF. I’m thrilled to see people @ the butcher counter ordering it. Of course I buy it for less $ directly from my farmer 95% of the time but I think it’s FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC it now takes up about 1/3 of the butcher case at my Whole Foods. LOVE IT. Why boycott when you can just vote in-store with your dollar?