For the love of all that is good...

I have family in Iowa who tell me there are no Whole Foods stores anywhere in the state and they hope there will never be any. (However, there are those west of Des Moines that go as far as Omaha, Nebraska to shop at the one there) That does not mean, however, that Iowa is immune to big-box-stores and chains. The largest cities there have too many of them and in many of the smaller towns, Wal-Mart is the ONLY place to shop. The farmers' markets all over there thankfully thrive.

Whole Foods was founded/co-founded by one of those Libertarians obviously wishing that some disease would take the unions away, ah-ha. It is unfortunate. When I tell people I know who shop there, they are stunned. They think that most or all conscientious food consumers are liberal/progressive. Not always so.

Shopping local is indeed sooooo important, and I would definitely recommend that if there is a farmers' market in your area, support it regularly and often while it is in-season!

I love Whole Foods, actually.

True, if they bought from local farmers, that would be fabulous - but in this economy, buying in bulk is sensible and smart and the local farmers would have to charge more [if you didn't notice, the prices at Whole Foods are already quite ridiculous].

The owner is a very strong libertarian and with libertarianism comes realism.
Whole Foods follows humane standards and the company is PETA-friendly, which is more than one can say for most companies distributing food these days.
Not only has this company looked for the best for the customers, but the owner is also a strict vegan with high health standards. He gives the people what they want.

Not only that, but the founder doesn't overpay staff - typical smart libertarian move there [which the car companies could benefit from].

On another note - the Whole Foods market cannot legally prevent workers from unionizing -
I'm particularly anti-union myself, knowing the incredibly damage unions can do [cough car companies cough]
The union busting incident occured in 2002, and was dealt with accordingly.

"During the late 1990s, the UFW persuaded several large supermarket chains to sign a pledge in support of improved wages and working conditions for strawberry pickers. Whole Foods chose instead to support the farmworkers directly by holding a "National 5% Day" where five percent of that day's sales — $125,000 — were donated to organizations which provide social services to farmworkers"

Green-wise the company is superb as well as Whole Foods placed fifth on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the "Top 25 Green Power Partners", and has received several awards for it's support and useage of green technology.

Whole foods is run by a libertarian who carries out his beliefs throughout the entire company - and it's pretty successful while becoming a beacon for other companies with lower standards. Of course the company has issues - but the goal of the company is to make money and provide good, safe products that do not harm the environment.

So, to sum it up-

kudos to John Mackey!

i appreciate your sentiments debbie. i personally avoid shopping at any national chains as much as possible. but it certainly is a complicated landscape out there, especially for lower-income folks and folks with less-accessibility to fresh, local goods.

on the one hand you can look at whole foods as a lesser of two evils. or you can look at the success of whole foods as a representation of how our world has shifted from big agriculture, canned goods, preservatives etc to more of an awareness of organics, the green movement etc.

i'm constantly wondering whether that's a healthy thing or not. the more "popular" certain movements become, the more likely it is that some big corporation is going to figure out how to bastardize that idea to make the most money possible and staying just inside the legal and moral lines to suck-in the casual consumer, who thinks their doing the right thing. i'm thinking of things like industrial organics, bio-diesel and things of that sort. when you take anything to a massive scale like that it becomes counter to what the original intent was.

oh one more thing i thought was interesting. i just read this somewhere recently (maybe on this blog?) last year's new oxford dictionary word of the year was locavore. it's a movement!

okay, enough of my ramblings. thanks for the discussion!

~ toni ~

the first time i ever heard of wholefoods, it was because they had a policy against hairy legs and armpits for female workers. the second time, it was about inhumane strawberries. i haven't trusted them since. it doesn't help that their vegan selection isn't any better than smaller stores, and in places other than nyc (where i live) there is practically no premade fresh vegan selection.