This would be shocking news to all the people I know who buy organic food. The one thing they claim over and over is that they don’t like putting poison in they’re bodies. Never once have I heard someone say they do it for the environment, and it’s certainly marketed as a more healthy option.
SOME reason? THE reason is that they price their groceries very high, and the addition of a moderate amount of hyperbole makes plausible the proposition that a few sacks of them will cost you your whole paycheck.
So I am not a Whole Foods shopper, But among the stores I go to is independant grocery store that is at or slightly above the price point of Whole Foods as I understand it, and is also at or above the quality of WF.
One quick service example is that The expensive place has maybe 200-300 cheeses and is happy to give me a tasty-taste of any of them.
Meijer has maybe 3-4 dozen? cheeses. The dozen or so in the Kraft/Sargento etc area, then the 25-30 special ones in the fancy case(ie.Parmigiano,smoked Gouda, Gruyere) but they are all factory sealed. And then a few other brands of the same types in the butcher case you can get a taste of.
Personally for me, the Cheese, along with booze and special occasion meat/fish is my main reason for going there. They also have a good selection of some of the more exotic Asian stuff, so I can often save a trip driving way over to the Asian store.
I don’t buy my Cheerios there because they are too damn expensive, Meijer or Kroger for that. And I do internally shake my head when I see some young hispter couple buying a cart entirely of Kraft mayo, Heinz Ketchup, Ballpark hot dogs etc that they are paying 25-30% more for then that have to.
The problem here is the term “healthier” which, unless you qualify it as to why it’s healthier, tends to get conflated with a variety of ways that food can be healthy.
So you end up with articles like this:
Where people are looking at nutrient levels in organic vs standard modern practices, and finds that (with one possible exception) they aren’t higher in nutrients.
That people then turn around and say “well, obviously organic isn’t healthier for you, thus spending more on organic is pointless”
But the original point of organic farming wasn’t to make food that was better for you, it was to produce food in a way that embraced responsible stewardship of the land.
Bloomington, IN resident checking in:
East side Marsh is still vacant, BTW. I’m kind of bummed about Lucky’s, but they weren’t the same after Kroger got their hands on them. I’d really like to see a Trader Joe’s in Bloomington, but I think that there are certain contractual and geographic conditions that will prevent that from happening.
I know that’s the reason. But the “joke” of calling it Whole Paycheck doesn’t have any humor and isn’t clever because there is no connection between the words “paycheck” and “foods.” It makes just as much sense as calling it Whole Wallet or Whole Savings or Whole Pocketbook.
You fork over your whole entire paycheck just buying groceries.
For most people, a paycheck damn well better cover more than just the groceries.
What store is that, though? We don’t really have “local” stores. There’s something call “Westborn market,” but the selection is pitiful and the prices reflect the rent that they must be paying in their location.
I didn’t quote all the cheese and meat stuff, but I actually find that I get better stuff at Costco for those two, specific cases. I don’t get the selection, but I get the quality. I don’t need 20 different Camemberts if the one they have is excellent. Oh, I’m still on the lookout for some truly awesome cheddar, though.