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Whole Foods: America's Temple of Pseudoscience
__roo writes "Many Americans get riled up about creationists and climate change deniers, but lap up the quasi-religious snake oil at Whole Foods. It's all pseudoscience — so why are some kinds of pseudoscience more equal than others? That's the question the author of this article tackles: 'From the probiotics aisle to the vaguely ridiculous Organic Integrity outreach effort ... Whole Foods has all the ingredients necessary to give Richard Dawkins nightmares. ... The homeopathy section has plenty of Latin words and mathematical terms, but many of its remedies are so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule of the substance they purport to deliver.' He points out his local Whole Foods' clientele shop at a place where a significant portion of the product being sold is based on simple pseudoscience. So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
Don't 90% of Americans still believe in God? Why should their believe in any other myth be surprising.
Go to Safeway or any other supermarket and take a look around. Or do you really think that post cereals promote heart health? Hell, it took a law suite to stop "vitamin" water from claiming health benefits from their sugar water.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
Because so many of you are idiots? The left is just as full of religious whackos as the right is.
While Whole Foods does sell a lot of homeopathy items, that is *hardly* its entire character as a store. I, along with no doubt many others, go there because it's a specialty grocery store that has a lot of interesting foods that you can't find other places, including (and especially) a big variety of craft beers and vegetarian stuff. Their produce and bulk sections are also hard to beat for variety and freshness, and the prepared-foods section is great when you're on your way home and don't feel like cooking.
I'm no Whole Foods shill, and it does have its share of silliness. But comparing it to the Creation Museum is completely ridiculous and has no place in serious discourse.
so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule
...but THAT is what makes it so effective!
Looks like Dice and _roo are in teh pockets of big pharma and big grocery !!!1!
Here's another alarming trend: people are starting to use "homeopathy" to mean "holistic, nature-based, alternative medicine". When you tell them what homeopathy really means you will get "well that's not what it means to me! i mean in the more general sense" or "meanings change over time!".
THL phish sticks
AFAIK, Whole Foods main business is not quack snake oil - it's organic produce. (Or is it? I mean, it's been so long since I entered one of these over-priced supermarket...)
Here is another example: a lot of newspapers have an astrology/horoscope section - or even a religion section - does that make them entirely anti-science? Nope.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Whole Foods has many products that regular grocery stores do not. I go there, buy the product I want, and leave. Yes, there are some aisles full of oddness, but I just skip those ones. In the end, it's just a store; buy what you want, leave what you don't.
It's kind of like Best Buy; just because Monster cables are such a stupid overpriced quasi-religion doesn't mean I shouldn't go to Best Buy; it just means I shouldn't buy those cables.
As a person with many dietary restrictions, I shop at Whole Foods for their Wheat/Milk alternatives. Not everyone shopping at Whole Foods is covering their babies in fish oil.
Creationists brainwash school children into believing fairy tales.
Climate change deniers prevent necessary environmental laws to be passed.
Homeopathy only hurts gullible people.
Some evils are just more evil than others.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
... no one, even well educated people, have the time to sift through all the bullshit. Many well meaning people confuse terms marketers came up with to purposefully obfuscate the product with "healthy food". If you don't keep up on that stuff (which most people dont), it would be trivial to be mislead by healthy sounding words through relentless advertising and association.
When you name yourself something like "Whole foods" you give yourself a different aura, you project "healthy food" not pseudo-science. Not to mention we've had vitamin/mineral half pseudo-science for a while that kind of gave hucksters an in to sneak their bullshit in under "healthy foods". The science for a lot of stuff is difficult/vague and takes a long time to do studies and companies can't wait to exploit the health conscious aspects of peoples brains by confusing them with marketing speak and over promoting the benefits of marginal "health aiding" products.
Either you're a troll, or you're very very stupid. Or possibly both. Who am I to judge?
Creation museum: customers tend to be poor, relatively uneducated, and don't understand basic science.
Whole Foods: customers are almost exclusively well-off, expensively educated, and don't understand basic science.
Everyone's stupid about something.
Does it smell of the orifice it was pulled out of?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
It's easy -- because in many ways "science" has become a religion to many. However, many people lack a firm understanding of scientific principles and methods. So, if something looks "science-y" with Latin words, molecular drawings and other intelligent-sounding but hard-to-understand descriptions.
These days people have "faith" in "science"..and if that so-called science goes along with their worldview (which Whole Foods is self-selecting in that a certain worldview makes someone more likely to become a shopper there), then they may blindly accept it. Very few people have the skills and motivation to actually analyze the claims of these manufacturers and just go with their biases when making a decision.
So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
1) Whole Foods is a grocery store, the Creation Museum claims to be a museum.
2) Certain states aren't trying to teach children the "controversy" surrounding dandelion root extract supposedly curing my ailments. There isn't a national debate surrounding gluten-free pancake mix. Politicians don't get elected to office by appealing to the "this organic sea salt is only 4000 years old" crowd.
Sometimes it's the closest grocery to where I am...
Often the produce is remarkably less gross than other chains.
The rest of the products are sufficient that it's easier to may their markup than travel elsewhere.
Finally, Placebo effect, though I don't actually buy from the homeopathy section...
It's the entire existance of the Creation Museum. To be fair I would like to see them get rid of that one aisle.
Whole Foods is doing a lot of really good initiatives, see:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.co...
And they don't just say blindly yes God said so to questions like "Is Organic better for you?:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.co...
And probiotics after taking antibiotics makes logical sense.... I remember a study that showed that our natural bacteria wasn't at the same level 1 year after taking antibiotics (please don't use this as an excuse to not take antibiotics). If we have the right probiotics available to us is a different story. My wife just got antibiotics and the hospital recommened probiotics...
*Disclaimer: I own a small bit of Whole Foods stock. I'm sure this post will greatly increase it's value....
Look at who is vehemently perpetuating this pseudoscience. People like Orrin Hatch have neutered the FDA in regard to dietary supplements.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin...
If whole foods was pushing to include their advertising/propaganda into the Health Education school curriculum under the banner of teach the controversy I think you see an equal reaction.
Everyone and I mean EVERYONE simply believes what they want. No, really. We all have a world view that makes sense to us.
Hate Republicans? Then you believe in socialism, you know, for the children. Hate commie bastards? You probably believe that God gave the deed to Israel to Jews.
Purely rational? Not like those other dumbasses that believe in that goofy shit? Then you probably believe you really see the world completely, no limitations, no illusions, no misunderstandings.
If so, you're the most obnoxious of them all.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
If the Creation Museum starts stocking the same selection of beer and cheese that Whole Foods does, I might swing through from time to time if I'm in the neighborhood.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Dumb question: it's about the actions of the believers. That's why the anti-vax kooks (whotends to skew left) gets a similar reaction to the creationists and climate wackos.
Granted that homeopathy stuff is ridiculous pseudoscience, but the difference is that nobody is trying to push it as a driver of public policy. When I shop at Whole Foods, it's for the tasty, tasty bread and local salsa and nobody minds that I walk right past the snake oil. I don't have a problem with creationism, I have a problem with it being forced on others. That's why we perceive it differently.
"It's all pseudoscience"
Over generalization. I would vote this entire article down and the original poster who submitted it.
What is really repugnant is people with medical degrees hawking snake oil and "alternative" therapies. I cringe every time I see Dr. Oz legitimizing some quack idea posited by a guest and he never challenges them on their BS. Then there's the MD quack Dr. Richard Becker who's show is effectively infomercial for his noni juice and vitamin supplements. These type of doctors are even more evil than traditional snake oil salesman because, rather than outright lying, they string together a series of unrelated/uncorrelated facts to influence their viewers into believing something that isn't true. You can't assail them on any one statement because taken piecewise everything is true.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
But he spread his fire much too wide, and seems to make a lot of assumptions himself. I wonder if, in the part about bread processing, he could have confused organic bread with gluten free bread. Mere crumbs of regular bread can indeed make people with Celiac disease sick. I have a few friends and relatives that shop at health food stores specifically for gluten-free products; and the last time I checked, autoimmune disorders are very real and not just cooked up by a bunch of hippies.
Because people are dumb like that.
Everyone wants to believe in a magical solution. Even if the "magic" is junk science, bad math and buzzword overload.
And, because they imagine themselves socially conscious, and have been indoctrinated into WANTING to be thought of that way, and WANTING to be part of the "healthy foods" movement, that they'll embrace pretty much ANY snake oil that comes along.
This isn't new. This has been going on for centuries. And a certain number of people are ALWAYS going to fall for this kind of crap. It's just, with the larger population now (than ever before) that snake oil like this can stand out so brazenly. And what do they do? they adopt the appearance of yet another cultural staple, the supermarket, to further sell their snake oil.
It only ends when people stop acting stupidly and allowing other people to tell them what they want. (i.e. never).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's a matter of politics. People long for simple answers to hard questions, and pseudoscience is the modern equivalent of alchemy and magic. Most Americans are not good at science, but would never admit it, because they need to believe they're "smart." Whether someone chooses to believe in creationism or Whole Foods silliness is largely a matter of political preferences. It's frustrating because the concept of the scientific method is easy to understand, and should be learned in school.
I have never heard of Whole Foods. If people want to eat some organic stuff, why would I care?
Why single out Whole Foods? The cold/flu aisles of the local CVS & Walgreens are packed with explicitly homeopathic and semi-secretly homeopathic (e.g. Zicam) "cures". Drug stores carrying these things bothers me more than whole foods. Plus, I have many *other* reasons to hate on Whole Foods that make this seem minor in comparison...
No pun intended. Homeopathy and the anti-GMO campaign don't belong in the same bucket. Homeopathy works on the placebo effect. Yes indeedy, that's pseudocience if you believe in it. It "works for that guy" much like prayer. OTOH, running a massive experiment on all of humanity by GMOing foods is more anti-science to me. There is no way to have a control group. Just like drugs that get onto the market and they discover that 1 out of a million people get heart attacks from the drug. There was no way to test that drug properly before releasing it. Likewise, there is no way to test the long-term effects of GMOs on large populations before releasing them. The fact that some of us would rather be in the control group doesn't make us anti-science. It makes us skeptical and that's good. TFA --> recycling bin.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The difference is just a difference in the proportion of products targeted at a demographic. Safeway has a wider audience and wider variety of products. Whole foods just allocates the proportion of their products differently.
Because every grocery store I have ever gone to has also sold similar lies, like religion and diet themed products.
Hate for your hate of homeopathy to make you blind to other forms of lies. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I really dislike both Whole Foods and the politics and pseudo-science of its founder, and basically avoid it entirely.
Besides, they don't call it "Whole Paycheck" for nothing.
How is this poorly written article "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"? Just because the author throws in the term "pseudo-science"?
There is no reasonable correlation between Whole Foods Market and the Creation Museum. Any grocery store has just as much shit in it as Whole Foods does. Whole Foods does actually carry more healthy foods than my normal grocery store, and their deli department is exceptional. If I could afford it, I would likely live almost exclusively on their deli foods.
There is homeopathic snake-oil in every grocery store and pharmacy. If you want to assault homeopathy, be my guest. Those fuckers are stealing money from idiots who are too fucking stupid to know any better.
And I don't understand the correlation between Whole Foods and liberalism. I know many very conservative people who shop at Whole Foods simply because they have higher quality products, or products that they can't find elsewhere. I'd prefer to shop at the local co-op, but it's filled with dirty fucking hippies. I'm about as liberal as they come (true liberal, meaning I did not vote for Obama and I was opposed to ACA), but those stinking fucking hippies drive me away. The only reason I went to the co-op recently was to buy Dead Sea salt, which I didn't even use. I only bought them because the dirty, stinking, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist hippies were protesting them and calling for a boycott. Same reason I bought a SodaStream that I'll never even use. But I digress...
There are plenty of people upset about and angry at Whole Foods. I don't think the author makes his point at all.
I don't think they even bother doing the dilutions. They say they do, and probably have someone doing it for show, but that's it. The mass production just uses plain old sugar made into pills and regular water.
After all, how can you tell? The end result is the same whether you actually do the dilutions or just said you did. Heck, you don't even need any of the materials you diluted from.
And no, using equipment doesn't help - it falls below the detectable threshold for chemical analysis equipment.
Hrm, perhaps it's time to open my own homeopathy factory. The markups are awesome.
...you tell the difference by looking for the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Not falsifiable? Not science. Falsification criteria doesn't exclude other explanations? Not sufficient.
Creationism is not falsifiable, evolution is.
Astrology is not falsifiable, astronomy is.
Now, for bonus points, what pseudoscientific idea did the article submitter defend as scientific, without realizing it?
FTA: "So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
Because the Creationism Museum has a crappy cafeteria.
"So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
Because Whole Foods appeals to the liberal crowd, while the Creation Museum appeals to the fundamentalist conservative crowd. The former is the base of the main-stream media, while the latter is the former's target of ridicule and derision. So which enterprise do you think is naturally going to be cast in a better public light by most media reporting?
The Creation Museum does not sell me anything useful. The hype surrounding their "product" is exactly what they are trying to sell and I am not buying any of it.
At Whole Foods I can buy an orange without buying a belief system. At the Creation Museum, the apples come with a whole set of beliefs attached to them.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Not all of us are taken in by naturopaths.
The only difference is some confidence tricksters are feeding on different demographics.
So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?
Because I can ignore the food shop if I don't care, it only corrupts those who go there voluntarily. Creationists, on the other hand, are corrupting public schools, classrooms and textbooks with their bullshit.
Any food fanatic who triest to force his pseudo-science down the throats of school-children deserves the same opposition, but as long as they don't, they're not quite as evil as the religious child-mind-rapers.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
..because despite catering to psuedoscientists, Whole Foods tends to stock quality (if overpriced) food.
Overpriced, I'll agree with, but quality? Almost all the fresh produce has "conventially grown in Mexico" in very small print under the high price. The majority of the organic food there is in the packaged and preserved sections.
I disagree.
I have to agree. My local grocery store actually carries many of the products that Whole Foods across the street does. The difference is that the prices are significantly lower at the grocery store (Raley's). While I do buy some organic food it's not for health reasons. It's more because I find it appealing to avoid using pesticides and inorganic fertilizerswhich often end up in our waterways or antibiotics (which promots antibiotic resistant bacteria). I won't pay significantly more for organic though. I don't believe that most organic food is healthier or safer than the alternatives. Hell, I would love to find irradiated salad since there is less chance of getting infected with salmanilla which often gets into salad no matter how much you wash it (after all, birds do fly over fields). I also like the idea of a lot of GMO crops since they often require less water, fertilizer or safer or reduced pesticides/herbacides. I DON'T like how companies like Monsanto operate however. If Whole Foods had good produce for a decent price I would shop there, but their prices are much higher than my grocery store so I don't shop there.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Whole Foods isn't pushing for institutionalized indoctrination like the Creationists and IDer's. There's no "Think of the children!" response to rile the media, and without media attention, we don't get upset about anything.
Add in that organic tends to make it to market quicker and is fresher.
Do you have any fukken idea what probiotics are?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
i was talking to a member of the renal team in my home town and she wryly commented that the low salt idea has been well marked - the trouble is all these low salt foods replace salt with other chemicals which are worse :-)
An adult can choose to be stupid if they want, and that's their right.
The Creation Museum and similar Creationist institutions are trying to substitute their stupid for scientific knowledge in the schools our children go to.
You can take your kids to church and teach them your religion if you want, but when you start trying to undermine basic scientific education for everyone that's a very different thing.
My SO buys a box of instant oatmeal packages at Whole Foods "because it's healthier than the Safeway cereal". The nutrition label says 12 g sugar for the Safeway oatmeal, 12.5 g sugar for the Whole Foods (more or less the same), Under ingredients the Safeway box says "sugar", the Whole Foods box says "Boiled Cane Syrup". I guess some people must believe there is a difference between "Sugar" (made from boiled cane syrup) and "Boiled Cane Syrup" (which is sugar).
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?
Have you ever taken a bite of the Creationism Musuem? Now try some of this Whole Foods bread with a little cheese. Do you understand the difference now?
Whole Foods is treated differently because of the moral and intellectual double standards which prevail on the left. Leftists and rightists both treat things differently when they are done by people on "our side" and so practice double standards. The left, however, is particularly bad in that regard.
One example of this was the extremely widespread holocaust denial (or something akin to holocaust denial) which is rampant on the left and has always been. I am not talking about the mass murder in Germany. I am referring to the mass murder in the Soviet Union in the 1930s through the 1950s and even after; the mass murder in Cambodia in the 1970s; and the ongoing mass murder and severe political repression in almost all explicitly "socialist" countries which until recently were the darlings of far leftists everywhere. Those mass murders were denied or disputed by considerable numbers on the left. What's more, the denial of mass murder is ignored by a great many other leftists who do not deny that those murders occurred. There is a double standard. Whereas most leftists would vehemently protest (and rightly so) when someone disputes the Holocaust, they are strangely silent when one of their own disputes the mass killings of leftist regimes.
The denial was especially severe with regard to Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge murdered 1/4th of the population of that country within a few years. A whole industry of professors and leftist figures exist to deny the mass-murder there. Even Noam Chomsky tried hard to deny the killing fields, and tried hard to dispute the reports of massacre emanating from that country. The reason for this denial (I suspect) is because the mass murders followed a socialist revolution and were orchestrated by far leftists who had been educated in Paris, and who had been supported enthusiastically by the far left. The fact that it resulted in mass murder is difficult to accept for people who are convinced of their own ethical superiority. Thus, a double standard evolved.
If Noam Chomsky had been a Nazi sympathizer and had denied the Holocaust, he would be a forgotten figure by now, as he deserves to be, for various reasons. However, he spent his time denying the mass murder in Cambodia, so it was forgotten.
These double standards prevail everywhere. My leftist friends cannot stop laughing at young earth creationism, but are in thrall to pseudoscientific nonsense which makes creationism look sophisticated in comparison. There are all kinds of T-Shirts meant to mock creationism, with a "Teach the Controversy" byline beneath a Triceratops attached to a plow. There are not, however, T-Shirts worn by my leftist friends mocking homeopathy, or all kinds of ancient medical quackery, or "energy medicine", or "multiple chemical sensitivity", or the recent widespread belief that vaccines are dangerous and aren't worth it. Granted, these things are not practiced by most people on the left. However, they are ignored by people on the left who have a scientific understanding, who reserve their vitriol for the pseudoscience of the other side.
There are also double standards with regard to doomsday groups. Each side of the political spectrum mocks the doomsday groups of the other side. People who are waiting for "the end times" are mocked by those on the left. However, peak oiler doomers (almost all of whom were on the far left) who assured us that civilization certainly would collapse before 2008 are largely exempt from that mockery.
I suppose double standards are easy to fall into. It's difficult to condemn one of your own.
The entire of notion of diets is based the purported "psuedo-science" due to a lack of signal in available statistical data. Despite attempted studies, there are almost always too many hidden correlating variables, too short of a sample time, and too few subjects to measure whether or not a given dietary approach has any benefits over another. However, in the absence of such information, one should follow Occam's razor and prefer the simpler solution: natural, unprocessed food is what humans have always eaten and is the best to continue eating. The alternative is almost always to prefer a diet heavy on food has been treated with chemicals, or has made it through a factory at some point (grains and every packaged food that is eaten). Whole Foods strives to provide more naturally risen meats, fruits and vegetables which is highly commendable.
I haven't heard of any threats of Whole Foods attempting to demand any changes to textbooks while the creationists are attempting to cram their religious doctrine down our children's throats. If you don't agree with what Whole Foods is selling, don't go to Whole Foods. I'm more frightened of the growing monopolies within the food industry, a la Monsanto, Tyson and ConAgra. If you want to compare those folks and the creationists then I think you're onto something. Personally, I enjoy Science and choosing to eat healthy food.
Yeah, there goes the cred of this article right there...
I'm dubious of "take this and in 6-12 weeks you'll be cured" but...
I can tell you from experience Tart Black Cherry works just like a medicine for gout.
Take it for 2 days and the pain stops and never comes back.
Stop taking it (i.e. forget) and in a week or so, the pain comes back.
So don't discount everything. There are many herbs and natural remedies that have enough of an effect that you need your doctor to be aware of them.
I've not had any good experience with essential oils or homeopathy personally so I'm dubious of them.
But I have friends who drugs failed (especially for rosacia) and natural remedies worked-- and quickly.
I also know from experience that therapeutic massage (as opposed to fluff massage) can heal injuries traditional medicine want to cure with surgery (some of it fairly invasive). See the trigger point book by "Clair Davies". Awesome stuff.
As a result of these experiences- I can't totally discount homeopathy either. If it worked when nothing else did for me or someone else- I'd believe it. But it would have to actually work, not magical "believe it's working".
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Ignoring the homeopathy nonsense, "whole foods" as they're generally referred to have the benefit of proving themselves through selection over tens of thousands of years. They are the baseline that we're working from, and in general the burden of proof should be put on deviations from that baseline.
Yes, there's been selective breeding, etc. But with the scale & pace of change in food "science" in the last 50 years moving at an exponential pace, there's little in the way of evidence that extremely processed foods are anywhere near as nutritious as "whole" foods.
Instead, there's a ton of anecdotal evidence to the contrary. That food "scientists" don't have anywhere near as robust an understanding of what it healthy & nourishing, and that when they try to break foods down to their constituent chemical parts and build something else from scratch, you get Frankenstein foods that are at their core unhealthy and detrimental to those consuming them.
To call the machinations behind modern food processing a "science" is woefully misleading. There are enormous gaps in knowledge, and if natural foods have proven themselves over a larger order of magnitude of historical time, we should be applying much more rigorous standards to deviations from animal-food relationships that have evolved naturally or at a much slower pace.
And you get people saying, "why should we require GMO food to be labeled? Prove that it's harmful" you have to look at the unhealthy relationship between big agribusiness money and studies saying GMOs are safe. We thought Lead in paint & gasoline were safe, we thought asbestos was safe, we thought dioxins were safe to be used as pesticides & herbicides, we thought tobacco products were safe. Until people started developing horrendous diseases & birth defects, and we learned they weren't. And even then, the manufacturers of those products continued to fund studies & propaganda campaigns to the contrary.
What is the author's beef with probiotics? There has been recent research that suggests gut bacteria directly affect the brain in positive ways.
http://neurosciencenews.com/pr...
I'm right there with you. I'm no fan of Whole Foods or homeopathy. I wanted to bolster your point a bit...
The trick here is that the packaging of these products cleverly avoids ever providing any guidance for usage. It never lists 'indications' like a traditional pharmaceutical package. These products are packaged advertising the contents, and that's it.
Believe you me, if they crossed that line and promised that this product is an effective treatment for this malady, then the FDA would crush those companies into tiny pieces that could be taken orally or rectally. Instead, the promotion of these products is performed by acupuncturists, herbalists, and other quacks who fly under the federal government's radar.
Whole Foods isn't the witchdoctor, it's just the enabler for the witchdoctor's patients.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Safeway has a homeopathy isle too. I can buy needlessly overpriced vitamins just as easily at Safeway as at Whole Foods. Big Whoop.
And frankly, probiotics are pretty useful. So I think this little story has more to say about the preconcieved notions of the author (and half the people in here complaining about whole foods as a Hippy Store) than about Whole Foods. Some people just gotta hate.
I like whole foods. That atmosphere is pleasing, the selection is nice, they actually stock Really Good Chocolate, etc etc. I'm a conscious consumer, and they provide better selection for me. Example, I love chips. Yum! I can get Doritos (yuck!) at Safeway, or I can get chips with an ingredient list I can understand at Whole Foods. What's not to love?
I think everyone here hating on Whole Foods are just using it as a proxy to hate on Libs. Hey, sorry I care about what I put in my body and try to shop accordingly. Sorry I care about the people that farmed my food, and want to shop accordingly. Yes, the Homeopathy isle in ANY store is stupid (Unless you're an expectant Mother, then load up on Folic Acid!)
Trying to equate shopping at Whole Foods to a belief in creationism is just ..... a false equivelancy.
I think most people would be happy for creationists to go on believing whatever the hell they want to believe. Or at least we would be except they're trying to insert The Bible as a data point in the science classroom. They're actually trying to undermine the teaching of science which will undermine tomorrow's teaching of science and before we know it we don't have science, we just have a Bible.
Whole Foods is marketing BS. They deserve the same fight and to come up against regulation (in the EU/UK they'd be forced to withdraw health claims they can't prove) but on the whole, a consumer being conned is not as important as the next generation of scientists not knowing scientific rationale.
Because Whole Foods isn't trying to get homeopathy taught in public schools.
See how easy that was?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I used to merchandise organic foods ot Whole Foods for a while when I was in need of a job. I used to talk with the stockers, and we would laugh about the shit people would buy. But if there is one thing good about the store, Whole Foods has some good pizza. They also sold Thomas Kemper root beer which is pretty awesome root beer.
People Who criticize creationism but do not criticize pseudoscience often have a deep seated hatred for any religion, however benign or benevolent, and find creationism a convenient "lightning rod" or "rallying point" to unleash Their resentment/anger/frustration/etc.
Which, oddly enough, comes full circle to health reasons, even if they're indirect.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
... and will sell what people are buying. I shop there, and never even glance at these aisles. I just get fresh unprocessed food that's hard to get anywhere else these days, cook it myself, lose 120lbs and normalize my bloodwork in doing it.
I can't honestly understand the hate directed at Whole Foods. It seems that if regular grocery retailers would give the customers what they want, then there wouldn't be a market for Whole Foods. You also have to understand that people have become self-centered, selfish and thoroughly caught up in themselves to the point that they'll buy $200 running shoes and not run in them. Yeah they're the same ones buying Under Armour gear and ride a bike like once every six months. It's all about status, like driving that new Tesla. You don't need a Tesla but because you like the smell of your own farts, you buy one and claim that you're doing the best for the environment. You can also afford to buy a new one after your new Tesla burns up and takes 1/2 of your house with it.
Buying from Whole Foods fits that upwardly mobile lifestyle image and it becomes a status symbol for you to pay $20 for granola that you can get at the local A&P for $5. Yeah it may not have the fancy label but it'll be as good if not better for you, but you don't want to have plastic bags from the A&P, you want the paper bags or reusable ones that say "Whole Foods" on them.
Status symbols have been around us for thousands of years, hell when the British depleted their forests in the 17th century they had to import timber from the colonies to make ships. To help raise revenue for the Navy, they taxed Tudor style homes with exposed timber. In spite of this tax it led to more houses being built with that style because it showed the owner could afford the tax and the timber needed to build the home. Whole Foods is just supplying those with Affluenza what they want because you won't see a Whole Foods pop up in East LA or in Northeast DC for example. You may see a WalMart but not a Whole Foods.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
In Mexico, at least, shopping in the known ideologically-green stores is often much more expensive than in regular chain stores (i.e. Walmart and the like). I buy most of my fresh food in the street markets, and it is both quite cheaper than chain stores and of better quality (i.e. food lasts longer, there is a wide range of product qualities on different price points for each produce, etc.)
Now, there are *some* producer-direct organic outlets which are quite cheap, and with great quality... But of course, it's not so easy to get to them (they are often in the countryside, for obvious reasons, and my city is quite big for me to leave it every week or two).
California did not try to add anti-GMO statutes, the proposed law just required labeling. If Monsanto really believed in their product you'd think they'd want to label their foods. Instead they try to keep the consumer ignorant. As a consumer I should have the right to chose GMO or not.
One is bad science the other is denial of science. Bad science is making a falsifiable claim and then not properly verifying it. Denial of science is making a claim that isn't falsifiable. There's a big difference between saying probiotics will increase digestive regularity and reduce inflammatory disease (may not be true, but we could test it) and saying God created the earth and you can't disprove that because the Bible is irrefutable.
That's an interesting difference.
And I stopped reading. Too many code words to keep me interested.
The issue with Whole Foods and organic food movement can be seen with the idea behind veganism and other related lifestyle choices.
I asked a vegan friend when he was coming to my home if he will eat eggs. He replied 'yes' provided if the hen are kept free range and ethically treated. Yes, they are...but what if I kill and eat the birds after you are gone (which is what will happen to most of the birds - some hippie ecologist may plan for proper burial and cemetery service, but that's an exception.)
There are many foods/food items which do not deserve the organic label and/or should not be militant about such classification. I have seen "organic coconut powder" in Whole Foods. This is ridiculous - there is no "inorganic coconut powder". Its impossible for any coconut farmer not to use fertilizers, and coconut trees do not need insecticides - so such classification is pure money grabbing operation.
The above are examples - no ideology should be taken to the extreme, and organic food movement is no exception.
Tat Tvam Asi
I like those soaps
I bet you like Alkaline soap.
After all, those health nuts believe that Alkaline is better than Acid.
They said Acid is bad for your body, that you need to put more Alkaline into your body - so to "detoxify" whatever toxic that you have put in your body, so much so that they will drink gallons and gallons of lemon juice to get more "alkaline" in their bodies.
The first time I heard about "Lemon Juice makes your body alkaline" was in early 1990's, from a TV morning talk show, and I thought my ears were playing fools with me.
Few weeks later articles of the same started appearing online (on Fidonet, as Internet was not yet ready for prime time) and also on local paper (Health Section), and I was like wtf !!.
Lemon juice is sour in taste, which makes it acidic. But hearing the health nuts telling each others is that the Lemon Juice will somehow magically turned into "Alkaline" once it gets inside your body.
While I may not have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (yet !) I could not fathom how an acid drink could turn alkalinic, just like that.
But no matter, health nuts all over the world (and I mean it, even those in UK, Hong Kong, Japan and in South Africa) believe that urban legend.
The sad part is, none of them bother to use their brain ... how in the world can an acidic Lemon Juice become alkalinic ?
Reading the title and summary made me think they were talking about whole foods as in whole-grain foods. It would have been helpful if the summary stated that it was the name of a store.
Dr Bronner's is a great travel soap--you can do laundry with it, wash your body or hair (if you are not picky about how it rinses out), and even brush your teeth (if you are brave)
LOL !
You sure can wash your dog or mop the floor with the soap, but if you try to brush your teeth with it ... See this link --- http://www.businessinsider.com...
3. Use As Toothpaste: You can do this (just put a drop on your toothbrush), and some people do. However, not only will it foam a lot, but it does not taste like peppermint or citrus or almond - it tastes like soap.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
So I'm happy that Whole Foods exists. They carry a large range of GF and occasionally something novel enough that I'll buy it because its unavailable somewhere else (for less). It is expensive though and I do not comprehend why anyone is dumb enough to buy foods there without a dietary necessity. Gluten free foods in particular command a 2-3x markup and don't even taste nice for that. Anyone who eats them without a medical need is a moron though I should thank them for expanding demand for those products.
I'm ambivalent about the fads, quackery and woo they sell - they're not a pharmacy - but I wish they wouldn't sell it.
Laugh if you will, at people's gullibility, and then read up on the Radithor patent medicine (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ).
Of course it's well known that the food industry isn't worried about health effects of what it sells. They're happy to simply put in whatever ingredients make a product sell. Just look at all the stuff that contains sugar (often disguised as "corn syrup" to avoid having to print the word "sugar" on the label).
And "naturally risen" meat isn't all bull either (pardon the pun). It's because standard commercial beef is quite likely to contain antibiotics (see e.g. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/... ). The reason is of course that feeding animals antibiotics raises production, so it's cost-effective.
It's also grossly irresponsible and really should be banned on the spot. Why? Serving up diluted amounts of antibiotics ensures (through natural selection) that those bacteria that survive the initial onslaught are immune to those same antibiotics. And where do those bacteria and residual antibiotics end up? Well ... in animal poop and from there in surface waters, sewers and oceans. And via the slaughterhouse (if they're a teensy bit careless about separating out intestines in the thousands of carcasses they process each day) in your steak.
Given that those dirty little critters actually exchange pieces of DNA, it's easy to see how whole families of bacteria that live in sewers, surface waters and seas can gain resistance to antibiotics. Which is why we're now facing a crisis with perfectly ordinary bacteria being hard to treat when they cause an infection (just Google for MRSA). Or being even being impossible to treat, so that people with a weak immune system (elderly, post-surgery patients) die from infections that had stopped being a threat when antibiotics were discovered some 70 years ago.
Of course the industry resists. They're not responsible for public health or MRSA, they're responsible for their own bottom line (see e.g. http://www.usatoday.com/story/... ). Which is why the FDA is embarking on a campaign of voluntary reductions.
Reading labels (if you can be bothered) gives you a lot of information you need to make sensible choices in what you eat. That's why we have food labeling regulations (which incidentally are severely criticised by some libertarians as "undue interference with the markets").
Even then there's little defence against people who seek solace in bogus science. But it's better to light a candle ... etc. One very interesting site I have found that debunks various "power" food additives is this one ( http://www.ergo-log.com/ ). They genuinely impressed me by truthfully and insightfully reporting on scientific publications concerning food supplements. They know their stuff, both from a (bio)chemical point of view and from a statistical (and experimental design) point of view. Not a light read, but Recommended.
I think that Monster cables is the geek version of Whole foods...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I don't despise a salesperson for doing their job. Their motive is clear - to make a sale and profit - and based on that motive, "buyer beware" seems fairly obvious. Organized religions pretends they *aren't* trying to SELL something when most of them certainly are, and that makes them worse than Whole Foods and most used car salespeople, too.
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
He gets all wrought up over things like Ezekiel bread, as if it were some kind of plot to slip Christian doctrine into us via our alimentary canals. In reality it's no different from Dogfish Head's line of historical beers. People buy them for the interest value. And most people who buy Dr. Bronner's soap because it smells nice; the gibberish on the label only gives you something to read in shower.
The issue with probiotics is that the food industry has got ahead of the science -- as usual. This kind of thing is everywhere you look. There's a difference between making scientifically unproven claims and claims that are actually *against* science. Once you discard the insufficient evidence stuff and the stuff that is meaninglessly vague, you're pretty much left with nutritional supplements and homeopathic nostrums, which are sold everywhere. "Insufficient evidence" and "meaninglessly vague" cover practically *everything* sold that makes some kind of health claim, right down to low fat milk which has been sold for its health properties for fifty years with no supporting evidence.
What Whole Foods is, is not a health food store; it's a high end grocery chain. Just look at their cheese department. Whole Foods is to the old time city gourmet food shop what the modern supermarket is to the neighborhood grocery store. It caters to high incomes. The health food thing is part of the clever packaging, like the high color temp lighting in the stores. It's meant to evoke the kind of food co-op many highly educated people may have shopped at in their college or graduate student days, but it's selling convenience packaged foods, not bulk.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Because it was never about pseudo-science. It was about feeling superior to the rubes. And your super organic fair trade alfalfa coffee can do that, if nothing else.
Its annoying but isn't it all about kin group identification? It is annoying that those that turn up their nose at creationism (for all the right reasons) can also believe that cell phones give you cancer or microwave ovens harm your food.
:)
They are just being intellectually lazy and falling back on a type of "fashion" that says "I am one of these people, not one of those people"
it bugs the hell out of me, but I understand it is just because they want to be loved
I simultaneously believe and disbelieve, of course.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
__roo writes about whole foods - with an undercurrent of vitriol. You demonstrate an ignorance that practically defies logic. When you grow up, you learn just how wrong you were. But don't take my word. Just go to the US Patent office and research "Wild Oil of Oregano". You'll find, in the scientific disclosures by at least three big pharma fronts, that THEY are trying to patent the active ingredient in Wild Oil of Oregano (Carvacol) because it is, IN THEIR WORDS, "more powerful than our top five antibiotics - combined!". Then head over to the "World Health Organization" website and find out who was the least infected country during the H1N1 break out. What's that you say? It was who? Turkey? You mean it was the country where they grow Wild Oil Of Oregano? Gee... such a surprise. When you get into your 50s and beyond, remember what you posted here this week.
Growing up in the bay area in CA, I've seen my fair share of people who buy into these types of things. I've hung my head many times in shame and disbelief. But at the end of the day, all we need to do is look at the net results of these beliefs to justify how much we should care.
Homeopathy, by definition, cannot hurt you. Due to the serial dilutions used, the chances are that there are 0 molecules of the original thing in any given dose. The worst thing it can do is cost people money for no result. Some people may turn down medicine and take homeopathics instead, but once again, that's only to the end-user's detriment.
Disbelief in, say, climate change is a different story. If you think climate change is all a big lie, you are likely acting to the detriment of everyone else on the planet. If you believe that the world is a self-correcting machines and our actions have no consequences, you are likely acting to the detriment of everyone else on the planet.
So, while new-age hippie BS is annoying, it's generally quite harmless. Not so for the creation museum and its ilk.
The Whole Foods fanatics don't come to my door and tell me I'm going to hell.
The Whole Foods fanatics don't vote to discriminate against people different from them.
The Whole Foods fanatics aren't trying to change how text books are written.
The Whole Foods fanatics aren't trying to own the government.
The Whole Foods fanatics aren't claiming a "war on organic food".
The Whole Foods folks may be full of shit and misguided, but for the most part, they keep it to themselves. Just like a good Christian should.
"...From the probiotics aisle..." What do you have against probiotics? Furthermore, Whole foods sells local produce, beverages, cheese and meats raised properly by hard working small businesses that don't support terrorists like Monsanto. If supporting said businesses makes you a pseudoscientific hippie, count me in.
Not because it's good for you. Because they are cupcakes. Who the hell doesn't like cupcakes? :) Communists, that's who.
i know 90%...crazy...but it continues to amaze me how many otherwise intelligent people place their faith in such made up nonsense and are willing to kill for it.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
This idea that food is scarce is lunacy. We produce more food then we consume and have since the 70s, its distribution may be unequal but there is plenty of food. We produced so much extra corn and other grains we had to come up with crazy ways to repurpose it into things like HFCS, and broke it down into its component parts and reconstructed it into food like products.
Subsidized crops are making middle america a corporate agribusiness, subsidized by by its people...hexane extracted soy protein and oil along with different forms of corn makes up a large part of some peoples diet. We produce enough food, we are just really bad at giving it to people who may need it.
so? they got the story right over the years..but...its all nonsense. They basically got right that there were people in in the middle east/Levant(they got jerusalem, the entire exodus, the empires of david and solomon wrong) and then at some point the romans came along then the new testament was written down around 70-100 CE...so 5000+ years and all they got right was some names and bits of historical flavor but the core of their stories were just made up nonsense
"At Whole Foods I overheard a ponytail blaming Bush because the baba ghanoush was lumpy." -- Dennis Miller
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
homeopathy secret is the placebo effect, and that is real science.When french drug agency allowed homeopathy a long time ago, they wrote that it helped though the placebo effect
By that reasoning, atheists should allow that religion provides genuine benefits through the placebo effect. That's real science!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I see those people as a willing tax-base to subsidize my friend's medical bills.
Very similar to how people who buy lottery tickets are a willing tax base for whatever-the-state-chooses-to-do-with-lottery-proceeds. The fact remains, however, that the lottery is
"a tax on people who are bad at math” Ambrose Bierce
and the cumulative negative effects on its willing victims outweigh its benefits.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
they're not beholden to a multinational which says they can't keep seeds to grow their own crops next year
Except nobody says that. While the large agribusinesses would prefer that everyone used their high-end seeds, which come with biotech licensing restrictions, every grower is free to use traditional seeds instead.
Do you have as much disdain for the licensing restrictions on open-source software as you do for biotech licensing restrictions?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I don't have an explanation for the universe, or its meaning.
However, please study microbiology a bit; you'll learn that even the simplest living organism is orders-of-magnitude more complex than any system humans ever created. It depends on correct interactions between hundreds of proteins, and the instructions for synthesizing those proteins are very cleverly encoded in its DNA.
Therefore REASON (not faith) tells us that the first living organism could not have simply assembled itself out of chemicals dissolved in the primordial soup, as some people desperately want to believe (probably due to a kneejerk backlash against religion).
No, some entity whose intelligence was vastly superior to ours must have assembled that first organism.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
In a nutshell, there is a process, you do not understand how it came into existence and therefore it cannot have happened by itself? The reasoning is weak, you could apply it in the past to any process we did not understand at the moment and we now have an explanation for.
e.g.: mountains are order of magnitude bigger than anything built by humans, it therefore cannot have assembled on its own.
Size (as of mountains) is not the issue. Complexity is.
Non-biological processes have been observed to death. What is the most complex system ever created by a non-biological natural process? Saturn's braided rings, perhaps. And that system is orders-of-magnitude less complex than what humans can build, which in turn is orders-of-magnitude less complex than the simplest living organism. Sorry, scientific evidence just doesn't support the idea that a non-biological natural process could have assembled the first living organism.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.