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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?"
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.
... 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.
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.
Homeopathy only hurts gullible people.
...and the people they make medical decisions for. I've personally known people who give their kids homeopathic water to treat stuff they really should be seen by a doctor for. It's not the kids' fault that they have stupid parents, but the kids are the ones suffering harm./p
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
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....
"No one at the local Whole Foods is trying to impose their beliefs or customs on you our your secular government."
Well, that isn't necessarily true, because many of the same people who shop at Whole Foods are active in the anti-GMO movement. They shop at WH because they fervently believe at GMOs are bad for themselves and everyone else, and many folks are politically active, at least in California, in trying to put anti-GMO statutes on the ballot whenever they can. So while whole foods isn't necessarily doing those things, they certainly cater to people who do.
For the sake of argument, let's say it was pulled out of the nose. What does your nose smell like?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Ding ding ding! I've been snickering quietly to myself about the recent spate of right-wing editorial authors discussing how liberals are trying to eliminate "intellectual diversity". Amazingly, these authors have discovered fundamentalist liberals, and the fundamentalist liberals discovered "purity tests" and "with us or against us" and somehow the right-wing editorialists just don't see the connection, probably because they were blinded to it when it was their side doing it.
As for the rest of us non-fundamentalists, I don't buy into the homeopathy mumbo-jumbo either.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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"
I don't give a rats ass about whether GMOs are healthy or not. I want them labeled because I don't want a dime of my money to go to Monsanto. I want Monsanto to die because of their patent policy, exploitation of the third world and general willingness to endanger our ability to feed ourselves.
Fuck anyone who frames the labeling of GMOs as a health issue, be they for or against. It's an informed consumer issue, nothing more.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
My nose smells Okay, My dog's nose smells great.
Cognitive dissonance is a human trait. You are engaging in it yourself when you try to cast the left as engaging in it more than the right.
Your whole argument is itself simply an expression of a double standard when you try to claim the left engages in this more than the right.
It's simply something that arises out of our own human limitations.
To be fair, the parents who cart the kid to the doctor for every sneeze and to the hospital for a bumped head aren't doing their kids any favors either.