Why I don't like Whole Foods

On Thursday I had a major breakthrough while writing my BA. I now know why I become inexplicably annoyed whenever I open up my pantry: because of all the organic food in it. (And because I have no food in it)

I might raise a few eyebrows with that statement, but it’s not the idea of organic food I hate (I took Global Warming, I know we have to make some changes in food production), it’s all the stupid labels Whole Foods sticks on every…blessed…item…in the store. Like they’re saying “Our food is TOTALLY BETTER than your food.” Whenever I open up the fridge or pantry, a herald of angelic voices starts crooning “ooooor-gaaaaaa-nic” and my roommate’s organic pinto beans, organic whole wheat flour pastry, organic quinoa flour, organic albacore tuna cans, and organic mayonnaise start doing pirouettes, while my cereals hides shamefacedly in the back.

I’m not saying I have never bought organic foods. When the price is reasonable, I will not turn my nose up at organic things, but I just can’t bring myself to buy $9.00 butter or $6.00 organic chocolate. I could take the $4.00 I save with un-organic butter and do something better with it like, I don’t know, bribing DHL customer service or using it as floss. I usually just check to make sure my food labels don’t say “lethal” or “toxic” on them, then stick them in the basket and call it a day.

I feel like Organic Foods is just the latest craze, like Atkins. I wouldn’t care if it were organic if only it didn’t have the label on it so prominently. EVERYONE who shops at Whole Foods knows that about 97% of the stuff in there is organic, probably even the paper towels and toothbrushes they sell are organic, or if they aren’t, they shoot out rainbows if they decompose in a trash heap somewhere, so I wouldn’t like to see a label telling me that it’s organic. Because I feel like a great majority of people only go there to show off, saying that they are good people because they shop healthy things, and they buy things they would NEVER EAT simply because it says “organic.” Like organic chicken claws or “organic white wine” that is made somewhere weird, somewhere you wouldn’t think wine should be created because, guess what, it probably SHOULDN’T be put there but by virtue of its being organic they can put the crop into the weirdest places and say it’s good farming, when really, they’re just introducing a foreign species into a place it was never supposed to be. And we all know how well the rabbits worked out in Australia.

And then I start to think about all the electricity, gas, and money wasted on maintaining a huge warehouse of a store like Whole Foods, and shipping all the food over to it, and really, subtracting out the unsustainable farming, we’re basically right back where we started from. Unnecessarily large grocery stores with a huge, uncanny amount of selection and just overall too much food for people who aren’t too hungry but still eat a ton.

NOW I can get off of my soap box and focus on my thesis.