Should I get over my Whole Foods hatred?

May 13, 2017 10:40 PM

I have a hatred for Whole Foods (the store) that borders on irrationality. Can fellow MeFites help me get over it or give me reasons to dig in?

I hate Whole Foods for the snobbery it represents and the pricing that I think is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has any notion of economics. Most of all, I have a strong opinion that if we normalize the concept of shelling out premium restaurant prices for home cooked meals we insult the rest of the humanity that cannot afford this 'luxury'. I live in San Jose where I have alternate options for organic/quality food - Sprouts, TJ's, farmers markets etc.
On the other hand there's my wife who thinks Whole Foods is the be-all and end-all of all good things. She goes so far as to imply that the same brand organic yogurt is better if bought from WF rather than from Sprouts.
One of us is being irrational in this scenario and I fail to see how it's me. I will go a extra few miles to avoid Whole Foods- even if it means that I spend the difference in price in gas. What makes the produce and fruits from Whole foods better than organic foods at a different store? Do they really earn the premium or are they just happy to serve the suckers that walk in?

Are there legitimate reasons to support my stance against WF or am I just being a cheapass and just looking for reasons here?

posted by savitarka to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

Response by poster: I need to add.. we both fortunately do not suffer from any food allergies and we are not really looking for specialized items that are unavailable elsewhere. This is just about your daily produce- greens, fruits, dairy, bread etc.
posted by savitarka at 10:41 PM on May 13, 2017

Well, I would ask yourself why it matters so much to you to agree. You would rather not shop there, so don't. Your wife would rather shop from there, so she can. Or is she somehow insisting you shop at Whole Foods? In which case, I suggest doing some boundary work. None of this seems to me about a grocery store.
posted by frumiousb at 10:47 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Agree with frumiousb. If you don't like it, don't shop there. There's no rule that says you have to like it. If you can't afford it then maybe that's a family conversation.

Strictly answering the question, I have seen instances where Whole Foods fruits and vegetables are a step above what I can get elsewhere. Taste is better, or the food is more fresh or whatever. In one case I can recall, it was tomatoes that were delicious. They tasted like they had come off the vine, and you very rarely get tomatoes that good in store, and I live where they grow them.

That being said, I don't shop there either because the food is overpriced, and if I'm going to overpay, I want that money to go to my local food co-op and not a giant corporation.
posted by cnc at 10:57 PM on May 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Er. Well. We just got one in our neighborhood. I hear the produce is good. We buy baked goods there because they're better than most local places. And we spend quite an it on home cooked meals despite not having much money because, well, it's good.

Maybe you should just shop at separate stores?
posted by stoneandstar at 11:14 PM on May 13, 2017

The difference you ask about here is that one makes your wife happy. As long as she's not bankrupting the family I think you should value something making your wife happy for it's own sake.
posted by bleep at 11:27 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

You could also try asking her what she likes about it.
posted by bleep at 11:28 PM on May 13, 2017

She: "goes as far as to imply that the same brand organic yogurt is better if bought from WF rather than from Sprouts."
You: "I will go a extra few miles to avoid Whole Foods- even if it means that I spend the difference in price in gas."
You again: "One of us is being irrational in this scenario."

Make that "two of us", and if you can afford it, let it slide, as others recommended, for the sake of peace in the home and your own well-being. You don't want to waste the benefit of healthy yogurt bought for more money, but closer to home, by getting wound-up about it...

But seriously, this can only be a item-by item argument: is the yogurt perhaps fresher most of the time? There's a best-before date that would tell you that...Are there perhaps brands of peanut butter or tamari that are GOOD and that other stores don't carry? As others said, how's the produce - in general and day-to-day by specific items?
Also, does the vibe of the place perhaps appeal to your wife for some reason? Even if the last argument isn't rational per se, it can be factored in in a rational way.
posted by Namlit at 11:34 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

It seems like Whole Foods has become an unwitting front in a minor skirmish in a proxy war about values for you two.

I don't think you're being a cheapass, necessarily, but if you're saying things to her that amount to "anyone who would happily shop there has no intelligent notion of economics" then you're certainly being a regular-to-premium ass.

Just because you don't find value in something doesn't mean that she doesn't. Maybe the experience of shopping and products a WF is an equivalent value proposition to eating at a restaurant for her.

This isn't to discount your own values - wanting your money to go to local businesses, or simply finding WF not worth the markup is a perfectly reasonable stance, but insisting that she share your beliefs about it is not.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:35 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is your hate red of Whole Foods helping you? Is it helping your community? Does your hatred bring anything good to your life or is it making you not respect your wife?
That said Whole Foods is very anti union and probably too expensive. The owner came out against Obamacare when that mattered.
posted by Uncle at 11:36 PM on May 13, 2017

I shop regularly at both WF and Aldi, and I think that while WF is definitely out of my price range on a lot of things, their fresh produce is better with a wider selection than I can get elsewhere, and they stock locally-made sauces and other specialty ingredients that can be hard to find. I don't tend to buy non-produce staples or most meat there (unless I'm really splurging on like a once-a-year fancy steak) because for those items I can make do with Aldi's lack of selection in return for super-affordability.

I think Whole Foods can be shopped in a ton of different ways to fit different needs and that branding it as especially evil; compared to other similar-size grocery stores is kind of hyperbolic. Many of the prices on their house brand products aren't that different from what I can get at my local grocery chain stores. WF also tends to pay their employees more than employees doing the same jobs at other local chain stores, which is something that I am happy to support when I have the money to do so.
posted by augustimagination at 11:38 PM on May 13, 2017

One specific on the produce that I've experienced multiple times: the avocados I get at my local Whole Foods are consistently so much better than from any other store I've tried in my area. They're actually ripe or near-ripe rather than being rock-hard with weeks left to ripen (if they do at all) or soft and bruised up beyond salvaging. Sometimes they're $2 rather than another store's 99 cents, but that's $2 of food I can actually eat and enjoy rather than a 99 cent gamble on something that might be edible or not.

Their produce is much more consistently high-quality than most other places I shop, and I don't say this out of any special Whole Foods fandom; it's just what I've found over the last few years living in an area with a wide mix of grocery stores at different price points.
posted by augustimagination at 11:54 PM on May 13, 2017

I think you're absolutely right to abhor Whole Foods.

Take a look a CEO and co-founder John Mackey, who doesn't believe Americans have a right to healthcare:

Mackey opposed the public health insurance option that ultimately did not become part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Mackey asserted that a better plan would be allowing consumers to purchase health insurance across state lines and use a combination of health savings accounts and catastrophic insurance, as Whole Foods does.[25] Mackey's statement that Americans do not have an intrinsic right to healthcare led to calls for a boycott of Whole Foods Market from the Progressive Review and from numerous groups on Facebook.[26] Alternatively, Tea Party movement advocates organized a number of buycotts in support of Mackey's suggestions.[27]

is in denial about being a Global Warming denialist:

Mackey does not identify as a skeptic of scientific opinion on climate change; rather, he believes that "climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily bad."[34]

In a 2010 discussion of books on his reading stack with journalist Nick Paumgarten, Mackey explained his views on human-caused climate change were similar to those of Australian geologist and author Ian Plimer:

...Mackey told me that he agrees with the book [ Heaven and Earth ]'s assertion that, as he put it, "no scientific consensus exists" regarding the causes of climate change; he added, with a candor you could call bold or reckless, that it would be a pity to allow "hysteria about global warming" to cause us "to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty."[4]

and hates unions.

Whole Foods, in the person of Mackey, has also engaged in a bunch of dirty tricks to try to acquire and drive out of business Whole Foods competitors, including a long series of pseudonymous comments on Yahoo message boards:

Chief executive John Mackey’s admission of pseudonymous postings on a Yahoo message board reeks of possible stock manipulation and securities violations, not to mention juvenile judgment, gross arrogance, poor ethics and bad hair.

“If it was any other employee of the company, he would be fired,” said Lynn Turner, former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “The board should fire him.”
...
In more than 1,000 postings from 1999 through last August, Mackey took on Whole Foods critics, blasted the competition and talked up the organic grocer’s prospects as if he were just another bullish investor in the company. He identified himself as “rahodeb,” an anagram for his wife’s name, Deborah.

In January 2005, rahodeb speculated that stock of Boulder-based Wild Oats would fall to $5 a share, from what was then $8. Or maybe Wild Oats would just go bankrupt, he opined.

Apparently, Mackey has changed his tune. Earlier this year [2007], Whole Foods said it would pay $18.50 a share for Wild Oats, or $565 million. The Federal Trade Commission is challenging the deal on antitrust grounds. The agency dredged up the rahodeb e-mails to make its point about Mackey’s anti- competitive nature.

“I posted on Yahoo under a pseudonym because I had fun doing it,” Mackey said in a statement. Whole Foods officials declined to comment beyond the statement.

Not terribly appetizing, I would say.
posted by jamjam at 11:54 PM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

You're telling your wife she's irrational. You're being a massive asshole.
posted by medusa at 12:01 AM on May 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Former Whole Foods employee here! If you care about the wages your grocery clerks/stockers/etc are making, Whole Foods provides a significantly higher starting wage and better working conditions than Sprouts and TJs (at least in my region), which explains the higher prices to a certain degree. Aside from that, you're completely right that other natural grocers have carry identical (or sometimes better/fresher) products at lower prices. Many of the prepared meals and baked goods that make Whole Foods seem special arrive at the store frozen or in bags, so in that way, it's probably an even bigger rip-off than you're realizing.

Basically I think you're being more "rational" on this, but if your wife is doing most of the shopping and it's not causing any hardship, I don't think there's much you can/should do about it.
posted by Pizzarina Sbarro at 12:09 AM on May 14, 2017

I also feel that selling groceries at restaurant meal prices is complicit in making healthy eating a luxury in modern America. My parents cooked "whole" foods most days of my upbringing, but with produce from the 2nd run and Chinese grocery stores. I bristle at the idea that where you bought the food matters remotely as much as what the food is and how it is consumed.

But it's clearly not productive for you to have this disagreement with your wife. What does Whole Foods represent for her? Did you grow up with different food, family, or economic backgrounds -- to her, is there a sense of socioeconomic safety in being able to afford WF prices? I am friends with a couple where the man grew up poor, and now he only buys brand-name clothing from high-end department stores, even t-shirts and underclothing. It doesn't cause them any hardship, and assuages a fear, so his girlfriend doesn't try to change this about him.
posted by batter_my_heart at 12:17 AM on May 14, 2017