Back in the early 70's, when some of my friends had moved to Austin to attend college, I'd go up there for weekends of debauchery and other hippy pastimes.
Surprisingly, all sorts of illegal drugs were okay to take, but the food we ate had to be natural, organic and healthy.
Back then, Whole Foods had only one broken-down store with lots of veggies and other natural foods. It had a very hippyish atmosphere and I felt super cool hanging out with the other hippies.
Then one day, Whole Foods exploded with chains of ultraslick stores all over. The new flagship Austin store was fabulous, with a huge inventory and incredible displays.
A few years later, an even newer flagship store was built in Austin (see photo) and it defined the very best in comestibles. Whenever an out of state visitor arrived in San Antonio, we'd always drive the 85 miles up to Austin so they could see the finest Whole Foods store in America.
Then I started reading news about WF owner John Mackey.
First I read that he used a fake name to visit WF message boards and post positive things about himself.
No big deal, I thought, many CEO's had big egos. He called himself a “new-age libertarian environmentalist,” and that sounded pretty good to me.
But now it turns out he's vehemently against labor unions, and even worse, he's totally against any new health care reform.
How dare he?
We patronized his expensive grocery stores because, not only was the food great, we thought we were filling the coffers of a company that was doing the right thing, for the environment, for their employees, and for the communities they served.
John Mackey's opinions on labor unions and health care reform cancel all that out.
No more Whole Foods shopping for me or my family.
These days, John Mackey's sounding more like a Republican obstructionist than a new-age libertarian environmentalist.
Whole Foods needs to be boycotted.
We don't have one here in Podunkville. That's fine, because I can no longer afford to go there... either financially or morally!
ReplyDeleteWF is so proud that Cheryl Crow designed their re-usable grocery bags. But several of us asked why they were having their bags made in China and not the US. Nothing against China but come on, we need the jobs. Just before the boycott I was going to point out to someone about the China thing but noticed that WF had cut the "Made in China" tags out of their bags. Now I have concerns about the "organic" products and other green washing WF may be doing to make the almighty dollar.
ReplyDeleteBring back co-ops! We have wonderful ones, large and small, here in Vermont. Happily, no Whole Foods, a misnomer if there ever was one.
ReplyDeleteWe have our local favorite farms, too, and drive up to buy eggs from the keepers of the world's happiest chickens, sweet corn and baby spinach from Killdeer Farm... chard, lettuce, potatoes, and beans from our yard. Bring back home gardens, too.
Interesting article in Time? Newsweek? last week on the real cost of cheap food.
Time to hunker down to the basics.
There's a new little market in town called "Sprouts" and I bought a seedless watermelon for $.99, on the vine ripened tomatoes @ $.99 a lb. I could go on but look for Sprouts in your town and you'll save a bundle. Bye bye A-Whole Foods.
ReplyDeletebigsis