Would you buy food from morons? (If not, don’t go to Whole Foods.)

By Henry Miller

Whole Foods markets are big business in this part of the world, upscale havens for rich shoppers seeking “healthy” foods. But notwithstanding their financial success, the two co-CEOs of the company are utterly clueless.  Mackey seems not to appreciate the difference between making life-saving vaccines or pacemakers — or even computer software that boosts society’s productivity — and selling overpriced groceries to the affluent and gullible. How overpriced?.........dried morel mushrooms priced at a whopping $1,280 a pound. (That is not a typo.) Whole Foods is widely referred to as “Whole Paycheck” — because that’s what you’ll spend shopping there……..Now let’s turn to genius number two, Whole Foods’ co-CEO Walter Robb. Interviewed about genetically engineered foods while attending a recent conference in Beverly Hills (where else?), he said, “There hasn’t ever been a government-funded, peer-reviewed, third-party study on the long-term efficacy of [genetically modified organisms] so “the science is inconclusive at this point.” (And therefore, Whole Foods will require that all foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients — 70-80% of processed foods — be labeled as such by 2018.)

Presumably, Robb meant “safety,” rather than “efficacy”; for the reasons discussed below, even he isn’t dumb enough to question the voluminous data on genetic engineering’s usefulness and impacts. I will address both efficacy and safety.......To Read More......