Whole Foods

 Whole Foods

On a little shopping expedition in Des Moines I wandered into Whole Foods at the behest of my shopping partner.  When shopping for items to consume (one cannot call shopping at Whole Foods grocery shopping) I like to hit all the aisles to see what’s new and interesting.   Man, what a place! The first thing that caught my eye was the shelf of organic, non-gmo, gluten free items - - quite a selection I might add, but I was uncertain as to whether the items were really edible.  As I continued my perusal there were signs for paleo friendly items and keto friendly items,  Unfortunately I didn’t have a dictionary with me, so I was unable to translate the two terms and have refused to do so since.  I profess ignorance.

Low sodium and low fat items stood out prominently on a vast number of shelves. and of course, one doesn’t want too much salt and fat in one’s diet.  One seriously irksome label however, one which has annoyed me since it surfaced is “sea salt”.  Everything, and I mean everything, now has a label saying Sea Salt.  All salt is sea salt.  Where do you think salt comes from?  It is from salt water evaporating.  This doesn’t take an advanced degree to understand.  And to top it off, most of the salt they sell  as sea salt doesn’t contain iodine.  The reason we all don’t have iodine deficiencies is because Morton puts iodine in its salt.  This is a good thing. And you know, Morton’s salt is sea salt just like Pink Himalayan salt only it's not pink and it has iodine and wasn't obtained from the top of a mountain which doesn't make it any more or less salty.  A second serious bit of marketing is meat from an Angus cow - - purportedly.  Whenever confronted with this pronouncement, I ask the waitperson or the person behind the meat counter if perchance they may have available Herford or Charolais.  The response is always the same; they have no idea what I'm talking about and look at me either quizzically or angrily.   But back to my shopping experience..

After touring the aisles, perusing the labels and noticing many interesting items, I left the store and sat in the car waiting for my shopping companion.  I didn’t buy anything - - not one item.  I was completely overwhelmed by the selection. I simply couldn't decide what items I wanted to purchase, if any. The atmosphere of the store was very upscale, off-putting actually.    Adding to the connoisseur atmosphere, the employees have inhaled the attitude of superiority knowing that they are catering to the intelligent, the worldly, and cosmopolitan folk (and those of more than modest means) who understand that this is the place to do their shopping and we don’t use the phrase “grocery shopping”.  One does not grocery shop in Whole Foods, one provides for one's  healthy sustenance.  

The people who shop in Whole Foods are healthy:  they spend a great deal of their time being healthy.  They eat healthily, they exercise healthily, and they study up on how to maintain their winsome, healthy personalities.  They spend years of their lives being studiously healthy - - longevity being the goal.  We have really no method to determine if they succeed; but surely they must or the aisles would not have as many patrons as one sees there.  In addition, they have food to eat on the premise - - healthy food.  I would hate to think that in Whole Foods, as in say Hy-Vee, they cook up items that they haven't been able to sell - - a rather disgusting practice I might add - - serving out-of-date food.  So one can only assume that Whole Foods would not do such a thing.  I can only say that one should at least once experience whole foods, to see, if you are not a regular visitor, on how the affluent and knowledgeable dine, sup, and break fast.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo