Are You Drinking the Whole Foods’ Kool-Aid?

I’m not talking about whole foods (apples, kale, anything unadulterated that comes out of the ground, off the vine or the stalk or the tree), I’m talking about Whole Foods.

After reading public health lawyer Michele Simon’s post on a recent ground beef recall from nationwide Whole Foods’ grocery store chains, I got to thinking. First off, and pun kind of intended, I have major beef with Whole Foods. Sure, they sell, well, whole foods, lots of organics, and they play up the fact that they support local, family farms, but you can still buy asparagus and avocados from Chile in the middle of winter. That’s not seasonal, and you’re paying for the fuel cost and the environmental cost to ship those puppies (along with apples from new zealand) all the way to you. And they still support big agri-business over small farms, even if it is organic. Here’s a funny tid-bit. Earthbound Farms, famous for their organic salad mixes and spinach, is right here in California. So why are the greens picked, shipped to NY to be processed and packaged and then shipped back here to CA on my store shelves, 2 weeks later and near spoiling (not to mention devoid of nutrients by this time)? Read Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma for more on this.

Look, I’m not going to get nit-picky here (too late?), because at least they are making good food available to us. But good lord you’ll pay: there’s a reason it’s called Whole Paycheck. $8 for a pound of organic beef?

My beef is that as a somewhat recent convert over to meat-eating from a 13-some-odd year stint as a vegetarian, I want to be *very* choosy about where my meats come from. I still have a major dilemma consuming animal flesh and by-products because I literally have nightmares about how animals raised for food are treated. It’s horrifying to me. (side note: Here in California, we recently passed Prop 2, which calls for the humane treatment of animals meant for slaughter.)

Whole Foods would like us to believe that its meat comes from happy, frolicking animals that haven’t been force-fed antibiotics or hormones, and while the latter is true, I’m not sure about the former. I don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes, but raising organic cattle is still an industry. Horizon’s organic milk is a perfect example: they are a huge CORPORATION acquired by Dean Foods, the nation’s largest milk producer, who once fought to allow antibiotic use for cows under one year and then still label them organic after their first year. Do you think these cows are roaming happily on their organic farm? Um, not so much.

Anyhow, Simon’s post says that there was a beef recall at Whole Foods’ stores in many states due to e. coli back in August. E. coli is not something that just happens to appear in meat. It comes from shit-contaminated meat, most often from dirty feedlot conditions where cows are crammed together and on quick assembly lines to be slaughtered one after another. This troubles me because I’d like to believe that the beef I buy from Whole Foods comes from farms with a little more care and attention to the herd. I see signs at the meat counter saying that they get lamb from Sonoma county, up North near me, but I’m guessing they don’t always go the same route for the beef. As far as I’m concerned, they should be hand-feeding and massaging those cows for $8/lb.

On a side note, I believe, from personal experience and from studying, that not every physiology is meant for any one diet, and our needs change over time. I felt fine as a veg for many years until I suddenly realized I needed meat. Years of all that soy had created an imbalance – we’re not meant to thrive on soy protein! Don’t send me hate letters. I already went through that when i wrote this infamous article for Terrain. I’m talking processed soy here, the stuff of your Chik-N-Nuggets, Boca Burgers, and Soy Crisps. Edamame, miso, tempeh – fine – but in moderation. The body isn’t meant for soy protein isolate and hydrolyzed soy protein, and even soy milk is processed. That’s right. It’s not a whole food – the fiberous part has been stripped from the bean and separated out and what’s left has been processed with sugar to bring you a product high enough in phyto-estrogens to equal a birth control pill.

Back to the point: even though i cringe slightly, I do shop at Whole Foods. I’m not immune to convenience and it’s a helluva lot better than Safeway. I urge you, as I have before, to investigate meat CSAs and to buy meat straight from the farmer at the farmers’ market, where you know how the animal was raised and slaughtered. It’s 100% grass fed and not “finished on grain.” Cows aren’t meant to eat grain! It makes them sick, calling for antibiotics.

A couple years back, I attended a Whole Cow Picnic sponsored by Slow Food Berkeley (read about it here) where Slow Food USA’s Berkeley chapter bought a cow, had it humanely raised and slaughtered, and sold of its meat and had a big picnic featuring $5 burgers from the leftovers. This is a great idea, and sure, it takes more effort, but it also eases my conscious, and this is one issue that weighs on it.

So. Shop at the farmers’ market. Investigate meat CSAs. Just investigate period. It’s better for your health, the planet, and the animal you’re eating.