Whole Foods: America's Temple of Pseudoscience

[Tyler]

With all the forum talk lately about faith and science, I thought I'd toss this article in as an interesting take on both.  Even well-educated urban atheists are certainly not immune to quasi-religious sales pitches.

"Americans get riled up about creationists and climate change deniers, but lap up the quasi-religious snake oil at Whole Foods. It’s all pseudoscience—so why are some kinds of pseudoscience more equal than others?"

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ience.html

IMO, while people love to rant about global warming (myself included), the most prevalent junk science today is the stuff filling our stores that everyone apparently takes for granted.  It's amazing how good marketing can take otherwise rational people and convince them that organic "Sacred Healing Food" is the only thing they should ever feed their families.  At twice the price. 

And in the context of the Science! debates that people love to get into, the conclusion is especially poignant.

"We often have it stuck in our heads that science communicators have only failed to speak to the religious right. But while issues of science-and-society are always tied up, in some ways, with politics, they’re not bound to any particular part of the spectrum. Just ask Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., liberal political scion and vaccine skeptic extraordinaire, or Prince Charles, who pushed British health ministers to embrace homeopathic medicine.

Bringing sound data into political conversations and consumer decisions is a huge, ongoing challenge. It’s not limited to one side of the public debate. The moral is not that we should all boycott Whole Foods. It’s that whenever we talk about science and society, it helps to keep two rather humbling premises in mind: very few of us are anywhere near rational. And pretty much all of us are hypocrites."

[Libertarian666]

The main reason that we buy organic food is that in general that's the only way to be relatively sure that we aren't getting GMO ingredients in our food. If any of the GMO labeling bills become law that will likely not remain a problem for long.
The lack of pesticides and similar toxins is in second place.

[Pointedstick]

I give the "vegetable oil oxidation temperatures and rancidity" speech to a depressing number of friends and family members who spend thousands a month at Whole Paycheck Foods.

But I do occasionally shop there to find certain awesome foods that it's hard to find elsewhere, like pastured beef liver. Like most supermarkets, you just have to know the good deals and loss leaders and stay away from the moneymakers.

[Tortoise]

I give the "vegetable oil oxidation temperatures and rancidity" speech to a depressing number of friends and family members who spend thousands a month at Whole Paycheck Foods.

Do you mean that they're continuing to eat rancid/oxidized oils even though they shop at Whole Foods, thus likely nullifying a good portion of the health benefits they get from shopping there?

[Pointedstick]

I give the "vegetable oil oxidation temperatures and rancidity" speech to a depressing number of friends and family members who spend thousands a month at Whole Paycheck Foods.

Do you mean that they're continuing to eat rancid/oxidized oils even though they shop at Whole Foods, thus likely nullifying a good portion of the health benefits they get from shopping there?

Yes. Blessedly, most of them stop after I open their eyes about it.

[FarmerD]

IMO, while people love to rant about global warming (myself included), the most prevalent junk science today is the stuff filling our stores that everyone apparently takes for granted.  It's amazing how good marketing can take otherwise rational people and convince them that organic "Sacred Healing Food" is the only thing they should ever feed their families.  At twice the price. 

This morning at the grocery store I saw several different brands of  "All Natural, Organic, Vegetarian fed" eggs which were selling for $3/dozen.  The cartoon on each assures the buyer the chickens were fed an all natural vegetarian diet with no animal products.  Considering the fact chickens are naturally OMNIVORES how could anyone possibly consider a vegetarian diet fed chicken egg as natural?

My 3 backyard pullets are now laying 3 eggs per day so I don't have screw around with store bought eggs anymore.

[Tyler]

The main reason that we buy organic food is that in general that's the only way to be relatively sure that we aren't getting GMO ingredients in our food. If any of the GMO labeling bills become law that will likely not remain a problem for long.
The lack of pesticides and similar toxins is in second place.

Organic food is certainly not pesticide-free. 

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html

[clacy]

As an offshoot to the GMO/pesticide topic, is anyone seriously alarmed about the major loss of honey bee colonies world wide?  Is it related to GMO's and new pesticides?

[Mountaineer]

As an offshoot to the GMO/pesticide topic, is anyone seriously alarmed about the major loss of honey bee colonies world wide?  Is it related to GMO's and new pesticides?

There are two very different types of GMO sourced material.  One is risky, one is natural.  The risky one is the kind where a gene from a different organism than the host is spliced in, for example a tobacco gene inserted into a corn plant with the desired result of making the corn insect resistant.  The second one is where corn has the male pollen from one species of corn "bred" naturally on to the female corn of the second species to produce a desired trait ... basically this one is just speeding up nature.  So, when one hears of GMOs, it is important to know exactly what is being discussed.  I am talking about technology from a dozen years ago so things may be different today.  I'm reflecting back on the GMO scare that was going around Europe at the time .... mucho politics and little science, but that is typical for most political initiated fear campaigns in my opinion.

... Mountaineer

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Pointedstick]I give the "vegetable oil oxidation temperatures and rancidity" speech to a depressing number of friends and family members who spend thousands a month at Whole PaycheckFoods.[/quote]

AKA "Food Hole"

As a nation, we are woefully ignorant of the natural world, but suck up the pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo by the gallon.

One of my favorites:  "Isn't it amazing that the dinosaurs became extinct right at the end of the Cretaceous?"

Or: "Do you know the earth is 3/3rds covered with water?"

[ns3]

I've been in the habit of making a green smoothie for breakfast for about two years now. I start with a base of 50% calorie orange juice (I don't know how they do that), add some Greek Yogurt (not low-fat because I've read that low-fat is dead-ass wrong), sprinkle in some flax seed, almonds, and walnuts, and then take a handful of frozen vegetables, mostly green (spinach and broccoli) and then add some fruit. It turns out to be a "green" smoothie only depending on what fruit you add. If it's berries (blueberry, raspberry, strawberry) and you add enough it won't be green at all. In equal parts, at worst it will turn out brownish but that rarely happens. It's completely green only if the spinach and broccoli has the upper hand, but you won't notice any difference in the taste.

What has the effect of this been on my health? How the hell can you tell? It may turn out to be beneficial merely because I have it fixed in my mind that it is "healthy".

But...

I have read that some of this is bad - like grinding up the fiber of the fruits and vegetables "disturbs" it and you won't get the maximum benefit from it. Also, grinding up the frozen vegetables is a bad thing because they need to be cooked. I have even seen a website that said if you are eating green smoothies you are "sabotaging" your health.

Bottom line is it tastes pretty damn good and leaves me well satisfied but not as much as a breakfast of bacon and eggs which my dad ate for most of his life until he died last year at the age of 94.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=ns3]Bottom line is it tastes pretty damn good and leaves me well satisfied but not as much as a breakfast of bacon and eggs which my dad ate for most of his life until he died last year at the age of 94.[/quote]

I vote for bacon and eggs.  A much longer track record than green smoothies.

[ns3]

Bottom line is it tastes pretty damn good and leaves me well satisfied but not as much as a breakfast of bacon and eggs which my dad ate for most of his life until he died last year at the age of 94.

I vote for bacon and eggs.  A much longer track record than green smoothies.

My dad had bacon and eggs every single morning as long as I can remember. He was a milkman and I could hear and smell it all sizzling in the frying pan at around 5:00 every morning. Spending time with him in his latter years, when we would go to a restaurant whether dinner or whatever he would always order bacon and eggs even though my mother would get on his case to order something else.

I would also vote for bacon and eggs over green smoothies but all in all, it takes more effort to cook and clean up after bacon and eggs. Green smoothies are actually pretty easy and there is very little cleanup (which my wife does any way, God bless her).

But really, green (or whatever color they turn out to be), smoothies aren't so bad. Maybe my adopted granddaughter will remember the sound of the blender in the morning the same way I remember my Dad's sizzling eggs and bacon.

[Xan]

I think it's the bacon that's the cleanup issue; running a scrub brush over an egg pan doesn't seem like a big deal at all.  I usually have three or four eggs in the morning, scrambled, and I'll tear up a leftover barbecued rib, or a hot dog, or some other meat into it, along with some grated Monterrey Jack.  mmmm.

[Xan]

If you've ever wondered how bacon and eggs came to be paired at breakfast, check out this delightful little series which Ad Orientem linked to a while back:
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ot ... ch-dinner/

[moda0306]

I tend to see things regarding diet (and pretty much anything I guess) as comparable not to the ideal, but to the realistic alternative.  If you know yourself, and bacon and eggs just aren't going to get made every morning, green smoothies are probably better than cereal, lots of coffee, or bagels.

However, I'd probably go this route.  Boil a bunch of hard-boiled eggs, and pre-cook a bunch of bacon on Sunday nights (try not to eat it all).  On week-day mornings, grab 2 hard-boiled eggs, nuke some bacon, grab some salt and Tabasco Sauce and voila!

I've heard (and I'm sure Gumby will come to rip me a new one on this "rumor") that hard-boiled eggs have far less oxidation (or something like that) of the yoke, and it's much healthier to have eggs hard-boiled.

But that last part, even if bs, is irrelevant to the fact that hard-boiled eggs are efficient as hell.  As much as I'd like to think I'm going to make a veggie & bacon omelette for myself every morning... aint. gonna. happen.

[ns3]

I tend to see things regarding diet (and pretty much anything I guess) as comparable not to the ideal, but to the realistic alternative.  If you know yourself, and bacon and eggs just aren't going to get made every morning, green smoothies are probably better than cereal, lots of coffee, or bagels.

However, I'd probably go this route.  Boil a bunch of hard-boiled eggs, and pre-cook a bunch of bacon on Sunday nights (try not to eat it all).  On week-day mornings, grab 2 hard-boiled eggs, nuke some bacon, grab some salt and Tabasco Sauce and voila!

I've heard (and I'm sure Gumby will come to rip me a new one on this "rumor") that hard-boiled eggs have far less oxidation (or something like that) of the yoke, and it's much healthier to have eggs hard-boiled.

But that last part, even if bs, is irrelevant to the fact that hard-boiled eggs are efficient as hell.  As much as I'd like to think I'm going to make a veggie & bacon omelette for myself every morning... aint. gonna. happen.

I'm stuck with the concept of my Dad's preference for bacon and eggs only giving him 94 years of longevity. When it came to other meals his preference was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and some kind of high sugar content desert like pie, cake or ice cream (my mom and Dad preferred eating out at Denny's or Bob Evans).

Those are my genes. Maybe if eat the green smoothies I'll get a couple more years.

Seriously though, those smoothies are pretty tasty and I really do like them and I'm not just eating them for health reasons, though they really aren't as filling as pure eggs and bacon when I go that route.

[WiseOne]

Interestingly, for Manhattanites Whole Foods is considered a remarkably cheap place to shop.  Their store brand is great quality at a price I can't find anywhere else (locally).

The trick is to stay away from the gimmicky stuff, exotic produce, and pointlessly high priced items like organic dish scrubbers (many of which are indeed ridiculous), and take advantage of their bulk aisle.  Also it feels nice to get a 5 cent credit for bringing my backpack.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=ns3]I would also vote for bacon and eggs over green smoothies but all in all, it takes more effort to cook and clean up after bacon and eggs. Green smoothies are actually pretty easy and there is very little cleanup (which my wife does any way, God bless her). [/quote]

I have picked up a few good cast iron pieces over the years, and I have been cooking on that lately, including bacon and eggs.  If properly seasoned, they clean up in a jiffy.  I use a round, flat, griddle to do eggs.  The low (no) sides make it easy to manipulate, and the eggs (even omelettes) slide off easily.  A regular skillet for bacon.

Clean up of the egg griddle is just a paper towel wipe, usually.  For the skillet, hot water and one of these make short work of the stickies.  I also save the bacon grease as it is one of the better lubes for cast iron.

My wife will not deal the cast iron, however.  Maybe I should put smoothies into the rotation.