Whole Foods: America's Temple of Pseudoscience 794
__roo writes "Many 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? That's the question the author of this article tackles: 'From the probiotics aisle to the vaguely ridiculous Organic Integrity outreach effort ... Whole Foods has all the ingredients necessary to give Richard Dawkins nightmares. ... The homeopathy section has plenty of Latin words and mathematical terms, but many of its remedies are so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule of the substance they purport to deliver.' He points out his local Whole Foods' clientele shop at a place where a significant portion of the product being sold is based on simple pseudoscience. So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:God (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:God (Score:4, Funny)
I like those soaps. The labels look like something written by Time Cube guy.
Re:God (Score:5, Informative)
The crazy ramblings are part of the charm (especially the lemon and vaseline birth control method). I think they just keep it on the bottles in memory of the company's founder.
If you don't want the crazy, you can buy bars of Kirk's castille soap at whole foods as well, although I don't think they have a concentrated liquid like Dr. Bronner's. Dr Bronner's is a great travel soap--you can do laundry with it, wash your body or hair (if you are not picky about how it rinses out), and even brush your teeth (if you are brave). I spent a month in Europe with just a little bottle of that super-concentrated stuff...and the big bottle I filled it with is still going strong.
Re:God (Score:5, Informative)
The soap is great. I especially appreciate the scents used. For whatever reason, most of the scents used in nearly anything smell horrific to me but bronners actually smells like what it says on the bottle.
Some fear the price, mostly because they don't realize it is very strong soap and will last forever.
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right. the bit from the article "It’s not just the Ezekiel 4:9 bread (its recipe drawn from the eponymous Bible verse), or Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps" is a bit elitist if you ask me. dr. bronner's soaps are fucking awesome. and the bread, it's just multigrain bread. so the label has a bible reference on it, who cares? the bread is pretty good. it's not like they say eating the bread will give you magic powers or anything.
Re:God (Score:5, Insightful)
Read it again.
The entire article is a "I'm smarter than these sheep ho-ho-ho. Look at how knowledgeated I am." love letter from the writer to himself.
I'd have to use at least three different colored highlighters and the Wikipedia's list of fallacies to comb through that article.
He might as well be arguing that all those kids and talking animals on boxes of cereals and candy ARE ONLY PRETENDING TO BE ECSTATIC about those products - ergo, they are as evil as creationists.
But this is my favorite part.
" I invited a biologist friend who studies human gut bacteria to come take a look with me. She read the healing claims printed on a handful of bottles and frowned. âoeThis is bullshit,â she said, and went off to buy some vegetables."
What is? What are you not telling us?! WHAT DID SHE READ!!!? What is it that the magical scientist won't tell us!!? WHAAAAAT!!!?
You don't go arguing about something being "OMG not scientific" and then build that argument on the fine art of appeal to authority and... well, bullshit.
Presenting someone calling something "Bullshit" as an argument is a whole list of fallacies of its own.
Instead, one should say "Product A claims this, this and this. That is false, because this, this and this study either proves it to be false or shows no proof of it being true or having any other provable effect."
And then give us links to those studies cause if there is one thing we know for sure - JOURNALISTS DON'T UNDERSTAND MATH AND STATISTICS.
That's why they went to study stuff that does not require math AND/OR statistics.
Re:God (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, we have soap here in Europe as well...
Re:God (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:God (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that "many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently" as far as belief systems and evaluation of empirical evidence are concerned.
I perceive them differently because Whole Foods isn't trying to shove their beliefs into the public schools. Everyone should have the right to believe silly nonsense, but no one has the right to impose their beliefs on others, and they especially don't have the right to use the instruments of government to do so.
Re:God (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding, right? Imposing beliefs on children is EXACTLY what schools do, every day. Ever hear of political correctness?
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Dr. Bronner's soap is first rate. The peppermint one makes your balls tingle.
Re:God (Score:5, Interesting)
Homeopathy is bigger in France than it is in the US. So if you're going to make snarky comments about Americans, be sure to throw in a few about the French as well.
Re:God (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? (Score:3)
Does it smell of the orifice it was pulled out of?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
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For what it's worth I only go there because they carry bread I can actually eat all the time without getting sick, and because
Re: God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: God (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife likes to buy organic fresh vegetables, fruit and free range meat because of the less intensive farming and ranching practices.
I don't buy organic because, among other reasons (promoting socially unsustainable rigid pre-scientific pre-enlightenment appeal to nature type dogma being the main one), I prefer the more intensive farming practices. You might feel good supporting less intensive practices, and that's fine, but there's a reason organic production is not a universal practice; among other things, lower yield per acre, which is to say, more land requirements to produce the same amount of food. If everyone went all natural there'd be no nature left.
Re:God (Score:4, Insightful)
Myth: "a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."
By that definition, god is absolutely mythological, whether he's real or not.
There are, of course, other definitions for myth, especially in the vernacular.
Both the Plato and the Old Testament discuss atheists. I'm willing to bet that there has never been a time in recorded human history when every person believed in a god or gods. That means in no point in recorded human history has god shown himself to all humanity, beyond any reasonable doubt. So if you believe in gods, especially a particular god, it's because somebody told you about him.
Re:God (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes, even though literally in the presence of God, some people don't believe. Odd, that.
Re:God (Score:5, Interesting)
In the Old Testament, the Jewish people, while wandering in the desert, after seeing the parting of the Red Sea and all the miracles Moses brought down on Egypt, continue to fall away from God. He even had an actual presence in their Temple, and would show up as a flaming column from time to time. Nonetheless, they would turn to idols and he'd have to "smite" them from time to time.
So, yes, even though literally in the presence of God, some people don't believe. Odd, that.
Kind of requires you to accept the Old Testament as 100% historically accurate though, which seems a tad problematic to me.
Re:God (Score:5, Informative)
So you actually believe that Moses parted the Red Sea? Even many religious Christians (and, I assume, Jews) are more reasonable than that. The area where they crossed appears to have been a tidal swamp. Waiting for low tide is hardly miraculous...and many who saw it would not think it a miracle. (Perhaps some from inland would...but tides went a bit up the Nile, so that's a bit dubious.)
I suspect that if some people saw something that others reported as an act of the hand of God, and others didn't accept as such, I'd be inclined to be dubious. Frequently even things that are widely accepted are quite dubious. I tend to class most religious miracle reports together with alien abductions...if I see actual evidence I might be interested, but back when I was looking seriously I never saw anything that didn't have a reasonable explanation...though often the reports were sufficiently lacking in details that I had to satisfy myself with "not proven".
Re:God (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do reasonable people always try to find some way for bible stories to have their foundation in some actual event? What if it's just straight-up bullshit? You know, like Greek myths, or 8-armed Hindu gods, Cthulu, FSM, etc.? Sometimes I think that even trying to find a way to fit biblical stories into reality is like accepting that there's some modicum of truth to these stories.
But if you really think about it, what stories could possibly survive 2000 years of sharing and still resemble their origins? Have you ever played the telephone game? Within 10 minutes, the story is so distorted that you can't even recognize the original. Add in centuries of illiteracy, dozens of ulterior motives, and there is no reason to think that *any* story in the bible has any basis in reality.
Re:God (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some differences but they are not material enough to change the stories.
This happens because unlike the telephone game, men and women of the jews were required to memorized the scrolls that made up the torah. When someone recited portions of it and got something wrong, they were corrected by the others who knew the correct versions. Almost all people in the villages participated in this so the stories are reasonable the same as they always were.
So there is little to no leading away from the originals until it started getting translated into other languages from translated versions. Then you see some differences that could be considered material but the stories seem to work out the same. BTW, the chapter and verse numbers everyone cites today are an artifact of copying that made it easy to double check translations and copies. But that does remind me of a joke. It has something to do with a monk asking to see the original scrolls because he thought if someone made a mistake, they would be copying that mistake. So he asked the Great Schema and he said go down and take a look for yourself, the originals are in the catacombs but it's dangerous down there. So the monk went and was gone for three days. Finally, they got worried and sent someone to look and he found the monk sitting in the corner crying while mumbling we missed the R we missed the R. After a few days rest, they asked him what was it about the R that he kept mentioning? He replied, we missed the R it says celebrate not celebate.
Re:God (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:God (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes, but it is more rational to disbelieve in that which, by definition, can never be proven, than to believe in the same. That is, at least, if you believe in rational thought.
As an Atheist, I'm more than willing to accept there is a god (or gods) if any rational proof can be exhibited (I've yet to see it). And no, a book such as the Christian bible, does not suffice. It is known to have been written by man, and the portions chosen to be included by committee/monarch so Charlemagne could subvert and control the ever growing Christian populace. The "books" we now know as the "New Testament" were voted up by man circa 400AD. It is not the word of god. It is a carefully selected sets of works that allowed a king to more effectively control his subjects.
I, too, can write about walking on water, turning water into wine, etc. But it doesn't make it true. In our time, we call it a novel or a work of fiction.
I cannot read Arabic, but the select translations of the Koran I've read lead me to believe it would be far less attractive.
I'm not personally familiar with any other religion, but there is not one I've been exposed to that makes any sense. Every single one is designed as a means to control the minds of a mass of people. They demand sacrifice in this life for promise of an afterlife (that has never been proven).
Finally, if there was a god or many gods, all of the worlds' religions cannot be correct. And seeming as so much of the mythology around these religions seem to indicate rage and jealousy when they are disrespected, why is it that all of these religions that so fundamentally disagree are allowed to exist? Is it because they're all correct (in which case, there is no one god), or do we cite Occam's Razor and that the reason all of the religions exist is because there are no gods?
Re:God (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously, that means that they exist outside of that 4 dimensional spacetime
Hardly obvious, as another poster has pointed out.
What I can't accept, though, is a violation of the conservation of energy and mass.
You can accept extradimensional magical beings but you can't accept the possibility that they have the ability to exceed our known laws of physics? Not to mention the conservation laws become a lot more tangled when you start talking about invisible dimensions -- a reduction in energy in our 4 dimensions could potentially be compensated for by an increase in the 7th dimension and still conform to conservation of energy. The fact that conservation of energy so far appears to hold entirely within our visible 4 dimensions is something to ponder in itself if we accept that additional invisible dimensions exist.
Is love real?
Yes. Its a biochemical reaction. We've decided to name that reaction 'love.' It exists because its defined to exist.
Is the truth real?
As far as anyone can tell, yes. Things happen in exactly one way. Any individual person may not have the full information regarding how it happened and thus we all have our own interpretations of the 'truth', but even accepting things like the many worlds hypothesis, in any particular time line there is exactly one truth as defined to be the real physical changes that took place in the universe at the exact time in question, irregardless of who saw what. Even quantum mechanics and its inherent randomness doesn't really change the fact (you can define truth as always-past and thus all wave states have collapsed into a specific truth, or you can define truth as including the present in which case 'is in a superposition' simply becomes part of the description of the truth. In both cases, a specific definition of the truth is still available.)
here is no particle in the standard model for them
There's no particle in the standard model for water or ice cream sandwiches either. This is a pointless argument. The standard model describes only the most fundamental building blocks. Love and truth are complex interactions between countless particles. (Though to be fair, there IS a 'truth' particle in the standard model.. it just got renamed to 'top' somewhere along the way. But of course that's obviously not the type of truth we're talking about!)
As a scientist
I sincerely hope you're only an armchair scientist. Mixing up standard model particles with abstract concepts like love is a leap of logic even most crackpots wouldn't dare make.
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"b. You're assuming everyone on Slashdot thinks God is a myth. Rather than just claiming, "God is a myth," tell us why he's a myth."
The same reason as the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and Mother Goose.
They are related.
Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I shop at whole foods because it is on the way home and it has significantly better selection and quality of produce than the Jewel (which is slightly more out of the way).
I really hoped this article (when I read it a week ago, thanks slashdot) would have been about some of the questionable restrictions they place on their food. They have decided that nitrates/nitrites are "evil" and must be avoided...as such they won't sell anything that uses sodium nitrate (instacure #1) as an ingredient. Of course, without nitrates, you won't have bacon or a whole host of other cured meat products (such as many hams/salamis/etc). How does Whole Foods get around this? They figure out how to make bacon using celery juice so that they can say "No Added Nitrates" despite the fact that bacon made this way can actually have higher nitrate concentrations than bacon made with curing salt (and can taste a little funny since who wants bacon made with celery?).
Either they need to admit that nitrates are OK to eat, or they need to stop selling things that defeat the point of their own restriction.
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either they need to admit that nitrates are OK to eat, or they need to stop selling things that defeat the point of their own restriction.
They can't admit that because a lot of their customers are idiots who shop there because of the "no nitrates" stickers.
Nitrates from celery are obviously more natural than the industrial chemical nitrates used in bacon, right?
And that's the point of the summary: Why do seemingly-sensible people believe that sort of crap?
Me? I don't want sea salt. Not with all the mercury and PCBs floating around in the ocean. You think they refine it or anything? Nope, they just evaporate the water and package it.
I want the stuff that's been underground for millions of years, unmolested by humans until they dig it out. Give me the most refined, chemically pure salt they can possibly manufacture. Sodium and chlorine in equal amounts, that's it (well, maybe a bit of iodine as well).
You try telling one of the people in the store that sea salt may not be better. They'll chase you out of the shop with a slab of tofu!
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I don't want sea salt.
Hate to burst your bubble but most "Sea Salt" comes from the exact same mine as your table salt. You have to understand: it *was* a sea back when the salt was deposited there, so it's not even slightly disingenuous to call it sea salt.
The only difference between sea salt and table salt is that they skip the last step of the refining process and deliver it crushed but otherwise unchanged from when they dug it out of the ground.
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Yes, but the stuff you mine was never exposed to the pollutants that are found in the sea today. It was sequestered a long time ago.
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Yes, but the stuff you mine was never exposed to the pollutants that are found in the sea today. It was sequestered a long time ago.
Well, that is assuming that there was no other chemicals in the water that produced the non-mankind altered salt.
Anyhow, equating Sea Salt with what we ingest - which is table salt, gets us into pedantry pretty quickly. Here goes:
What we consume on food might have come form the ocean, but it might have come from hot brine springs or a few other places.
Table salt is refined to a level of around 99 percent Sodium Chloride. Also anticaking minerals and often iodine.Some of those chemicals will show you t
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Informative)
what salt is not sea salt? Do you think "non sea salt" just spontaneously appeared. All salt are from evaporated sea !!!!!
Pedant!
The point is: Some of it evaporated before we started dumping toxic crap into the oceans. OK?
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No, almost all table salt is recently evaporated sea water.
You may find this link [google.com] helpful. Don't even bother reading if you want, just look at the pictures and tell me if that salt got there "recently".
Maybe you're really long lived and measure time on a geological scale?
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whole Foods, and in my part of the world, Sprouts, are fantastic places to find in-stock fresh vegetables at a fair price, as well as spices in bulk well under the price that a bottle of Shilling or McCormick will cost me. Similarly I can get some deli items (cheeses, specifically) and microbrews my normal grocery store might not carry.
For that, I love them.
For that, I hate them.
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile my friend with Celiac's (diagnosed by a real medical doctor, not some homeopathic nutjob) doesn't care who else shops in that gluten-free aisle, just as long as it stays profitable enough to continue to exist.
I see those people as a willing tax-base to subsidize my friend's medical bills. It works better than any controversy-soaked healthcare laws that will ever be passed.
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. And this is stupid.
From the summary:
Maybe it is because the stuff the author finds objectionable is just a segment of the stuff available there? But the Creation Museum is 100% about creationism.
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Creationists want to teach their fairy tales in schools and want to make public policy based on something someone was purported to have said 2000 years ago.
The vaccines-cause-autism crowd wants to reintroduce infectious disease, and the anti-GMO crowd wants poor brown people to starve. (Of course, they don't say that, but it's the result.)
I'd rather battle creationism any day, since one is fighting a book, and the other fights the combined power of Oprah and Deepak Chopra.
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:4, Informative)
No, we want some assurances they've done real safety testing instead of just assuming, and that if those 'poor brown people' get food aid, they're not beholden to a multinational which says they can't keep seeds to grow their own crops next year and be able to feed themselves, and we don't want the option of buying non-GMO foods destroyed because of cross-pollination which contaminates crops which aren't supposed to have that in it.
Your desire to characterize it as you have doesn't substitute for facts.
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then why are the anti-GMO crazies, who make creationists look like the physics staff at CERN by comparison. ripping up stands of golden rice, an open-source project that has nothing to do with Monsanto? And why do said crazies use Monsanto's legal bullying as an argument against the company's biological science?
Re:Why single out Whole Foods? (Score:5, Interesting)
Go to Safeway or any other supermarket and take a look around. Or do you really think that post cereals promote heart health? Hell, it took a law suite to stop "vitamin" water from claiming health benefits from their sugar water.
Bingo.
I go to Whole Foods regularly...but I don't give a shit about whether something is "organic". The produce is better, for the most part...both in diversity and in quality. The meat...holy balls, the MEAT...it's incredibly tasty. I don't get the grass fed beef (I find it tough) but the regular stuff. Yes, it's expensive, but if you want a NY strip that's literally almost 2 inches thick and will taste better than what you can find at most restaurants, Whole Foods is the place. Oh, and yes...we are yuppie DINK scum with both foodie inclinations and the money to indulge them...and for that Whole Foods is like a playground.
On the other hand, things like sugar, aluminum foil, paper products...we get those at Giant. I don't feel like paying extra just to have my paper towels be gluten free. (Yes, that's an exaggeration, but just barely.) But that brings to mind another thing...if you're gluten-sensitive, gluten-intolerant, allergic to gluten, or just one of those assholes who thinks that gluten is like eating AIDS, Whole Foods is a much better place to look. Though it does get out of hand sometimes; I watched a woman go totally nuts at a guy in the beer and wine section (diagonally opposite from the meat section within the store) over the fact that they didn't carry (I shit you not) "gluten-free bacon." Which of course leads into the fact that Whole Foods caters to that niche for the self-entitled, of which that screaming cunt is just one excellent example.
But yeah...try their steak sometime. WOW, is it good :)
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I hope you're joking. People vehemently opposed to GM foods and vaccines are exactly the Whole-Foods-shopping crowd we're talking about here. If you've ever had a conversation with one of these people about things they feel strongly about, you'd realize that they are, in fact, zealots of the same level as religious creationists.
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Many anti-GM people are ignorant idiots - anti-science hippies and other woo-believing fuckwits. They are, however, useful idiots because the problem with GM foods is *not*, in most cases, the fact that they are genetically modified or what the modification is, but that the modifications are patented by corporations like Monsanto.
The issue is that GM foods are an attempt by corporations to establish an "intellectual property" monopoly on the world's food supply. THAT must be resisted by any means possibl
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Welcome the the 21st century; science has advanced, and at this point, "climate change denier" is about as biased as "evolution denier".
Yes, they both are biased statements. That's true. That's because "climate change denier" is almost always applied to people who accept that the climate is changing but need better evidence than a positive correlation to accept anthropogenic causes. And "evolution denier" is similarly attached to people who have no problem with adaptation of species but don't necessarily accept that evolution is how life began.
And yes, almost every time someone tries countering that last statement by claiming "but evolut
Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
While Whole Foods does sell a lot of homeopathy items, that is *hardly* its entire character as a store. I, along with no doubt many others, go there because it's a specialty grocery store that has a lot of interesting foods that you can't find other places, including (and especially) a big variety of craft beers and vegetarian stuff. Their produce and bulk sections are also hard to beat for variety and freshness, and the prepared-foods section is great when you're on your way home and don't feel like cooking.
I'm no Whole Foods shill, and it does have its share of silliness. But comparing it to the Creation Museum is completely ridiculous and has no place in serious discourse.
Re:Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Homeopathy is not silly; it is a lie. If you sell it, you're lying to people. So it matters that Whole Foods sells it, as it casts doubt on their grasp of science, which indicates their "healthly" foods are just marketing to the credulous.
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Re:Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets assume you're right. How does their grasp of science effect the freshness of their kale? Cause I really don't care about the former when compared to the later.
It's not their grasp of science that Catbeller calls into question, it's their ethics.
Everybody with an IQ above room temperature knows that homeopathy is complete and utter bullshit. If they sell homeopathic items, they are, undeniably, participating in wholesale fraud. If they're willing to take your money in exchange for vials of water (priced like toner cartridges!) which they profit from, then why would you possibly believe that their kale hasn't been doctored to remain fresh - exposed to chemicals to keep its color, picked by slave labor, whatever.
tl'dr? Anyone who'll sell you homeopathic crap is a liar and should be treated as such.
Re:Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Homeopathy is not silly; it is a lie. If you sell it, you're lying to people. So it matters that Whole Foods sells it, as it casts doubt on their grasp of science, which indicates their "healthly" foods are just marketing to the credulous.
Products in regular supermarkets are also filled with lies, and both have products that better than the other in some way or the other. Solution: make your own decision rather than expecting a corporation to base their decisions on science rather than on what sells best.
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Homeopathy is not silly; it is a lie. If you sell it, you're lying to people. So it matters that Whole Foods sells it, as it casts doubt on their grasp of science, which indicates their "healthly" foods are just marketing to the credulous.
Why do you hate homeos? You sound very homeophobic.
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They're giving the customer what he wants. Just like a general interest bookstore that sells bibles and korans. Amazon sells Bibles, Korans, the Satanic Bible, books by Whitley Streiber (the alien abduction guy), probably every kooky fad diet book, Various works by Dawkins, and on and on. What does that make them?
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Re:Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
But comparing it to the Creation Museum is completely ridiculous and has no place in serious discourse.
You can't relate the entire store & it's patrons to the bogus claims of the homeopathic medicines any more than you can claim that the Westboro Baptist Church is the mouth piece of the entire Christian faith or that Al Qaeda speaks for every Muslim. But you can question why unscientific claims from 1 place are any different than from another. Why does Whole Foods get a pass on selling things of dubious nature, but a religious museum does not? If you are going to impose a high standard of scientific proof on what people are allowed to believe, then shouldn't it be imposed on everything?
Re:Troll (Score:4, Funny)
They should, God created the moon.
ahh homeopathy. (Score:5, Insightful)
so diluted that, statistically speaking, they may not contain a single molecule
...but THAT is what makes it so effective!
Looks like Dice and _roo are in teh pockets of big pharma and big grocery !!!1!
Here's another alarming trend: people are starting to use "homeopathy" to mean "holistic, nature-based, alternative medicine". When you tell them what homeopathy really means you will get "well that's not what it means to me! i mean in the more general sense" or "meanings change over time!".
Re:ahh homeopathy. (Score:4, Insightful)
(...and if one dumped one of those tiny ml bottles into a public swimming pool, would that constitute a terror attack, due to the obvious overdose everyone in the pool would get?)
Food. (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK, Whole Foods main business is not quack snake oil - it's organic produce. (Or is it? I mean, it's been so long since I entered one of these over-priced supermarket...)
Here is another example: a lot of newspapers have an astrology/horoscope section - or even a religion section - does that make them entirely anti-science? Nope.
Re:Food. (Score:4, Insightful)
I find that organic veggies typically taste better than the other ones. I'm well-off enough to pay more for food that tastes better. If there's some sort of health advantage, that's nice, but it isn't why I buy it.
Re:Food. (Score:5, Interesting)
It has nothing to do with organicness. It's simply that produce which is grown "organically" typically has a much shorter shelf life (this is not to say that the ways mass-market produce gets an extended shelf life are good, mind you) and consequently must be picked ripe and sold immediately. Mass-market produce is picked quite unripe and transported long distances, "ripening" (to the extent that they can) in transit, in storage, or simply on the shelves (or, considering the unripeness of a lot of what's on the shelves, on *my* shelves at home). That's what causes the taste difference.
If you don't believe me, go look up some studies. People have done double-blind taste tests, and found that the "organicness" of food was undetectable, while picking it ripe and eating it quickly made all the difference. Or heck, go find out for yourself! There's almost certainly a farmer's market near where you live, it's probably cheaper than Whole Foods, and you'll find it's just as good.
Re:Food. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm well-off enough to pay more for food that tastes better.
Me too. I'm well-off enough to pay more for gold-plated connectors on all my digital audio cables that sound better.
Go. Buy food. Leave. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whole Foods has many products that regular grocery stores do not. I go there, buy the product I want, and leave. Yes, there are some aisles full of oddness, but I just skip those ones. In the end, it's just a store; buy what you want, leave what you don't.
It's kind of like Best Buy; just because Monster cables are such a stupid overpriced quasi-religion doesn't mean I shouldn't go to Best Buy; it just means I shouldn't buy those cables.
Re: (Score:3)
just because Monster cables are such a stupid overpriced quasi-religion doesn't mean I shouldn't go to Best Buy
There are many, MANY reasons not to go to Best Buy...
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If you are in BestBuy and you talk to an employee, you're doing it wrong.
Amazon.com is insanely popular in part because they have *no* sales associates, and they never try to up-sell you anything.
It's simple really... (Score:5, Insightful)
... no one, even well educated people, have the time to sift through all the bullshit. Many well meaning people confuse terms marketers came up with to purposefully obfuscate the product with "healthy food". If you don't keep up on that stuff (which most people dont), it would be trivial to be mislead by healthy sounding words through relentless advertising and association.
When you name yourself something like "Whole foods" you give yourself a different aura, you project "healthy food" not pseudo-science. Not to mention we've had vitamin/mineral half pseudo-science for a while that kind of gave hucksters an in to sneak their bullshit in under "healthy foods". The science for a lot of stuff is difficult/vague and takes a long time to do studies and companies can't wait to exploit the health conscious aspects of peoples brains by confusing them with marketing speak and over promoting the benefits of marginal "health aiding" products.
Class definitions (Score:5, Interesting)
Creation museum: customers tend to be poor, relatively uneducated, and don't understand basic science.
Whole Foods: customers are almost exclusively well-off, expensively educated, and don't understand basic science.
Everyone's stupid about something.
Re:Class definitions (Score:5, Interesting)
Creation museum: customers tend to be poor, relatively uneducated, and don't understand basic science. Whole Foods: customers are almost exclusively well-off, expensively educated, and don't understand basic science.
Everyone's stupid about something.
Creation museum: customers tend to believe in everything the museum present.
Whole Foods: 95% of customers don't even set foot in the homeopathy aisle, and are just there because they have fresher and better looking produce, locally-farmed meat, wild caught fish, fancy cheeses, etc.
I guess the article writer is stupid about believing that the 5% in the homeopathy aisle represent the majority.
Science as a Religion (Score:4, Insightful)
So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
It's easy -- because in many ways "science" has become a religion to many. However, many people lack a firm understanding of scientific principles and methods. So, if something looks "science-y" with Latin words, molecular drawings and other intelligent-sounding but hard-to-understand descriptions.
These days people have "faith" in "science"..and if that so-called science goes along with their worldview (which Whole Foods is self-selecting in that a certain worldview makes someone more likely to become a shopper there), then they may blindly accept it. Very few people have the skills and motivation to actually analyze the claims of these manufacturers and just go with their biases when making a decision.
Re: (Score:3)
It's easy -- because in many ways "science" has become a religion to many. However, many people lack a firm understanding of scientific principles and methods. So, if something looks "science-y" with Latin words, molecular drawings and other intelligent-sounding but hard-to-understand descriptions.
Hmmm, I don't think the attraction to homeopathy has anything to do with an affinity towards science, since scientists and doctors are in nearly universal agreement that homeopathy is complete nonsense. If anythi
Because they don't preach (Score:5, Insightful)
So, why do many of us perceive Whole Foods and the Creation Museum so differently?"
1) Whole Foods is a grocery store, the Creation Museum claims to be a museum.
2) Certain states aren't trying to teach children the "controversy" surrounding dandelion root extract supposedly curing my ailments. There isn't a national debate surrounding gluten-free pancake mix. Politicians don't get elected to office by appealing to the "this organic sea salt is only 4000 years old" crowd.
That's one aisle in Whole Foods (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the entire existance of the Creation Museum. To be fair I would like to see them get rid of that one aisle.
Whole Foods is doing a lot of really good initiatives, see:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.co... [wholefoodsmarket.com]
And they don't just say blindly yes God said so to questions like "Is Organic better for you?:
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.co... [wholefoodsmarket.com]
And probiotics after taking antibiotics makes logical sense.... I remember a study that showed that our natural bacteria wasn't at the same level 1 year after taking antibiotics (please don't use this as an excuse to not take antibiotics). If we have the right probiotics available to us is a different story. My wife just got antibiotics and the hospital recommened probiotics...
*Disclaimer: I own a small bit of Whole Foods stock. I'm sure this post will greatly increase it's value....
It goes hand in hand with Creatonism (Score:3)
Look at who is vehemently perpetuating this pseudoscience. People like Orrin Hatch have neutered the FDA in regard to dietary supplements.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin... [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
Re: (Score:3)
To be fair Orrin Hatch neutered the FDA on supplements because a LOT of people in Utah got very very rich on them. Chance are if you are buying supplements of ay sort someone from Utah is making money on it. He played to his constituency in this regard. Keep in mind the Mormons have no problem with Evolution or any other aspect of science, they tend to take the point of view that science reveals how God did it. (Disclaimer, I was raised Mormon and have had that exact explanation of evolution taught to me in
Teach the controvesy... (Score:3)
If whole foods was pushing to include their advertising/propaganda into the Health Education school curriculum under the banner of teach the controversy I think you see an equal reaction.
You pick your biases and you pays yo money (Score:4)
Everyone and I mean EVERYONE simply believes what they want. No, really. We all have a world view that makes sense to us.
Hate Republicans? Then you believe in socialism, you know, for the children. Hate commie bastards? You probably believe that God gave the deed to Israel to Jews.
Purely rational? Not like those other dumbasses that believe in that goofy shit? Then you probably believe you really see the world completely, no limitations, no illusions, no misunderstandings.
If so, you're the most obnoxious of them all.
Selection (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite the same (Score:3)
Dumb question: it's about the actions of the believers. That's why the anti-vax kooks (whotends to skew left) gets a similar reaction to the creationists and climate wackos.
Granted that homeopathy stuff is ridiculous pseudoscience, but the difference is that nobody is trying to push it as a driver of public policy. When I shop at Whole Foods, it's for the tasty, tasty bread and local salsa and nobody minds that I walk right past the snake oil. I don't have a problem with creationism, I have a problem with it being forced on others. That's why we perceive it differently.
Meet the new snake oil salesman (Score:3)
What is really repugnant is people with medical degrees hawking snake oil and "alternative" therapies. I cringe every time I see Dr. Oz legitimizing some quack idea posited by a guest and he never challenges them on their BS. Then there's the MD quack Dr. Richard Becker who's show is effectively infomercial for his noni juice and vitamin supplements. These type of doctors are even more evil than traditional snake oil salesman because, rather than outright lying, they string together a series of unrelated/uncorrelated facts to influence their viewers into believing something that isn't true. You can't assail them on any one statement because taken piecewise everything is true.
Could have made a good point....... (Score:3)
There's a reason I'm not up in arms (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Because the same people try to get competing foods banned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
Double Standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Whole Foods is treated differently because of the moral and intellectual double standards which prevail on the left. Leftists and rightists both treat things differently when they are done by people on "our side" and so practice double standards. The left, however, is particularly bad in that regard.
One example of this was the extremely widespread holocaust denial (or something akin to holocaust denial) which is rampant on the left and has always been. I am not talking about the mass murder in Germany. I am referring to the mass murder in the Soviet Union in the 1930s through the 1950s and even after; the mass murder in Cambodia in the 1970s; and the ongoing mass murder and severe political repression in almost all explicitly "socialist" countries which until recently were the darlings of far leftists everywhere. Those mass murders were denied or disputed by considerable numbers on the left. What's more, the denial of mass murder is ignored by a great many other leftists who do not deny that those murders occurred. There is a double standard. Whereas most leftists would vehemently protest (and rightly so) when someone disputes the Holocaust, they are strangely silent when one of their own disputes the mass killings of leftist regimes.
The denial was especially severe with regard to Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge murdered 1/4th of the population of that country within a few years. A whole industry of professors and leftist figures exist to deny the mass-murder there. Even Noam Chomsky tried hard to deny the killing fields, and tried hard to dispute the reports of massacre emanating from that country. The reason for this denial (I suspect) is because the mass murders followed a socialist revolution and were orchestrated by far leftists who had been educated in Paris, and who had been supported enthusiastically by the far left. The fact that it resulted in mass murder is difficult to accept for people who are convinced of their own ethical superiority. Thus, a double standard evolved.
If Noam Chomsky had been a Nazi sympathizer and had denied the Holocaust, he would be a forgotten figure by now, as he deserves to be, for various reasons. However, he spent his time denying the mass murder in Cambodia, so it was forgotten.
These double standards prevail everywhere. My leftist friends cannot stop laughing at young earth creationism, but are in thrall to pseudoscientific nonsense which makes creationism look sophisticated in comparison. There are all kinds of T-Shirts meant to mock creationism, with a "Teach the Controversy" byline beneath a Triceratops attached to a plow. There are not, however, T-Shirts worn by my leftist friends mocking homeopathy, or all kinds of ancient medical quackery, or "energy medicine", or "multiple chemical sensitivity", or the recent widespread belief that vaccines are dangerous and aren't worth it. Granted, these things are not practiced by most people on the left. However, they are ignored by people on the left who have a scientific understanding, who reserve their vitriol for the pseudoscience of the other side.
There are also double standards with regard to doomsday groups. Each side of the political spectrum mocks the doomsday groups of the other side. People who are waiting for "the end times" are mocked by those on the left. However, peak oiler doomers (almost all of whom were on the far left) who assured us that civilization certainly would collapse before 2008 are largely exempt from that mockery.
I suppose double standards are easy to fall into. It's difficult to condemn one of your own.
Re:Double Standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Cognitive dissonance is a human trait. You are engaging in it yourself when you try to cast the left as engaging in it more than the right.
Your whole argument is itself simply an expression of a double standard when you try to claim the left engages in this more than the right.
It's simply something that arises out of our own human limitations.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whole Foods is nothing like the Creation Science Museum.
It's just a store. It offers options. It caters to a particular niche.
It's really just a pretentious grocery store. The original article is a nonsense propaganda piece trying to attack a consumer alternative. It's just Monsanto/ConAgra trying to slander the choices of that part of the market that's not buying what Monsanto/ConAgra is selling.
No one running the local Whole Foods is trying to subvert science education in your local school district. No on
Re:Because... (Score:4, Insightful)
"No one at the local Whole Foods is trying to impose their beliefs or customs on you our your secular government."
Well, that isn't necessarily true, because many of the same people who shop at Whole Foods are active in the anti-GMO movement. They shop at WH because they fervently believe at GMOs are bad for themselves and everyone else, and many folks are politically active, at least in California, in trying to put anti-GMO statutes on the ballot whenever they can. So while whole foods isn't necessarily doing those things, they certainly cater to people who do.
Re:Because... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't give a rats ass about whether GMOs are healthy or not. I want them labeled because I don't want a dime of my money to go to Monsanto. I want Monsanto to die because of their patent policy, exploitation of the third world and general willingness to endanger our ability to feed ourselves.
Fuck anyone who frames the labeling of GMOs as a health issue, be they for or against. It's an informed consumer issue, nothing more.
Re: (Score:3)
You have this false dichotomy where if snake-oil salesmanship bothers you, you must be in favor of evil corporation Monsanto.
In reality, they are two different issues. Snake Oil and BS homeopathy and all the nonsense perpetuated by Whole Foods is basically lying to make money, and your opinion of Monsanto is a completely different issue.
For instance, there are many organic growers who don't believe GMOs are poison, or the various other ideas from the homeopathy line of thought.
Re:Because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ding ding ding! I've been snickering quietly to myself about the recent spate of right-wing editorial authors discussing how liberals are trying to eliminate "intellectual diversity". Amazingly, these authors have discovered fundamentalist liberals, and the fundamentalist liberals discovered "purity tests" and "with us or against us" and somehow the right-wing editorialists just don't see the connection, probably because they were blinded to it when it was their side doing it.
As for the rest of us non-fundamentalists, I don't buy into the homeopathy mumbo-jumbo either.
Re:Harm (Score:5, Insightful)
Homeopathy only hurts gullible people.
...and the people they make medical decisions for. I've personally known people who give their kids homeopathic water to treat stuff they really should be seen by a doctor for. It's not the kids' fault that they have stupid parents, but the kids are the ones suffering harm./p
Re:Harm (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair, the parents who cart the kid to the doctor for every sneeze and to the hospital for a bumped head aren't doing their kids any favors either.
Re: (Score:3)
Some evils are just more evil than others.
http://whatstheharm.net/homeop... [whatstheharm.net]
Re: (Score:3)