Whole Foods shares many similar aspects with its twice-removed cousin, the supermarket, but constructs its own atmosphere in a very different way. It has aisles, center displays, coffee dispensers, and fresh meat and vegetables on display, but apart from these basics, it redefines the food shopper’s experience. Instead of a cold, technological, and heartlessly efficient warehouse of manufactured foods, Whole Foods takes the aesthetically pleasing route. It features rows of ethnic meals and side dishes, several islands where a multitude of cuisines may be cooked in front of you, and packaged fresh salads, dips, cheese, diced fruit, and meat.
The Whole Foods theme centers around an enlightened awareness of the implications of food consumption–something most Americans haven’t done–and the resulting desire to be mindful of the origins of purchased food, its health benefits, and its pleasure factor. Whole Foods appeals, using pathos, to the person who gains satisfaction from eating organic, natural food. Yet the argument that organic food is better food is somewhat intangible in terms of taste–the implication is similar to Michael Pollan’s article, “Unhappy Meals.” Just as nutrients like Omega-3s and antioxidants are individually undetectable, pesticides and hormones are quite invisible. This is why shoppers are persuaded, in just the same way, to buy food that is biologically liberated–it frees them from the bittersweet guilt that conventional American consumption typically embodies, as seen by shelf upon shelf of foods proclaiming their organic-ness. The only drawback is the high price that Whole Foods demands. A little known fact, however, is that the cost of not eating well is much higher in the long run–meaning medical care–than it initially appears. Still, one can get good food from a traditional grocery store. The difference is how Whole Foods argues that their food is not a commodity, but a key to resonance with what once was man’s natural relationship with nature.
Whole Foods itself has a somewhat contradictory premise, as it has prepackaged yet fresh food and cooked delicacies in buffet form. Apart from the usual self-selection, there are droves of fresh dishes waiting to be eaten, and mini restaurants waiting for your order. So, one can arrive and find all the healthy foods desired, and leave with his or her fear of treated and processed food temporarily masked; or one can arrive and examine the concocted dishes displayed, and realize that while organic usually signifies “healthy” for the eater, it also means the eater probably came due to a phobia of any “bad” food. As seen by the dishes on display, Whole Foods’ cooked meals attempt to bring people back into the context of food as not just a part of culture, or as a daily hassle, but as an art, an emotional experience; something to be enjoyed and revered. Food is made part of humanity again, not as compounds to be dissected and analyzed–in this way, the enlightened shoppers looking for healthy food, probing for “organic-this” and “free range-that,” can choose to let go of their anxiety and start living again.
Intellectuals shopping at Whole Foods have the insight and money to buy healthy food–but this doesn’t mean they’ve avoided the affliction of American dieting and “nutritionism.” Whole Foods would only feed this drama if it weren’t for its meal buffet–the two kinds of food, prepared and unprepared, turn out complimenting one another, letting one see what can be created out of raw ingredients. This is what Whole Foods should stand for–a relief from our misguided food culture, not just through healthy eating, but through happy eating.
What’s for sale at HEB and not at Whole Foods
Prepackaged fresh food in the fruit section
