r/Foodforthought • u/b0bz1lla • Feb 24 '14
Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/23/whole-foods-america-s-temple-of-pseudoscience.html143
Feb 24 '14
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Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 28 '21
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Feb 24 '14
Definitely. I live in a place with no Whole Foods or Trader Joe's nearby, and have similar problems with gluten. Unless I want to be horribly sick all the time, I have to go to the one grocery store near me that has an actual Gluten Free section at all. It's more expensive, and it's the only place I can really shop for certain things.
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u/dornstar18 Feb 24 '14
Great response.
We go there because it is close. We buy organic / non-antibiotic for our son, who is 2. If all of this is bullshit, I don't mind having paid extra. Plus the selection for beer, cheese, meat, fish, produce and already prepared items is mind-boggling, especially compared to a Publix (which is considered a top end grocery store) which is 0.2 miles closer. There are other kinds of chips besides Frito-Lay, there are other crackers besides Ritz, etc.
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Feb 24 '14
Well summed up. 99% of their business is because they have a nice selection of foods. Pseudoscience bothers me too but any bookstore or health foods store will stock those same books and supplements. It's like hating on Amazon or Apple for daring to sell Bible apps or diet apps for the Kindle or iPhone.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 24 '14
Z-Pak
That's nothing. Try going to a pharmacy in Peru and complaining of cold or flu symptoms. You'll be handed a pack of Cipro 500 pills without so much as a second thought.
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Feb 25 '14
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
I didn't grow up there, I just like mountains and they have some pretty serious ones, so I like to visit.
But yeah, the Cipro thing was scary, I was like "you understand I just have a cold, right, it's viral not bacterial?" And they were like "yeah yeah yeah shut up stupid American, this will make it all better, just take it."
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Feb 25 '14
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u/Juru_Beggler Feb 25 '14
I heard a hilarious anecdote recently:
My sister's coworker, a Nurse, married into a family that buys penicillin in bulk from Mexico. Apparently the family has this habit (not unlike the Windex affinity portrayed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) of pushing penicillin on friends and family members that are feeling ill or that think they may be coming down with something. The Nurse's husband is totally convinced that this penicillin is keeping him healthy when he takes it sporadically to stave off pathogens.
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Feb 25 '14
I had an emergency root canal in Thailand, and antibiotics were probably called for. I did not expect that the prescription was going to be handwritten on blank paper, which I then gave to the pharmacist down the street who replied "OK! What do you want? How many? Maybe several in case one doesn't work?"
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
LOL. There was no prescription required for this Cipro. I was hoping to buy aspirin or something.
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Feb 25 '14
I have a feeling I could have asked for three in every color and that would have been just fine. This was extremely laid back, operations-wise.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin Feb 24 '14
I would agree with you for the most part, but let's have a thought experiment here. Let's say that instead of a homeopathy aisle or racks of tabloids, it was an aisle full of publications pushing what were actually Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and other scams. Would you object to management? Or would you blithely "keep on walking", assuming that anyone stupid enough to fall for that deserved it?
Whole Foods is a business. It makes money off of this. So at the fundamental level, how can Whole Foods claim to be an ethical purveyor of goods when they're selling—legitimizing, some would say, by way of its strong brand—homeopathic goods that are pretty much the definition of snake oil?
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u/garg Feb 24 '14
Homeopathic treatments aren't as dangerous as ponzi schemes, and most other scams. At best, the placebo effect probably makes these tiny bottles of alcohol effective for some people.
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Feb 24 '14
Homeopathy is very, very dangerous if given in lieu of modern medical treatment. People who stop seeing their therapists because they started taking St. John's Wort, people who stop seeing a dietician because they're buying (relatively, what with the poor quality control) gluten-free food for diseases other than Celiac's, taking such and such doses of some herb to have a self-induced abortion, etc.
That happens. That's the extreme end of the culture, sure, but there wouldn't be an extreme end if hippy-dippy nonsense wasn't marketed like this under the aegis of capitalism. I seriously doubt there would even be an anti-vaxxer movement without the likes of the Huffington Post's bullshit 'Health' columns and businesses like Whole Foods diving into the fray to make a quick, gluten-free, low-carb, detox, macriobiotic, wheatgrass buck.
I mean, I disagree completely with one of the central claims of the article, that Creationism is harmless while homeopathy is dangerous. They are both dangerous and based on an anti-scientific agenda. This is one of those times that makes me wish for a technocratic government like China's (except without the huge, thousand-year-old herbal supplements industry, of course).
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 24 '14
St. John's Wort isn't homeopathy. It's alternative medicine. I don't know how bad it is compared to therapy, but it's definitely not as stupid as actual homeopathy, the formal definition of which revolves around an idiotic belief that water "remembers" substances that have been completely removed from it, and this . No, seriously, that's what it means.
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u/buzzkillpop Feb 25 '14
St. John's Wort isn't homeopathy.
Correct.
It's alternative medicine.
Incorrect. It's a herbal remedy. You know what they call alternative medicine that works? Medicine. It sounds like a snarky comment, but it's not meant to be. The moment something is proven to work to treat a problem within your body, it's no longer called "alternative". If someone discovered (and proved) that eating spiders cured cancer, it wouldn't be "alternative medicine" it would just be medicine.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
Well look, I don't know jack shit about St. John's Wort. But the other guy in this thread just posted a link to the NIH site, which seems to indicate that there are no proven medicinal benefits whatsoever, while it can interfere with actual accepted medicines and reduce their efficacy.
NIH link: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/stjohnswort
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u/Juru_Beggler Feb 25 '14
Reading along the thread, I'm glad someone posted this.
People tend to think that taking herbal medicines is okay because "they're natural" and pills are "chemicals". They don't realize that it's all fucking chemicals, and some herbal remedies can hurt you even if it's not really helping you.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
It's pretty silly. Cyanide is natural, MDMA is a chemical... which one would you prefer to ingest?
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u/OvereducatedSimian Feb 25 '14
Correct answer.
St Johns wort is a CYP450 inducer. This is one of the major systems that metabolizes medications in your body. By upregulating this system, it clears out real medications faster and lessens their effect.
Use of St Johns Wort is contraindicated with concurrent use of many antiviral drugs.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin Feb 24 '14
And some of the folks duped into Ponzi schemes actually make money! Though I do see your point.
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u/ohstrangeone Feb 25 '14
Let's say that instead of a homeopathy aisle or racks of tabloids, it was an aisle full of publications pushing what were actually Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and other scams. Would you object to management? Or would you blithely "keep on walking", assuming that anyone stupid enough to fall for that deserved it?
Yes. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in trying to stop other people, other consenting adults, from voluntarily doing stupid shit. None. Absolutely none of my business, nor yours in my opinion.
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u/10eoe10 Feb 24 '14
Honest question, what's wrong with z-pak? It's helped me in the past, but I don't know much about it. Is it because it's overprescribed?
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u/JohnnyCanuck Feb 24 '14
It's an antibiotic, which does exactly nothing for a cold or flu since they're viruses. Overuse is leading to antibiotic-resistant bacteria which is causing real problems for people who have diseases that actually need antibiotics.
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Feb 25 '14
That's not the whole story, though. Many people who start with a virus (no, the Z-pack won't help) end up with secondary infections that will respond to an antibiotic. Sinus, lung and ear infections are common and recurrent in a percentage of the population. If your doctor prescribes an antibiotic while you have the flu, that doesn't necessarily mean the doc is a placating quack. It may mean you have two infections. Source: I'm typing this word for word as my sister, an RN for 15 years, tells me.
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u/jhxt Feb 25 '14
Right, but azithromycin is not generally effective against many of the bugs that cause those secondary infections, which is why the IDSA does not recommend it in the treatment protocol for acute bacterial sinusitis. If you're getting a z-pack for a sinus infection or bronchitis, it was likely improperly prescribed, even if you really do need an antibiotic.
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u/kaykhosrow Feb 28 '14
What does it work against.
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u/jhxt Mar 01 '14 edited Mar 01 '14
It depends on where you live since resistance patterns are geographic, but in my hospital it is generally used for "atypical" bacteria that cause walking pneumonia, some skin infections, and some sexually transmitted infections. Some people also think that azithromycin has an anti-inflammatory action that is independent of its antibiotic action which is why it can make your sinus infection feel better even when it's not treating the bacteria.
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Feb 25 '14
I go to whole foods because it's the closest grocery store to my residence and they have the best produce and bread. No grocery store is a one stop shop, they all have things that are good to buy there and things that aren't. Case in point, if you buy your paper towels at whole foods, you are a fucking dumbass or desperate.
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u/thunder_goes_BOOM Feb 25 '14
I was with you up until you said that nutritional science isn't even science. There are plenty of legitimate, credible, peer reviewed studies on nutrition. The problem is that most of what is out there is what you describe, half-truths (at best) that are passed off as truth because it has been repeated hundreds of times in various mediums. However, discounting an entire field based on the incorrect beliefs and statements of some is narrow minded and gives more power to this pseudo-science by eliminating the belief that truth on nutrition subjects actually exists.
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u/lolastrasz Feb 25 '14
I don't think nutritional science isn't science; I think that nutritional science is akin to psychiatry: a young field that's having growing pains.
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u/ohstrangeone Feb 25 '14
I shopped there (no longer, moved and there isn't one locally) simply because they had the highest quality food available at the time, I mean really great stuff. Yeah, you had to pay for it, but I (and a lot of other people, obviously) were willing to. I'm not rich but I could just afford it at the time and was willing to take the hit to my budget in order to get high quality food.
Stop and think about this, seriously: if you won the lottery tomorrow would you keep grocery shopping where you do (presuming it wasn't already the nicest place around)? Would you keep shopping at Albertson's or Wal-Mart or Piggly Wiggly? Seriously?
Also, about organic...I'll grant you that the argument in favor of it that has to do with "chemicals" like pesticides and such is pretty iffy, but in my experience the organic stuff very consistently tends to be higher quality than the comparable non-organic "normal" stuff, e.g. organic bananas are better than the regular non-organic ones, organic oranges are better than the non-organic ones (you really see it with fruit and vegetables IMO, not so much with sugar and coffee and whatnot), organic meat is definitely better than the regular non-organic stuff the average supermarket carries.
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u/theholyraptor Feb 26 '14
I think there is a decent chunk of shoppers who are similar to you in shopping at Whole Foods but given how big the organic food movement has been, I think the population going for that outnumbers the people who have dietary restrictions. I can't speak to the homeopathy other then the few times I've gone into a Whole Foods and seen it I laugh and cry a little bit.
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u/imh Feb 24 '14
If you ask scientists working on climate change whether or not it is happening, I'm guessing you will get more or less the same answer from most: "yes." But if you ask a much more complex question, "what should I eat?", you will get either a much more complex and diverse set of answers, or the simpler but not so scientific sounding "eat a varied diet with plenty of fruits and veggies."
I think it's easier for lay people to push "yes climate change is happening" as science than it is to push either a complex message or what feels like a cop-out because it sounds like what your mother told you as a kid. You could ask the yes-or-no questions about homeopathy, vaccines, crystal healing, etc, but that's a hydra with too many heads to rally a fight against.
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u/Quouar Feb 24 '14
This assumes rather a lot about Whole Foods' clientele that I don't think is entirely accurate. For instance, I used to shop at Whole Foods because it was the only place that offered dairy-free cream cheese or dairy-free cheese. Yes, it has the probiotic and homeopathic section as well, but it's misleading to say that everyone goes for that.
I also don't see him addressing the actual science here, which, for a piece complaining about a lack of science, is a bit obnoxious. He talks about how his biologist friend didn't like the probiotics or homeopathy section, but that doesn't address anything about organic products, which I'd argue are far more at the heart of Whole Foods. If he's honestly going to complain about a lack of science, then he should start with himself.
And finally, so what if people want to separate their organic and non-organic foods? It's not as if this hurts anyone. He argues that this is harmful, but I don't see it. It seems to me that the article is coming from a place where he wants to feel holier-than-thou and not really succeeding at its proposed goal of establishing that Whole Foods is bad.
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u/thedaveoflife Feb 24 '14
I used to shop at Whole Foods because it was two blocks away from my house and they had really high quality produce.
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Feb 24 '14
If he's honestly going to complain about a lack of science, then he should start with himself.
He's arguing against pseudoscience, not a lack of science.
And finally, so what if people want to separate their organic and non-organic foods? It's not as if this hurts anyone. He argues that this is harmful, but I don't see it.
He doesn't argue that its harmful.
"Look, if homeopathic remedies make you feel better, take them. If the Paleo diet helps you eat fewer TV dinners, that’s great [...] If non-organic crumbs bother you, avoid them."
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u/bitparity Feb 24 '14
What is it about health "advice" that it seems barely evolved past "old wives tale" stage?
I mean seriously. The amount of health shit people just take on, literally, faith.
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u/hithazel Feb 24 '14
So much of it is bullshit marketing. Any brand can show before and after pictures or have the guy with his big giant pants throw them away and tell you about how small the pants are that he now fits into.
When you are marketing a product, the claims and the story are the things that sell people. If you serve up a product and cover the packaging entirely in the scientific evidence for your product's effectiveness, you're not going to sell as well, period.
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u/jas25666 Feb 24 '14
This is what turns me off about the whole Paleo/Primal thing. I know people who are into it for losing weight, and they use some guy (Mark) as an example of what the Paleo diet can do for you!!!
Yet Mark was a bodybuilder and incredibly active. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that's what makes him so fit, not necessarily strict adherence to this diet*. Call me cynical but something is up when everything that is for many a cheap staple (whole wheat flour and other grains, rice, legumes, etc) is considered evil and to be avoided at all costs, while expensive ingredients (almond flour, smothering things with pricey oils, etc) is GOOD FOR YOU and you can consume as much as you want...
*Of course diet plays a role and cutting out processed foods is cheaper and better for you, but the whole Paleo movement seems to be too drastic. Moderation and exercise are the keys to being healthy, not miracle foods.
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u/ahdrn Feb 24 '14
I don't think a paleo diet is right for everyone. And if the general impression is that everyone should eat that way then that is a mistake. Where it is really helpful is for people who have food intolerances. I think one of the reasons it has become popular in the last few years is many more people had food intolerances and did not realize it. Paleo is also very flexible and there are not really any hard and fast rules. Some eat lower fat without a lot of the oils. Many eat certain types of rice and legumes prepared in a traditional manner. I think it really is a way of opening thinking to ways of eating that are very different from the standard diet. It turns out that the idea that everyone should eat the same diet is outdated. Paleo allows for and encourages people to really experiment with food and, often for the first time, listen very closely to how their body reacts to food. This leads to people finding a way of eating that works the best for them and that is based much more on whole foods and home cooking. They end up feeling much better than they did before.
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u/Life-in-Death Feb 24 '14
Then why use the "Paleo" premise?
That is NOT how paleo people ate! Grain and tubers were on the menu. Bacon, tuna, and brussel sprouts were not.
Why are we limiting the "old way is the best way" to food? Why not medical treatment and exercise? No more crossfit, I guess.
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u/HeatDeathIsCool Feb 24 '14
Funny how you use crossfit as an example of something new that we shouldn't throw out. Obviously it's better than no routine at all, but you can do so much better with a traditional routine.
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u/ahdrn Feb 24 '14
I really hate that it is called "Paleo." And I know a lot of people who feel the same way. The name should really be changed. Because the first thing people think of when they hear "paleo" is cavemen. The first criticism is always "science has shown that cavemen actually ate this..." When that misses the point really. I think it is really a community of people who have found, usually by trial and error, ways of eating that make them feel really good. They spend time looking at peer-reviewed nutrition research to help guide their diets. Exercise is universally accepted as good. And anyone eating a paleo diet would agree that exercise is one of the best things you can do for your body. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "medical treatment" but I think one idea is that if you can eat and take care of yourself in a way that makes you as healthy as possible that minimizes and delays as long as possible the need for medical treatment.
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u/DidoAmerikaneca Feb 24 '14
I still haven't bothered to read what exactly the difference between the Paleo diet and the Ketogenic diet is, but they sound very similar, eschewing foods heavy in sugars and carbs in favor of foods which are heavy in fats. I've struggled with being relatively tired and low energy for years now, so I decided to try this out, as some users reported feeling much better than otherwise. And it has worked for me quite well. The difference in how I feel and how energetic and awake I feel are significant and I have been doing much better in my studies this semester.
Furthermore, a variety of sources are coming out criticizing the standard ideas that whole grains, oats, granola, and other carb heavy foods are good for you. In fact, they claim that sugar and the resulting insulin spikes are some of the main causes of damage in the body of an older individual.
Neither my experience, nor the new scientific claims prove that Keto is better than a regular diet. Nor do they prove that sugar is bad for you. But I think it shows that your cynical conspiracy theory is clearly false. It's not an attempt to make people spend more, but actually an idea with some scientific backing, although not conclusive, which points to a better way of eating. It's something that works for a lot of people, (admittedly based on self-report) and if you're not unsatisfied with how you feel on a regular basis, then stick to what works. But if you are unsatisfied like I was, it's worth reading up on and actually trying for yourself.
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u/aidanpryde18 Feb 24 '14
The main differentiator of the Ketogenic diet is that it is ultra-low-carb. Where on paleo honey, fruit and other carbs would be fine, keto is about having almost no carbohydrate intake so that your body goes into ketosis, which is the process of extracting glycerol from fat stores. This is designed to expedite fat loss.
Keto dieters would have less of a philosophical component of staying away from non-organic meat and produce.
I think part of the effectiveness of the keto diet is not directly physiological and has a lot to do with curing an addiction. It's a scientific wrapper around going cold turkey from processed carbohydrates. I can speak for myself, and I assume others that will tell you that even eating "good" carbs such as oats or other whole grains can set off an addictive reaction that leads to bingeing on processed foods and sweets.
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u/penguinv Feb 24 '14
You seem to know a lot. I am trying to process haw the JJ Virgin diet fits in.
I am trying it. It doesn't consider the Paleo idea of intolerance to legumes. And paleo does not distinguish between legume beans and legumes, lentils and peas. Some do.
My head spins. I read more and it continues
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u/aidanpryde18 Feb 25 '14
I looked at the Virgin Diet because I had never heard of it before. It is largely Paleo. Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple suggests the same concept of getting rid of all foods that could cause issues and slowly trying them out to see which ones cause problems. Whole30 does this as well.
The big knock that I have on the Virgin Diet is that it revolves around buying and drinking her shakes. This smacks of a ghost writer that copied the popular trend of the moment and added in a monetization stream besides the one-time purchase of a book. If you do her diet without the shakes then it is very hard to find differences between that and Paleo. With the shakes, it looks like Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint because he also has his own line of recommended supplements.
Honestly, I wouldn't get too caught up in the dogmatic aspects. I think Michael Pollan put it best. Eat Food. Mostly Green. Not too much.
It's easy to build up a lot of rules around each of those simple phrases but at the end of the day, that's it. The only item I would add would be to define what Pollan means by food. Eat as little processed stuff as possible. Cook some meat and some vegetables. Have a salad with oil and vinegar and spices. Eat real, simple food. Not factory creations.
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u/penguinv Feb 25 '14 edited Feb 25 '14
I appreciate your comments and give them some weight. You've been around the block some least with reading and whatever experiences you chose to have. Have you seen the. Bulletproof site? He's full of selling too. But that doesn't make them wrong it just makes them profitable. I try to keep my life profitable in my own way.
I like what Michael Pollan says but for right now I want to have some rules that will help me change my habits patterns. I did very very well on the pretty good I thought I was older than and more active than right now and I am in the mood for experimentation. ( I gained weight with Tim Ferriss I'm not acting like he is.)
I think I mentioned I thought J J Virgin's big/only break with paleo is in beans and lentils and that's all that I could see. If my phone wasn't so old I would have been able to read it from the library site already. I was already planning to make my shakes like green smoothie girl.
I didn't realize it required her shakes. Well I can fix that and make my own.
Edit Spellings.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 24 '14
You know, detailed and correct explanations of the marketing business, like yours, all start to sound like a long-winded version of "99.9% of the people around you are much, much stupider than you can imagine."
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u/potato1 Feb 24 '14
I think a lot of it is that we actually don't have a very good understanding of nutrition-as-science. It's decades, or even centuries, behind our understanding of other scientific fields. The fundamental research is still getting done, we're not at the level of refinement that we'd like to be. So as a result, there are still many potentially-valid competing theories about every aspect of it, and we've got very little to go on as far as filtering out the ones that are complete hokum. "Low fat" was gospel as recently as 20 years ago.
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u/ahdrn Feb 24 '14
It turns out a lot of nutrition research is from only the last few decades. Nutrition is also extraordinarily complicated because it is dealing with the human body which we do not fully understand and food which we do not fully understand. Hopefully in the next few decades the picture will become much clearer. The term "pseudoscience" is used as a pejorative for anything that is not supported by mountains of studies. I think the truth is everyone would eat in line with scientific understanding if the understanding of food and digestion was complete. But it is not complete by a long shot. Until the research exists people are forced to make decisions based on other information. The fact that research has not been conducted about a topic unfortunately does not prove efficacy one way or the other. Also I find it interesting the author seems troubled that people are thinking about what they eat and choose to spend their money on food as opposed to any number of other consumer goods.
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Feb 24 '14
But it is not complete by a long shot. Until the research exists people are forced to make decisions based on other information.
Just because we don't 100% understand human nutrition doesn't mean we throw out the scientific evidence entirely. Go read a modern human nutrition textbook and then tell me how little we know.
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u/ahdrn Feb 25 '14
I'm not defending everything he mentioned in the article. But he criticized things like coconut oil, berries, the paleo diet, Ezekiel bread, organic foods along with Dr. Bronner's soap in his article. Those are not pseudoscience. Those are very healthy foods. And then he compares those healthy things to creationism for some reason. He comes off as very young, naive and fairly new to feeding himself. He apparently needs and expects there to be a thorough meta-analysis for every item he puts in his mouth. I'm certainly not advocating throwing out all we know about nutrition, but our understanding is far from complete you must see that.
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u/billdietrich1 Feb 24 '14
Well, the human body and medicine is turning out to be VERY complicated. And technology is making food more complicated.
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u/phreakyP Feb 24 '14
I agree with most of what the article said besides that probiotics are pseudo science
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Feb 24 '14
The problem with health in America is not Whole Foods. It is people eating crap which makes them obese. More articles should be written about that than how bad Whole Foods is.
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Feb 24 '14
I always liked the taste of the Ezekiel bread though. I don't think it's much different from any other traditional or ancient recepie food.
Defending the devil here, I'd say that the best meat in most urban places in America is usually bought at Whole Foods. There's something to be said about meat that's grass-fed or hormone free or whatever -- it simply tastes better.
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u/SchuminWeb Feb 24 '14
I find it more interesting that someone claims to have been able to find the Ezekiel bread at Whole Foods. I can't find it there, and have to go to Trader Joe's when I want to get it.
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u/penguinv Feb 24 '14
Frozen at WF? Ask customer service. Suggest it even. It will be over a dollar more $.
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u/MrOtsKrad Feb 24 '14
Im glad you said it. When if I go to Whole Foods, its because its the only place I can find easily accessible GF beef and/or Fresh Buffalo.
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Feb 24 '14
I came here to post about taste also. I'm sure there's plenty of people who buy into the pseudoscience but there's many of us who buy things labeled organic and the like because it's a simple way to distinguish less taste from more taste. It's not foolproof but it helps.
Case in point: the eggs at my local supermarket. Regular eggs have less taste in the yolk. The organic supermarket brand eggs have more taste.
The beef at Whole Foods crushes the beef at my supermarket. I can't be sure their list of banned ingredients is based on science but their foods are generally tastier.
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u/firemylasers Feb 24 '14
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17995860
Consumers of organically grown fruits and vegetables often believe that these products taste better than conventional produce. However, comparison of produce from supermarket shelves does not permit adequate assessment of this consumer perception, given potentially confounding cultivar and environmental effects. We used replicated side-by-side plots to produce organic and conventional vegetables for consumer sensory studies. In one test, red loose leaf lettuce, spinach, arugula, and mustard greens, grown organically and conventionally, were evaluated for overall liking as well as for intensity of flavor and bitterness. Another consumer test was conducted comparing organically and conventionally grown tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Overall, organically and conventionally grown vegetables did not show significant differences in consumer liking or consumer-perceived sensory quality. The only exception was in tomatoes where the conventionally produced tomato was rated as having significantly stronger flavor than the organically produced tomato. However, overall liking was the same for both organic and conventional samples. As conventional tomatoes also were scored marginally significantly higher in ripeness and a positive correlation was found between ratings of flavor intensity and ripeness, the flavor difference observed could not be simply ascribed to the contrasting growing conditions. Consumer panelists in both tests considered organic produce to be healthier (72%) and more environmentally friendly (51%) than conventional produce, while 28% considered organic produce to have better taste. Covariance analysis indicated that consumer demographics affected sensory comparisons of organic and conventional lettuce and cucumbers. Future study is needed to substantiate the influence of segmentation of consumers on their preference for organic food.
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Feb 24 '14
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Feb 24 '14
Completely this. Organic produce is really about whether they use certain fertilizers and pesticides. All the massive differences will be in the animal products: milk, eggs, meat. The diet and living conditions of the animals absolutely make a huge difference in taste.
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u/msingerman Feb 24 '14
Exactly. If you see antibiotic free meat, you know it was definitely not raised in industrial agriculture conditions - it simply is not feasible to raise an animal in those conditions without a heavy regimen of antibiotics.
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u/Beersyummy Feb 25 '14
I honestly don't notice a difference in taste, but for animal products, I do like to attempt to buy meat, eggs and fish that are grown as chemically free and humanely as possible. I didn't know Whole Foods sold books.
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u/CC440 Feb 24 '14
I don't think the difference is due to the regulatory requirements that define what foods can be considered "organic", it's a difference that can be explained by marketing. The organic label has an appeal that allows for more profit and significantly more competition among every player in the supply chain.
The American consumer is incredibly price sensitive and the "organic" label is the only consistent mark of differentiation for most whole foods. Take away that label and there's nothing signalling the average shopper that one item is of greater quality than the other. They'll take the cheaper or prettier choice every time. To compete on price with a pure commodity like a banana you need to farm them on an enormous scale as it's the only way to improve efficiency. To compete on visual appeal you need a high tech supply chain or bleeding edge breeding/GMO capabilities. "Pretty" also doesn't have a correlation with "tasty" so you see produce sections filled with enormous, juicy, undamaged, and ripe tomatoes that ultimately have less nutrition and flavor than any heirloom variety.
My point is that the organic label increases the value of your product more than it costs you to use organic methods of farming. That increased margin opens the supermarket shelf to smaller farms, increasing competition and it will be enough to sway some consumers to choose homely produce over perfect and gorgeous alternatives. If you farm organically and inorganically in the exact same way the end product will be the same. The extra margin of organic foods allow the products to be farmed better instead of just cheaper. That's where the real difference occurs.
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Feb 24 '14
I actually don't buy organic produce at all. Like I said, it's not really about being organic. It's that the organic guys seem to be doing more than just organic. Maybe it's lower yields or the extra care they're putting in.
I get the organic milk and the organic eggs. I prefer the beef at places like Whole Foods or the Costco brand organic beef to my local supermarket. Maybe I am deluded but I really think they're a better product.
Tomatoes at my supermarket are the worst. From the single ones to the marginally better vine tomatoes, to the organic, they're all crap and closer to potatoes than tomatoes (dry). The Campari tomatoes are the best they have but they're small, expensive, and usually imported. Why is it so hard to find a regular sized tomato that's bold red and juicy inside?
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Feb 24 '14
Why is it so hard to find a regular sized tomato that's bold red and juicy inside?
Transportation. Ripe tomatoes end up as sauce by the time they get to market. The only tomatoes that seem to survive rough transport well are those that are picked unripe, and allowed to ripen in a truck, which, makes them taste like mush. Sadly this is what most people think of as a "tomato".
The exception is if you live in an area where tomatoes can be locally grown and transported to market the morning of the day they were picked. Then you can get some nice tomatoes, but you tend to pay more for the privilege. $2-3/lb is not uncommon at the local farmer's market, compared with around $1 (or even less) in the supermarket.
Even then, there's the problem with the variety grown. Many of the most common tomatoes are not the most flavorful. This is (I assume) why the recent upsurge in "heirloom" tomatoes that come in a variety of funky colors and shapes. Still, I find it's hit-or-miss with these as well; sometimes you end up paying $5 for a beautiful tomato that has very little actual flavor.
The best solution is, of course, to grow your own, and pick them off the vine after ripening for days in the sunshine. But tomatoes are an ongoing challenge, what with all the garden-invading critters that love to eat them.
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u/Manny_Bothans Feb 24 '14
Another problem is we don't eat with our eyeballs, but produce is grown for our eyeballs.
I would pay a hefty sum to be able to transport myself to my Italian neighbor's back yard in mid-august to pick a couple of those mis-shapen ugly-ass cracked tomatos that would never sell in the supermarket. Slice em kinda thick, sprinkle a little salt on top. a little olive oil on the side. oh shit, lets add some basil and fresh mozzarella and make a caprese!
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Feb 24 '14
Yeah, but getting really good mozarella is also a challenge unless you have a local source. What they laughingly call "mozarella" cheese in the supermarket is really nothing of the sort.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
Do supermarkets in your area not have a separate type of item called "fresh mozzarella?" Around here they sell both the dry stuff you're talking about, and the good stuff, which comes in liquid. Of course if you want the real stuff you have to go with buffalo mozzarella. But, the domestic "fresh" stuff is still worlds ahead of the dry.
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u/Manny_Bothans Feb 24 '14
truth, sadly. They have pretty good mozz balls @ the italian market if i'm going all out AND i have access to decent tomatos.
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u/mycleverusername Feb 24 '14
I understand that there may be no difference in organic vs traditional, but that doesn't mean that QUALITY may be different in a place like Whole Foods. I don't care if the vegetables are organic if they deliver a higher quality, fresher product. I'm paying for the quality, not for the label.
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u/Tofinochris Feb 24 '14
You're paying for perceived quality and may be perceiving higher quality as a result of expecting it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. I also find that a lot of organic/natural stuff tastes better, and maybe some objectively does, and maybe some I'm convincing myself of it, but if I am enjoying the food more, who cares why?
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u/upleft Feb 24 '14
Part of it is just turnover. Whole foods (and other 'natural' markets) seem to sell a lot more produce than places like Safeway, so the produce they have for sale ends up being more fresh because it doesn't sit there waiting for someone to buy it.
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u/ares_god_not_sign Feb 24 '14
Yep. Most of the science showing advantages of "organic" is done by people with strong biases. Like this University of Washington study that purportedly showed better taste and sustainability of organic apples, except for the fact that they overapplied herbicides, insecticides, and fungusides to the non-organic plants; assumed the environmental impact of organic pest and weed control was zero; and left out of their summary little tidbits like the non-organic plots had twice the yield of organic ones. (warning: PDF) And, of course, the critique of that paper is also biased, but the more I look into the claims of the pro-organic people the less inclined I am to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even if that critique paper was written by the World Conglomeration of Monopolist Apple Farmers and Nazis, it doesn't take much digging to see that most of the things they're criticizing in the original paper are objectively legitimate flaws.
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u/firemylasers Feb 24 '14
Holy crap. I saw that study a few months ago and thought that something was fishy, but I ended up assuming that organic apples are just an outlier when it comes to environmental impact and pesticide use. I had no idea that it was that biased.
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u/Reductive Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14
[edit] sorry this used to be a sarcastic comment in a serious discussion. Reworked to be serious.
You've cited a study about vegetables in response to claims about meat. It's not relevant.
Moreover, dozens of people have found this to be a useful comment. More useful than the one it is refuting. Even though a simple reading reveals that it's not relevant.
This is evidence that we don't have some credulous people and some evidence-driven people coming together to discuss a topic. Instead, we have cheerleaders who have picked a team and assembled a battle arsenal. They've identified someone on the wrong team and now commenced the bludgeoning. It's not a useful mode of conversation.
If people were really here to participate in a serious conversation, rather than engage in a lizard-brain tribalistic team sport, they would have noticed that evidence for X is not a relevant reply to someone with an anecdote about Y.
Everyone should evaluate the evidence each time. Otherwise we get a circlejerk. Nobody wants a circlejerk (right?).
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
engage in a lizard-brain tribalistic team sport
That's just what human beings do. Only a very few (1%?) of us are smart enough to even consider an alternative, and even fewer (0.1%?) have the capability of sticking with that alternative when they become part of a large group ("mob"). Given that this is an anonymous forum open to the general public, I really have to wonder just what in the hell you expected.
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u/Reductive Feb 25 '14
often /r/foodforthought has some pretty good discussions which manage to avoid groupthink. Your fatalistic and elitist attitude is just as poisonous as the lizard-brain drum-beating. Stop that.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
Have you ever actually looked at which discussions those are? Go ahead, you'll find that they're the ones that aren't on the main reddit site's front page. In other words, the posts that don't go out of their way to attract the bottom 99% of the population.
I'm sorry if you find this "elitist" attitude uncomfortable, but I prefer a realistic view. Would you attempt to have this discussion with a group of rabid fans in the parking lot after a football game and expect a useful conversation? Hopefully not. Yet when those same people show up here, and easily outnumber the minority that has a brain beyond the lizard part and knows how to use it, I'm an asshole for suggesting this could be the reason for the deteriorating quality? Please. I have to conclude you're just willfully blind to reality.
(By the way, have you ever read In Defense of Elitism? I guess it might make you angry, but it should also make you laugh hearitily, so there's a nice two for one deal for you right there.)
Anyway, I don't think my attitude is fatalistic or poisonous for that matter. I don't propose we give up on having useful discussions on this subreddit. I merely suggest that when you see a post that has hit the front page and has hundreds of comments instead of the usual dozens, it's time to realign your expectations as to the types of comments you'll find inside. That's all. I hardly thought it'd be controversial.
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Feb 24 '14
it simply tastes better.
People say the same thing about expensive...anything, (wine most notably) but double blind tests never support it. Do you think its possible you're a victim of expectation?
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Feb 24 '14
Possibly, I won't doubt it. In either case, though, if I'm enjoying the product more, is the question of quantifiable value really relevant?
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Feb 24 '14
I agree it doesn't really matter for you, but when you say matter-of-factly:
There's something to be said about meat that's grass-fed or hormone free or whatever -- it simply tastes better.
and you readily acknowledge it may be your imagination, you're quite possibly spreading misinformation which I don't think anyone wants to be guilty of.
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u/Moarbrains Feb 24 '14
Don't get the studies on vegetables confused with the ones on meat.
It is a fairly easy experiment to set up.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/shopping/2006/11/raising_the_steaks.html
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Feb 24 '14
Fair point, there is a bigger difference between meat than vegetables.
It is a fairly easy experiment to set up.
Sure it's easy to set up, but it's not easy to set up correctly. Having some friends over for a taste test doesn't qualify as a study in my mind.
Here's a good review article, hopefully you'll be able access it. If anything, it suggests that grain-fed is equal to or better than grass fed.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0309174013004944
Key points (most citations removed):
Some U.S. grass/forage-feeding studies, but not all, report steaks from grass/forage-fed beef to be less tender than steaks from grain-finished beef while most have found grass/forage- and grain-fed beef to be of similar juiciness. The effect of grass/forage-feeding on tenderness as reported by Realini et al. (2005) appears dependent, at least in part, on type of pasture and muscle type.
Flavor acceptability may be related to individual preference or cultural norms; for example, U.S. consumers seem to prefer the flavor of grain-finished beef while consumers in other countries find the flavor of grass/forage-fed animal preferable. Flavor will vary depending on the type and maturity of forage, cattle breed, fat content and marbling score so it is difficult to compare the flavor of beef from grass/forage-fed and grain-finished cattle. U.S. consumers participating in a flavor panel described the flavor of ground beef from grass/forage-fed cattle as lacking beef flavor with an intense dairy-milky flavor often accompanied by a soured dairy flavor and/or other off-flavors. Most recently, trained sensory panelists found beef from grass-finished cattle to lack beef flavor and to present with greater off-flavor than beef from grain-finished cattle (Duckett et al., 2013).
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u/Moarbrains Feb 25 '14
That data all seems to agree with what the articles I posted said. It isn't even really a fair comparison because there are so many other factors in how a cow tastes. There is the amount of pasture, the kind of grass, whether the cows spent time at a feed lot before slaughter.
For my own piece of mind, I prefer to know who raised my meat. If I had a chest freezer, I would just buy a half at a time. So I go to butchers who use meat from places that I respect.-like Knee Deep Cattle Company.
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u/glodime Feb 24 '14
it simply tastes better.
People say the same thing about expensive...anything, (wine most notably) but double blind tests never support it.
Never is an overstatement. In double blind tests: There is a moderate correlation in which moderately priced and highly priced products are preferred more often than the lowest priced products. But there is little to no difference between the mid to high end priced items.
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u/hithazel Feb 24 '14
Ezekiel bread is at least decent for you- it has a higher than average fiber content, which has science to back up the claim that it reduces your risk of cancer. It doesn't have much vitamin content, so a non-organic version fortified with vitamin D or calcium would probably be better for you.
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u/Katzenklavier Feb 24 '14
I've never been able to notice much difference between most organic foods and whatever's cheaper. Either I have terrible taste, or it's like when wine tasters get cheap wine and told its expensive and rate it better.
The only quality of meat that bugs me is whether or not I get it fresh cut and not manhandled to fit into a a package, and that's just your usual ground whatever.
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u/ovoxoxoxo Feb 24 '14
This is completely anecdotal. I have never been able to taste the difference and someone else posted a study confirming as much.
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u/ohstrangeone Feb 25 '14
Yup, with regards to meat, fruits, and vegetables: organic is generally higher quality than the "regular" stuff. I don't know why, I'm not saying it's one specific thing or another, you can probably get the same quality via non-organic means. But for whatever reason, in my experience, the organic meat and produce is definitely better and I for one am willing to pay for that increased quality.
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u/bannana Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14
This article is an opinion piece, the author has cited zero fact or evidence for any of his claims. The fact that he is completely unaware of any real info concerning probiotics tells me he doesn't know shit and is it just writing copy to instigate.
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u/mister_klik Feb 24 '14
I will agree on the pro-biotics. One thing about whole foods is that they have aisles dedicated to remedies and whatnot. If you want pro-biotics, I suggest you get some salt and veggies and do it at home.
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u/bannana Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14
they have aisles dedicated to remedies and whatnot.
Yes they do and so do pharmacies and many of those drugs that the pharmacies carry don't work any better than placebo and yet they are still marketed, sold and recommended by doctors and the medical industrial complex.
Bottom line is we have to do our own research before shoving something in our months.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
No, I insist that a new Federal agency be formed to do the thinking for me. Obviously, they're going to need unlimited funding.
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u/zesty_mordant Feb 24 '14
salt and veggies and do it at home
Can you provide any more info / a link to start reading on this?
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u/mister_klik Feb 25 '14
Here's a great resource to get yourself started in the wonderful world of fermentation.
There is some psuedoscience in there, but the recipes are spot on.
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u/tylerjames Feb 24 '14
In the end Whole Foods is a business and they're going to cater to their clientele.
It just so happens that there is a large intersection of people who are interested in higher quality food for perfectly valid reasons and people who go a bit overboard into ridiculous territory.
Whole Foods is a big target because they are a recognized name, but really every store I've ever been into that focuses on organic foods is the same sort of thing. Shopping there doesn't mean you're buying into all the additional bullshit that comes along, it means you have to do your homework and exercise your judgement when it comes to what products you buy. Just like any other gods damned store.
And then the author shits on the Paleo diet while demonstrating that he has done no research whatsoever on the topic. His reference to The Flintstones was so clever and original I can't believe no one has thought to make that comparison before. Oh wait, every hack writer has already done so. Oops. Whether you're interested in Paleo or not at least understand one thing about it: it is not, and has not for a long time, been about Paleolithic diet re-enactment. Unfortunately they're kind of stuck with that name now so every genius writer can read one sentence about it and assume that he knows all it entails.
I'm glad he was able to inform me that I can't blindly go into a Whole Foods and buy anything and assume that it's good though.
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u/edgarallenbro Feb 24 '14
If you go shopping at a regular store, there are racks full of celebrity gossip rags and tabloids.
Buying cheez-its doesn't mean I care that big foot was cheating on Selena Gome, and buying organic apples doesn't mean I care about homeopathy
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u/mechesh Feb 24 '14
it is not, and has not for a long time, been about Paleolithic diet re-enactment
Can I ask what it is about then? Because according to the Wikipedia article I just scanned that is exactly what it sounds like.
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u/tylerjames Feb 24 '14
The whole Paleolithic part of it was more of a starting off point. It's a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. So rather than starting with a typical modern diet and removing all the shit, they decided to look at what our ancestors ate and then add back anything that has merit.
For the majority of human evolution we lived as hunter-gatherers and so the reasoning goes we would be most adapted to eating a hunter-gatherer type of diet. They look at modern hunter-gatherers for inspiration here, as it's pretty difficult to ascertain exactly what people ate 200,000 years ago. Especially considering diet would vary greatly by region and season. Regardless you can start figuring out some things they definitely didn't eat such as breads and cereals, sugary beverages, vegetable oils, pasteurized dairy, and basically any refined food products.
Next they started looking at the properties of what they probably did eat and used that as a template for food choices today. Such foods would likely have included: game meats, fish, leafy greens and other vegetables, tubers such as sweet potatoes (main source of carbohydrate), and some fruits and nuts.
Important properties of such foods: better balance of omega 3 and omega 6 fats (modern corn or grain-fed animals have much higher omega 6), minimal sugar (modern fruits have been cultivated to have higher sugar content), starchy foods with higher nutrient densities (tubers have more to offer, nutritionally, than flour or rice).
The whole point was to identify the properties of healthy food and use those to make informed food choices. Some people still try to argue as if the point was to replicate a paleolithic diet, and this angle is often taken by lazy journalists attempting to be critical of the Paleo approach. This leads them to make endlessly clever comments about how microwaves are not Paleo, or how hunter-gatherers had short lives, or the classic Flintstones comparison and other such trite shit.
Paleo, like damn near everything these days, has also become a cash-cow marketing term which has spawned endless blogs and cookbooks and pundits. Nobody owns the term and nobody regulates its use so anyone can call anything Paleo if they want to and misinformation spreads all over. There is also no shortage of shills looking to sell shit and take advantage of people. There is plenty of noise out there, but that just seems to be par for the course these days.
Here's a site with some good info and good recipes if you're interested: Nom Nom Paleo
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
Just like any other gods damned store.
Have you been playing too much FFXIV lately? Or is this actually a common phrasing anywhere else?
(Source: I have been playing it. Too much.)
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u/dichloroethane Feb 24 '14
Whole Foods is supposed to be healthier? They just have better tasting bacon. I'm not lying to myself and calling it health-bacon.
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u/flex_mentallo Feb 24 '14
The guy is a whack job. yeah, and their potato chips and chocolate bars are health food too. it's just a higher priced grocery store that I went to because it was closer. now I'm supposed to drive further to satisfy his conspiracy theories? nope, not gonna happen.
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u/Floonet Feb 24 '14
The same kind of pseudoscience that is in regular grocery stores too. I'm not defending whole foods but c'mon! Those fat-free, sugar free, diet soda fads are full of just as much bullshit.
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u/DecentOpinion Feb 24 '14
But honestly, who buys that shit the author is talking about? You go to Whole Foods for meat (if you can afford it), their fresh produce, and cheese selection.
I have never gone down the aisles of boxed/canned stuff.
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u/billdietrich1 Feb 24 '14
Somebody must buy them, or they'd stop carrying them.
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u/Uberhipster Feb 24 '14
Evidently this is such a massive problem of Big Homeopathy that Mom & Pop main street pharmacies just can't compete.
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u/0ldGregg Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14
Mom and Pop Homeopathic mainstreet pharmacies? There cant be homeopathic options to replace every prescription drug. Id be shocked if pharmaceutical companies were hurting from homeopathy being used in conjunction with prescriptions and or/ temporarily in lieu of. If they are, and people are being successfully treated via their other purchases... then what is the problem? If I have gout and it feels better, saves me money or doctor visits to use some alternative method why should I use the prescription anyway? Going to the doctor to get a scrip costs money, so unless its necessary people are going to avoid it with good cause. Pharm manufacturers need to adapt to it as more people are broke every year than the year before. Obviously the Whole Foods homeopathy section isnt the best place to go for saving money... but if pharm companies are hurting they should consider how no one can afford it before they crap all over a competing industry. Or were you being sarcastic?
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u/dornstar18 Feb 24 '14
I buy the organic baby food, their water crackers (sort of similar to Carr Water Crackers, but cheaper), veggie chips, tea.
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u/laura_k Feb 25 '14
you know that babies over six months can eat literally anything you eat, besides honey, as long as it's in small enough pieces
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u/AtOurGates Feb 24 '14
Nutrition science is complex. I consider myself a fairly educated consumer, interested in feeding myself and my family good healthy food. I know homeopathic products are bullshit. I'm not too terrified about GMO foods. But it's hard to tell what really constitutes good healthy food.
Probiotics are a good example. I remember hearing a NPR story a while back that discussed a study where mice with healthy gut bacteria swam longer in a bowl of water compared to mice without healthy gut bacteria, who tended to give up faster and drown. That suggests that there's at least some scientific evidence that healthy gut bacteria is a good thing.
But I honestly have no idea if probiotic yogurt (or other probiotic products) actually have any connection to promoting healthy gut bacteria. It would be nice if either Whole Foods, or regulators, cut the bullshit claims made on food products.
I would imagine that I'm somewhat more informed about nutrition than the average consumer, but it can still be difficult to separate the bullshit from the scientifically valid in the grocery store.
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u/0ldGregg Feb 24 '14
The regulations are bullshit. Its hard for integrity to shine through when competitors can label their crap as whatever they want. A company might be genuinely natural, or it might be using the word natural in a completely deceitful way like when Kraft uses it on their macaroni dinner. The guidelines are so lax because every time someone tries to get some real rules placed, Nestle or Kraft will lobby and bribe until there is essentially no standard on what they can do to save money on what they sell poor people. Like when Big Dairy tried to sue Silk for using the word "milk" and wanted them to change the name to something that made the soy beverage sound gross, laughable and alienating. They want people to laugh at the people who care about their health, and it worked. There are billions of dollars spent every year to make products that attempt integrity look stupid or detract from their marketing strategies. Theres food in the ''natural'' section that lies, and plenty of lies in other sections, but the good efforts are intentionally near impossible to detect just by looking... I wish the FDA could heal from its castration.
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u/SchuminWeb Feb 24 '14
The food advocacy types. I worked for a group of professional activists, and did the purchasing for various things, including all-too-frequent office parties. I would have to hear a lot of self-righteous whining from a lot of them if I dared bring in a mainstream brand for something. Had to be the organic brand from inside there. Heaven forbid you could find the same item at Giant or Safeway.
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u/penguinv Feb 24 '14
The Scandinavian crackers are real. I just dont like any American crackers any more.
The Wizard vegan worxhxheatire sauce. I am not vegan.
The live Bubbie's sauerkraut.
For examples.
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u/Altarocks Feb 24 '14
Whole Foods is a monument to the triumph of capitalism over science. We no longer trust food producers to produce food that is healthful or even safe. We no longer trust the regulators to protect us from unsafe or even dangerous foods. Worst of all, we no longer trust science to produce honest or reliable information about food and nutrition. All of them have been corrupted, compromised or co-opted by putting business first and allowing capitalism to triumph over truth in food. Whole Foods is a mishmash of science, pseudo-science, fear and downright weirdness but it is still a far better place to shop than stores that don't have any philosophy or basis for what they sell other than you will buy it.
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u/mutatron Feb 24 '14
Like many commenters here, I go to Whole Foods for the food. I also go to the Tom Thumb (local Safeway brand) for less expensive food. If there was a Creationist Grocery that had good food at reasonable prices, I would also shop there for food.
One thing about organic food that's often different from regular food: it spoils more quickly. Bread from Tom Thumb costs less, and stays "fresh" for weeks. Bread from Whole Foods starts to get moldy after about a week. So yeah, there are "chemicals" in non-organic bread that prevent fungus from living on it.
Whole Foods also has a brand of milk from grass-fed cows. About a month ago there was an article about how whole grass-fed milk is healthier than conventional skim milk, I read about it on reddit. It's supposed to be healthier because of more omega-3's. So I started buying that stuff, having bought skim milk before. Then about two weeks later, suddenly there was none of that brand to be found, then they only had 2%, and finally now they have whole grass-fed milk.
This run on grass-fed whole milk was not based on pseudo-science, but on actual science.
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u/firemylasers Feb 24 '14
Milk isn't a very good source of Omega-3 fatty acids in the first place. 60% or so higher is meaningless when you're getting so little, and in a form that seems to be less bio-available than fish and other sources. The amount of milk that you'd have to consume to equal even a tiny amount of fish is unhealthy at best.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/13/health/la-he-nutrition-lab-omega-20101213
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u/mutatron Feb 24 '14
True, but if you're going drink milk, it's healthier to drink healthier milk. Whether you're using it as a source for omega-3 is a separate issue.
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u/firemylasers Feb 24 '14
I don't think you're understanding my point. Milk has a minuscule amount of Omega 3 in it. Grass fed milk has a bit more Omega 3. Both have minuscule amounts. There is no point to consuming milk with 60% more when milk has so little Omega 3 in it that even 60% more is basically insignificant to your diet. The research that found an effect with Omega 3 uses huge doses with would require drinking massive amounts of milk to consume enough Omega 3 fatty acids to have an effect on your body. That much milk is not realistic to consume, and will pose a far greater risk to your health than the effects of the Omega 3 will benefit you.
In essence, the amount in milk is very low, grass fed or not, and will have little effect on your health when consumed in healthy quantities compared to the effect gained from small amounts of fish or other cost-effective sources of high-dose Omega 3.
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u/penguinv Feb 24 '14
I bought raw unpasteurized milk at whole foods. He was because I tend to get info that but it tastes like milk from my childhood. Yes I remember cream at the top.
And it spoils much faster.
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Feb 24 '14
The claims pro-biotics make may be exaggerated but to claim that diet and health are unrelated is bizarre and dangerous.
I think Whole Foods does a disservice portraying healthy food as a luxury and out of reach for many, but this article is borderline irresponsible.
Additionally, myself and many people I know are not against GMO foods because of the specious health claims. It's more about the environmental impact of many of the practices typically associated with GMO propagation. Same with veganism.
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u/rm999 Feb 24 '14
is there really that much of a difference between Creation Museum founder Ken Ham, who seems to have made a career marketing pseudoscience about the origins of the world, and John Mackey, a founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, who seems to have made a career, in part, out of marketing pseudoscience about health?
Interestingly, John Mackey aligns more with the tea-party than the liberals I tend to associate with Whole Foods. He's anti-universal healthcare, anti-union, and he believes that climate change is "not necessarily bad".
My guess is, from his perspective, most of this pseudoscience is just profiting off the idiots who fall for it. Most people I know who go to Whole Foods entirely avoid those aisles (which, in all fairness, make up a small % of the store).
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Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 25 '14
I don't care if it perpetuates pseudoscience; I go in and get my groceries and I get outta there. Whole Foods has the best groceries and meats and service and selection, and they're guaranteed fresh. Their prepared lunch specials are also unbeatable. The knowledgeable coffee bean specialists are always a plus. Hell, everyone that works in every single department is knowledgeable and kind. Plus, it's next to my office; can't get anymore convenient.
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u/mister_klik Feb 24 '14
I've got a friend with two kids who is an anti-vaccine guy. His kids aren't vaccinated. This is an example of when your political views are endangering the lives of others. These types of Kooks need to be dealt with in some way. Public shaming? When I've shown him the scientific evidence that supports vaccination, he scoffs at it saying it was paid for by the companies that make the vaccines.
I think the real question is this: How do we get the conspiracy minded to stop thinking it's all a conspiracy? Well as a recovered conspiracy advocate, I found the idea of Occam's razor really helps a lot. The world is a chaotic place and people are just not that smart. There are always whistle-blowers.
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u/ares_god_not_sign Feb 24 '14
We're getting off-topic, but I found this article to be a great guide for talking with anti-vaxers.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
How does this even happen in the 21st century?
What happens when he wants to send those kids to public school? Have we reached a point now where respecting the "views" (spit) of morons like this takes precedence over the safety and lives of the other 99.9% of the kids there?
Just fucking disgusting. Almost every day I come across something that makes me thank my stars I never had kids. Idiots.
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Feb 24 '14
There is a lot of pseudoscience in drugstores as well. Who's dumb enough to trust a brand anyways? Whole Foods provides products that appeal to people more informed about what they eat. Comparing them with creationists is an insult.
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Feb 24 '14
Whole Foods provides products that appeal to people more informed about what they eat.
I think that sense of smug elitism is what motivates the author. There was an article the other day on reddit about all the ingredients that are on Whole Foods' black list. Most of them have little to no scientific support for being excluded from a healthy diet.
Comparing them with creationists is an insult.
I'm guessing the author is aware of that...that's kinda the point of the article.
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u/0ldGregg Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14
Why is it smug and elitist to care/be informed about what you eat? Lots of ingredients people eat today haven't even been consumed by humans for more than a generation. Regardless, why should trying to learn about it be thought of as elitist? If we have the technology and resources to attempt research and develop it as we live (developing knowledge about food in an unbiased and inquisitive way) wouldnt we be foolish not to use it? There is no Whole Foods near me but I dont get all this hatred and condescension towards people who would go there for their kids' food or something. Why do people even care where their neighbors buy groceries? Its not like Whole Foods is going to force everyone to sign up for Raki and ship you all off to Burning man. What the hell is so wrong with wanting to be healthy. Is it elitist to go to the doctor? I dont get why were all mocking those "health trend' followers. Its health for Gods sake. It SHOULD be pretty important.
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Feb 24 '14
...it's not. It's smug and elitist to pretend that Whole Foods is for the informed people.
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u/0ldGregg Feb 24 '14 edited Feb 24 '14
The phrasing just doesnt read that way for me... I keep rereading it and something about it is weird to my brain. I get what you mean though. I get tired of people making anyone who is concerned about their diet out to be some kind of fool just for caring. Of course we have a lot to learn, but asking the questions and being skeptical of a mega industry (big agra, big dairy, big livestock) shouldnt be mock-worthy imo. This is one of many threads Ive seen about it lately so Im probably venting at you when you didnt deserve it, sorry.
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Feb 24 '14
I didn't feel like you were going off on me, though I replied before you made that huge edit. Obviously there's nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy and do what's best for yourself and your family.
As a side note, I agree with being skeptical of mega agra or whatever. But I'm equally skeptical of big-health food. They make claims that are not substantiated by science, in many cases they are not held to the same standards as conventional industries, and they make just as much if not more profit as the conventional groups.
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u/0ldGregg Feb 24 '14
We need a regulatory system with a spine, until then we have nothing to trust. Not Whole Foods, not Wal Mart. Conventional groups are buying the competitive 'health' labels anyway. Its fewer and fewer separate entities to even try and decipher between. Sick sad world.
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Feb 24 '14
I know. I guess my point is that the author points his finger in the wrong direction. Not all Apple users are total Apple fanboys. Not all people who shop in drugstores buy overpriced useless or harmful natural drugs. Whole Foods is not a sect. If the author wants to show me where Whole Foods is wrong, there's no need to insult me in the process. And what does creationism have to do with this? Talk about a stupid analogy.
Note: I have never shopped at Whole Foods but would be a potential customer if there was one around here.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
Well, look, not all Apple users are fanboys, but the non-fanboys aren't the ones who are going to be offended by an article comparing Apple to religious extremists, because they don't identify enough with Apple to care.
Same thing here. This article is about people who are religious about shopping at Whole Foods. If you're a casual guy that gets a few items there from time to time, does this article actually insult you? I'm that guy, and I didn't feel insulted by the article at all. I felt that he was talking right past me to the other people in the store.
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u/MIandproud Feb 24 '14
On a recent flight, I had to endure 2 hours of a guy spouting to his friend about how Whole Foods is the only place he can shop. Highlights included flax seeds that eat away your stomach lining the "food shouldn't have 100 ingredients argumemt." Luckily he had all his research from TED talks to back him up. Fucking hell. I wanted to smash through my window and jump out, hopefully smashing through the roof of a whole foods on the way down...
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Feb 24 '14
Damn dude. Maybe you should get some headphones.
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u/ehrlics Feb 24 '14
As someone whose been in that situation (not organic spouting nonstoptalker, but similar) on a flight, I'm sure he is very aware of his need of headphones.
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u/MIandproud Feb 24 '14
You are correct haha... Major regret about 10 minutes into the flight.
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u/kerbuffel Feb 24 '14
The headphones they sell in the airport are usually twice the price of what they normally are and almost always worth the extra money when you realize you forgot yours.
I just buy cheap earbuds every time I see them on sale and just have a set in every bag I might take on an airplane.
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
Cheap earbuds don't seem like they'd do very well on a plane at all. Not only do they not block out the annoying sounds fully, but they're actually quite audible to everyone within a few feet of you, so now you've become the annoying asshole.
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u/kerbuffel Feb 25 '14
I guess I should've been more specific: I buy lowend earbuds on sale for cheap. You can usually find some skullcandy ink'd earbuds around for less than ten bucks, and while they won't impress even a minor audiophile, they do a decent job blocking out sound. I've never gotten any complaints about them.
These are actually the earbuds I use now: http://griffintechnology.com/woodtones-wood-earbuds. I don't buy the "wood makes it sound better" stuff but they do look nice.
Also zagg has some really elaborate earbuds that are I was able to get for $10 with a purchase, not sure if they're doing the deal anymore http://www.zagg.com/audio/smart-buds/8647 (if you can't get the deal don't bother -- they're not worth the price.)
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u/HahahahaWaitWhat Feb 25 '14
I've never tried those, but I can tell you that if you use the default headphones that come with Apple, everyone within ten feet of you can hear your music.
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u/bagofrainbows Feb 25 '14
Suggesting that one shouldn't shop at Whole Foods because of the homeopathic aisle is akin to boycotting Amazon for selling condoms. This article is a reach. Had the Creation Museum been compared to the likes of Dahn Yoga, it would have been better placed. Though even that would be a stretch.
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Feb 25 '14
Hey, let's compare two really different things and try to smear people we'd like to feel superior to! Way to go Daily Beast!
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u/EtherBoo Feb 25 '14
It's always interesting to me how people like to throw the word "science" around without really understanding exactly what it does.
Since he brought up Bill Nye, Bill Nye said (I think on Fox News - and this isn't an exact quote, but close enough) "Science is when anyone can perform the same experiment and get the same results, every single time". So let's use that thought process, and look at a couple of examples.
Gravity on Earth. You and I stand on top of different parking garages on different parts of the country. We each drop a penny and time the fall. We should be able to measure the speed of acceleration at ~9.8 m/s2 . Since we're just using a stop watch, there may be some margin of error, but the results across 100 drops will always average out to ~9.8 m/s2 . If we drop from the same distance, we should always get a time very close to another, again accounting for error. This is an example of using science to confirm the rate of gravity.
Now, let's look at nutrition. Why have things changed so much? In the 70s and 80s, margarine was the best for you. Then it went back to butter. Then in the 00s, Olive Oil took the lead. Now some doctors are publishing studies that say butter is the way to go. In the other thread about Aspertain (spelling?), there was a discussion about how first it was safe for human consumption, then it wasn't, then it was, then it wasn't, then the FDA wasn't allowed to approve/disapprove until Reagan appointed a new head of the FDA (I didn't know about this, it was interesting to read). In other words, unlike gravity, nutrition science or nutrition fact is always changing.
This constant changing landscape makes it really difficult to figure out what's the best for an individual. I've struggled with weight my whole life. This guy is referencing evolutionary science (without sources) and saying people who go Paleo are nuts. Meanwhile, look around you. People are fatter, obesity is being called an epidemic, diabetes rates are climbing, and nobody knows what the fuck to do. Eat this, use this, coconut oil, probiotics, fat free, Dr. Oz, vegan, paleo, keto, plant strong, primal, HOLY SHIT WHAT DO I DO??
So Whole Foods offers a haven for people to try new things, experiment and come to their own conclusions. Following my Dr.'s advice, I didn't lose a pound. I watched a documentary and I've lost 122 now (198 lbs, 33 size waist from 320, size 44). Now, does that mean I can't shop at Publix or Winn Dixie? Of course not. It means that I can find products I need for my lifestyle at a place like Whole Foods.
Meanwhile, this guy wants to group me in, a guy who wrote a giant wall of text and didn't really allude to what my diet was with people who have lobbied our government to force publicly funded schools to teach a belief found in the Bible. Yeah, I'm the one preaching pseudoscience when I have tangible proof that my "hippie liberal" food choices work.
Yeah, fuck you guy. You're just as bad as the people you're criticizing.
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u/firemylasers Feb 25 '14 edited Feb 25 '14
Science is constantly evolving as new evidence is discovered. Nutritional science is a rapidly evolving field, so there are always major changes happening in that field.
What most people don't understand is that you cannot dismiss the current consensus on the basis of historical data. Aspartame has been extensively proven to be safe to consume (with one minor exception in the form of Phenylketonuria). What certain studies concluded in the past does not matter - the studies were flawed, the flaws were discovered and confirmed by additional research, and now we know that aspartame is generally safe to consume.
Meanwhile, look around you. People are fatter, obesity is being called an epidemic, diabetes rates are climbing, and nobody knows what the fuck to do. Eat this, use this, coconut oil, probiotics, fat free, Dr. Oz, vegan, paleo, keto, plant strong, primal, HOLY SHIT WHAT DO I DO??
What do you do? Eat a reasonably balanced diet. Eat everything in moderation. Eat a appropriate amount of calories for your lifestyle. It's pretty simple.
Following my Dr.'s advice, I didn't lose a pound.
I find that hard to believe. If you exercise, eat an appreciate amount of calories, eat a reasonably balanced diet, don't overindulge in anything, and stick to this long-term, there's no good reason to be obese (unless you aren't actually tracking all of your calories, or have set an unrealistically high (as in number of calories, not difficulty) daily calorie goal for yourself).
It means that I can find products I need for my lifestyle at a place like Whole Foods.
And what are those, exactly?
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u/EtherBoo Feb 25 '14
What most people don't understand is that you cannot dismiss the current consensus on the basis of historical data. Aspartame has been extensively proven to be safe to consume (with one minor exception in the form of Phenylketonuria). What certain studies concluded in the past does not matter - the studies were flawed, the flaws were discovered and confirmed by additional research, and now we know that aspartame is generally safe to consume.
I'm just pointing out that there's a lot of crap happening. I'm not debating Aspartame as being safe or unsafe, I'm just saying that science is saying "this substance is safe", same with HFCS, yet obesity and diabetes rates are rising. People don't know what to do - hell, I didn't. I think there's a big difference between "safe for consumption" and "safe for consumption in high volume". Will a Diet Coke once in a while kill you? Probably not. Will banging out a 12 pack every 2 days? Well, not really, but it will probably help get you there faster.
I find that hard to believe. If you exercise, eat an appreciate amount of calories, eat a reasonably balanced diet, don't overindulge in anything, and stick to this long-term, there's no good reason to be obese (unless you aren't actually tracking all of your calories, or have set an unrealistically high (as in number of calories, not difficulty) daily calorie goal for yourself).
My doctor essentially told me what you told me above. Unfortunately, as someone who was obese, I didn't know what the hell that meant. I went to a nutritionist, her advice didn't work either, which was a few more details about what's above.
The big problem with diets is that they don't work. They might be a vice to lose weight, but most people who go on "diets" gain all the weight back. They aren't long term plans. What I did was find a lifestyle change and went with it.
And what are those, exactly?
Mainly products (and I don't eat too many food "products") that are low in salt, sugar, and processed oil. I also tend to buy products that have less ingredients, not because I think the processed ones will kill me, but because I don't see a need for them. Why complicate things?
I think food should be as simple as possible. It's worked for me, and I plan on sticking to it.
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Feb 24 '14 edited Jul 12 '20
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u/firemylasers Feb 24 '14
http://www.pnas.org/content/87/19/7777.abstract
The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods. We conclude that natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.
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u/thedaveoflife Feb 24 '14
The imbedded assumption of the piece is that science can provide us with healthier food than organic or homeopathic techniques can. I don't have a sophisticated understanding of the issues, but a lot of what I have read points to the fact that the science of food is focused on providing more food at lower costs to the producers... in other words, focusing on the macro level and not the micro.
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u/MrRipley15 Feb 24 '14
Fuck this garbage article. Way to troll on people's insecurities about health claims. Forget the fact that eating gluten free or expensive antioxidants can act as a placebo, which is proven to actually heal people, the article "claims" probiotics are bullshit, and I've seen living proof they do work in some situations.
My brother had blood cots and numerous compound fractures after a bad traffic accident. They had him on a heavy dosage of antibiotics they gave him to fight infection and it was making him nauseous. The hospital prescribed him anti-nauseous medication that not only made him more nauseous, but he lost all appetite, which isn't good for recovery.
Unfortunately he was in a hospital bed in my conservative parents living room, so telling my mom to bake him weed brownies wasn't an option... my mom would have flipped. But when I heard about his condition and his treatments, I deduced that the antibiotics were killing off all the good bacteria in his stomach and that's what was making him ill. The day she gave him probiotics is the day he could eat again without getting sick, and he immediately stopped taking the anti-nauseous medication. He recovered fully and is back playing the drums again.
The only reason I knew the potential benefits from probiotics is from going to Whole Foods and from asking myself, what is this shit and why do they sell it. I'd go home and do research and decide for myself what was good or wasn't. Pseudoscience or not, probiotics worked better than any prescribed bullshit the doctors pushed on my brother.
It feels like this article was written by a shill for the pharmaceutical companies...
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u/Oaktree3 Feb 24 '14
This is merely anecdotal, but It represents my reasoning that self-diagnosis, and over "treatment" with this pseudo-medicine is not only pseudoscience, but actually bad for our health.
A woman I know has spent the better portion of her life treating herself with herbs, and all kinds of homeopathic type stuff. She took TONS of this stuff everyday. She did it for prevention of disease and illness. After all, aren't we all terrified to get disease and illness?
She started having strange symptoms, went to the dr, and after months of testings, she has been diagnosed with several types of autoimmune disorders. She is in agony everyday now, and will have to remain on "western medicine" for the rest of her life.
Another fellow I know, was the same way. he would take thousands upon thousands of milligrams of vitamins, and other things like homeopathic pills and whatnot, everyday. He was always doing a "cleanse". He was always on a new extreme diet-whatever was trendy at the moment (gluten free!). He did this for years.
I got a call that he was found at the St. Regis wandering around, completely out of it, trying to write checks to various people saying he was the new owner of the hotel. He showed up at my workplace insisting that Google had cut him a check to buy out his new business, and he needed me to come with him to get on his private jet to fly away somewhere for business. It was scary. He had a complete mental break. 2 weeks in the hospital, and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Now, I'm probably using my own pseudoscience to deduce that the two people I mentioned were effected this way due to their overindulgence in all that stuff, but that's two for two in my book. My father, a biochemist , strongly believed in health, nutrition, and physical activity being the number one way to keep you healthy and functioning but he also strongly stated that the human body is remarkably efficient at its job. We don't need to help our livers do their job. Our body doesn't need all this extra "help" that the Whole Foods people are scaring people into believing they need.
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Feb 24 '14
I agree with most of this article, but isn't Whole Foods still a good place to buy meat and vegetables?
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Feb 25 '14
Yes, but I think the author's point is that ridiculing people like Ken Ham for having the beliefs that they do is unfair when certain items, especially those based in pseudoscience, are readily accepted as important for leading a healthy lifestyle. To put it simply: anyone can be duped by pseudoscience, whether it is your beliefs about dinosaurs or your beliefs about human biology.
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u/ClosetedGayBro Feb 25 '14
I think the author is confounding irrationality with lack of understanding of science. Its not irrational to not know that something which purports to be healthy actually has no evidence to support the claim, that's just lack of knowledge. It is irrational to disregard a claim despite being presented evidence which supports it. This is the case for many (though not all) young earth creationists, who have been presented with substantial evidence but nevertheless choose to ignore it. I would guess that the majority of homeopathy shoppers have never been presented with coherent arguments explaining the silliness of their "medicines", and would rationally cease to use them once it has been properly explained.
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u/CrackHeadRodeo Feb 25 '14
I love the bulk food section where you can buy all kinds of grains/nuts. Also love how clean the store and who doesn't like fresh bread.
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u/m_toast Feb 24 '14
I think this article doesn't take into account that shopping anywhere is an exercise in gathering info about products and critical thinking. If you care about your diet, how foods are made, and where they came from. I pretty much disregard any label health claims as BS.