is whole foods too good to be true? - Page 3

[JudiAU]

Whole Foods does a lot of really good things but it isn't perfect. Yes, they carry far too many imported products for my taste and it isn't always as local as it can be. However, I am comfortable with the vast, vast majority of their food and their standards. I can buy health care items, cleaning supplies, and meat etc. without a whole lot of package reading. Yes, they carry lots of tiny packages of expensive things but I think the Whole Paycheck label is unfair. You can eat very well and cheaply their too. Tiny packages of raincoast whatever handpicked by indigenous people and specially trained parakeets saved from whatever are going to expensive anywhere. =)

I live in Los Angeles and their organics are usually the same price as Trader Joes, which has pretty rock bottom prices. Cheaper, actually, than regular grocery story pricing for organics.

[blueridgewoman]

Originally Posted by Messac888

I only go there when we need some gluten-free stuff because it's much, much cheaper, or when I really want some sesame tarragon crackers (only place nearby that sells them). Otherwise I try to avoid the place for all the reasons mentioned above. I just went there and had to wait for a good 5 minutes for a manager override because I was using "too many" coupons. Seriously? 5 minutes may not sound like long but when you have four hungry, whiney kids with you (including a hungry baby) and you need the manager to push a button so you can get your receipt and go home, it just seems a bit ridiculous.

Yeah, they get really cranky about coupons there- drives me nuts.

[junipermuse]

One of the things I like about Whole Foods is that often if they carry the exact same product as the regular supermarket, it's actually cheaper at Whole Foods. This is the case for my Kerrygold butter. The price is way jacked up at Safeway. Also our Whole Foods is very big on local. But I live in Marin so we have tons of local food available for a large part of the year. We can get pastured eggs (the same ones that are sold at the farmer's market on Sundays). THere is a large selection of grassfed meat, but even there non-grassfed meat is only grain finished, still primarily grass-fed. It's one of many places I shop, but it is definitely the most convenient because they have most of the things we eat weekly available. I can go to Trader Joe's for cheaper prices on some things. And Safeway is near my house, but their organic produce tends to be very limited and not very good and they don't sell any grassfed meat or full fat grassfed dairy, so there isn't much of a reason to shop there. And I do shop at the farmer's market fairly regularly, but the times are more limited so we have to have somewhere to get food midweek. That place for us is Whole Foods. Also for me its most important to have grassfed organic meat and dairy more than produce. Toxins accumulate to higher levels the higher up the food chain you eat and so I'll pay more for that and then buy some conventional produce when funds are tight. So to get those things during the week I have to go to Whole Foods.

[tatsu15]

Sometimes they will label their produce with plu codes (Not the bar code)- so if it is conventionally grown, the code will start with a 4 and may or may not use pesticides but most likely conventionally grown uses pesticides- if it starts with a 9 then it is organic and if it starts with an 8 it is gmo... but some don't have labels or plu so you won't know if it's gmo free or not. Wholefoods does carry more quality organic produce but it's not all organic so the consumer has to always be proactive. It's unfortunate living in Hawaii as far as looking for quality milk (they are all ultra pasteurized or homogenized here on the islands- as far as the whole fat milk goes)... the wholefoods here doesn't carry regular pasteurized milk (sighs) and they were carrying some hideous brand of buttermilk which had all kinds of additives and preservatives... I was disappointed to have found this at wholefoods.

[Shellie]

I like to buy ground beef there but I do not believe it is organic...or grass fed. It has less gristle though than any other ground beef I've tried, so I keep going back and lamenting that I moved away and now it's a 45-minute drive!!

[Mawood]

yeah, it is great but super expensive so it is not really affordable to shop there regularly. i love it but it is a treat for special needs!