Sociologique

Ariela Haro von Mogel September 4th, 2008

I am going to write a really mean post, stereotype a lot of people, and I’m sure, offend a few. But I’ll say it anyways! When my husband and I go into our neighborhood Whole Foods for some specialty items, we notice these huge banners and little signs everywhere (like on the meat counter and dairy shelves) that read Feel Good About Where You Shop. Now, there are several interesting things about this supposedly innocuous statement.

First, it assumes you shop at Whole Foods because everywhere else is EVIL and you obviously don’t feel good shopping at corporations like Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Safeway, Copps (the Midwest equivalent of Safeway),  Albertson’s, ad nauseum. The list goes on. The place that you can really place your trust into and feel good about shopping is Whole Foods and Wild Oats. Wait, sorry, Whole Foods just bought Wild Oats. Ooops. And Whole Foods is not trying to become a huge corporate conglomerate? John Mackey himself, the CEO of Whole Foods, has said his idol is Bill Gates and that we should be as capitalistic as possible concerning our business deals. Anyways….

Second, I have a huge problem with the “ethnic” crap that they sell at Whole Foods and try to pass off as “diversity.” First off, calling everyone else’s food except your own as ethnic sounds a little bigoted. Just a little. Whole Foods and other health food stores totally sell stuff that exoticize and commcercialize other people’s cultures. For instance, I saw a box of Zen Flakes. Zen Flakes. Really now. My best friend had a really interesting point about health food culture on this one. She said that American health food culture acts as if they discovered soy, when Asians have been making and eating it for thousands of years! She said they are like the “Christopher Colombus’ of Soy.” From my understanding and experience, whatever foods of other countries they carry have been extremely watered down and Americanized. I figure that if you’re going to buy “ethnic” foods, you should go to a specific store that caters to Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, or all of the above and buy from them. At least they probably know what they’re doing and talking about.

There’s this wonderful store in Madison called Yue-Wah, where they carry Mexican, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Thai and Japanese food. You can see so many people of different ethnic groups buying food at their store and their stuff is good and rather inexpensive. I hardly see Caucasian people there, as the store is not in the best part of town and is an “ethnic” food store.

It’s interesting that the people who shop at Whole Foods don’t go to Yue-Wah (if they do, it’s pretty minimal). There, you can actually see racial diversity. Instead of just talking about it or reading about it, you can go and interact with people who are different from you ethnically and economically. You can purchase food and make delicious meals from the very ingredients that those said ethnic groups actually use. Sometimes I think Whole Foodies are so caught up in their ideology that they can’t step out of their box and challenge their comfort zone. Not like I’m perfect, but at least I try.

So, the real mantra on those banners and signs should read, Feel Good About Where You Don’t Shop (so you don’t actually have to interact with different groups of people but act like you do). Oooohh, that’s right, I said it!

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