{"id":504,"date":"2010-02-23T17:11:30","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T17:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2010\/02\/whole-foods-organics-from-china.html"},"modified":"2010-02-23T17:11:30","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T17:11:30","slug":"whole-foods-organics-from-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/02\/whole-foods-organics-from-china.html","title":{"rendered":"Whole Foods ‘Organics’ From China!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Whole
\nFoods, which touts its support for locally grown food and organic agriculture, imports a great deal of its frozen food from China. So says a report from ABC’s
\nI-Team<\/a>.  <\/span>  <\/span>We are all aware of current Chinese
\nhonesty and quality regarding food.  <\/span>Poisoned milk<\/a>
\n and dead pets<\/a> come to mind.  <\/span>Knowing this, Whole
\nFoods has put China as the country of origin in very small type on its packages and, according to the I-Team report, kept the knowledge of how dependent they were on Chinese food hidden.  ‘California Blend’ vegetables are not exactly from California.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

Worse,
\nthere is no reasonable way for anyone to tell if food that comes from China is
\nin fact organic.  <\/span>We are dealing
\nwith a despotic government that controls the news and has a history of
\nsuppressing information it does not want anyone to know.  <\/span>Further, there is no sane way to argue
\nit supports local agriculture.  <\/span>The
\nonly less local agriculture will finally become available when we have Lunar or
\nMartian colonies.<\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nhave continually argued in this blog and elsewhere that publicly held
\ncorporations cannot be trusted with food 
\n<\/span>production because they are interested only in profit.  <\/span>While the founder of a corporation
\nmight be a principled person, as when Amadeo Giannini<\/a>  founded Bank of America, the internal logic of control being determined by who
\nhas invested the most virtually guarantees that there will be no lasting
\nethical commitment that interferes with making money.  Eventually the organization will be interested only in money and will do whatever it takes to get it.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Because
\nI believe interacting with any living system has an ethical dimension, and that agriculture in particular is or should be a highly ethical enterprise, I have
\ncome to the conclusion that while corporations are good at making cars, they
\nshould not be trusted with producing food.  <\/span>Ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now Whole Foods has become an unexpected ‘exhibit A” to my argument.  They tell us of their commitment to organic agriculture and local produce, while making it difficult to discover how little they walk their talk.<\/font><\/p>\n

Whole
\nFoods has been a subject of much debate on this blog, and as evidence of John
\nMackey’s personal commitment to healthy eating piled up, I softened my view
\nthat the chain should only be patronized when there are no reasonable organic
\nfood outlets or local food outlets near by.  <\/span>But that was with the assumption that the company was likely
\nto be honorable until John Mackey retired.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nmay have been won over to my qualified acceptance much too quickly.  Listen to the video from ABC and decide for yourself.  As for me, I am doubly committed to NEVER buying their store brand.  It has shown itself to be deliberately misleading, or worse, and competes against the very same local agriculture the company tries to take credit for supporting.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whole Foods, which touts its support for locally grown food and organic agriculture, imports a great deal of its frozen food from China. So says a report from ABC’s I-Team.    We are all aware of current Chinese honesty and quality regarding food.  Poisoned milk  and dead pets come to mind.  Knowing this, Whole Foods has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"yoast_head":"\nWhole Foods 'Organics' From China! - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/02\/whole-foods-organics-from-china.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whole Foods 'Organics' From China! - A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whole Foods, which touts its support for locally grown food and organic agriculture, imports a great deal of its frozen food from China. 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