The Whole Truth

Whole Foods is a clever company.  Founder John Mackey saw a niche in high-end organic and created an empire.  It may be high quality products at premium prices, but shopping there is as much about the feeling it gives you as the produce.  I go there occasionally and can't help but admire their set-up, but generally don't feel the need to spend so much.  However, if it makes millions of crunchy consumers happy, fine by me.

Now Whole Foods is planning to label genetically modified foods.  This is just evil.  Such foods are perfectly safe and labeling them gives consumers no useful information--in fact, by scaring them it gives them bad information.  It could even lead to less development and production of genetically modified foods, which are a boon to the world.

There's a strong whiff of cynicism about the whole thing: 

A. C. Gallo, president of Whole Foods, said the new labeling requirement, to be in place within five years, came in response to consumer demand. “We’ve seen how our customers have responded to the products we do have labeled,” Mr. Gallo said. “Some of our manufacturers say they’ve seen a 15 percent increase in sales of products they have labeled.”

So there you have it.  Whole Foods, hurting humanity while fooling (foolish) customers into paying more.