A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/whole-foods" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Whole Foods</a> location in downtown <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/san-francisco" target="_blank" rel="noopener">San Francisco</a> reportedly closed this week over high <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/crime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crime</a> and unsafe conditions for employees.
The number of arrests in San Francisco has fallen significantly over the past three years amid <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sf-democrat-mayor-london-breed-after-backing-defunding-police-reverses-need-aggressive-policing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calls</a> from prominent officials, including San Francisco Democratic Mayor London Breed, to defund law enforcement. Whole Foods will shutter a location at Trinity Place at Eighth and Market Streets over rampant drug use outside the store.
“We are closing our Trinity location only for the time being,” a spokesperson for Whole Foods said in a <a href="https://sfstandard.com/business/downtown-san-francisco-whole-foods-market-closing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> to the San Francisco Standard. “If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in the store, we will evaluate a reopening of our Trinity location.”
A source in San Francisco City Hall told the outlet that drug use and criminal activity from individuals near the store played a role in the closure. The downtown portion of San Francisco has also suffered from declining foot traffic in the years since government lockdowns sequestered employees in their homes and apartments.
The Whole Foods location, which opened at the beginning of last year, was meant to be the flagship store for the brand in San Francisco and feature a variety of food products endemic to northern California, according to a <a href="https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/new-san-francisco-whole-foods-market-trinity-store-to-open-march-10/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> from the organic grocery chain. The store’s design included “nods to classic San Francisco” architecture, such as the Golden Gate Bridge and the former Crystal Palace Market.
Crime in San Francisco has been blamed for severely diminishing the quality of life and contributing to a mass exodus of residents and businesses. Pharmacy giant Walgreens <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walgreens-now-closing-stores-in-san-francisco-following-retail-theft-spike" target="_blank" rel="noopener">closed</a> several locations in the city, while technology retailer Best Buy has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/best-buy-is-worried-about-san-francisco-employees-quitting-getting-traumatized-thanks-to-frequent-thefts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">struggled</a> with safety issues related to organized retail crime. Technology companies such as Tesla and Oracle were among the 352 companies that moved their headquarters from northern California over the past four years, according to a <a href="https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/21117-Ohanian-Vranich-4_0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the Hoover Institution, while nearly 8% of current residents plan to move elsewhere within the next year, surging past levels seen in every other major American city, according to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-than-40-of-san-francisco-residents-planning-to-leave-deteriorating-city-poll" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> from the Census Bureau.
The closure of the Whole Foods location comes shortly after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-raises-alarm-over-horrific-crime-in-san-francisco-after-tech-founder-stabbed-to-death" target="_blank" rel="noopener">murder</a> of Bob Lee, a prolific technology entrepreneur and the founder of CashApp, as he visited the city from Miami for a business meeting. Lee was stabbed in the early morning hours; Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and former UFC champion Jake Shields were among the well-known individuals who criticized San Francisco leadership over the death of Lee and launched a renewed debate about crime and homelessness in the city.
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-22421">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
Champion track cyclist Ethan Boyes was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/champion-cyclist-killed-former-fire-commissioner-attacked-in-san-francisco-this-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener">killed,</a> and former fire commissioner Don Carmignani was attacked last week in San Francisco. The former was hit by a car that crossed the center line of the road, while the latter was attacked by a group of homeless people who slashed him in the face and beat him with a pipe in front of his mother’s house.

Daily Life In New York

San Francisco’s Flagship Whole Foods Closes After Only One Year Due To High Crime: Report

San Francisco’s Flagship Whole Foods Closes After Only One Year

California

Crime

San Francisco

U.S.

Whole Foods

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/whole-foods" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Whole Foods</a> has requested that its suppliers drop their prices on packaged food items in the face of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inflationary</a> changes for consumers, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/whole-foods-asks-suppliers-to-lower-prices-as-costs-ebb-11675115155?mod=hp_lead_pos10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saw</a> a recording of a virtual meeting from December between the grocery chain and suppliers. Whole Foods said in the meeting that as businesses see their costs begin to go down, it wants to lower the cost for consumers who are shopping at its locations.
“We know our customers are weighing the impacts of inflationary pressure on their buying choices,” Alyssa Vescio, Whole Foods’ senior vice president of merchandising of center store, told suppliers at the virtual meeting viewed by the Journal.
The outlet noted that food suppliers have pointed to the high prices of labor, production, and transportation, leading to an increase of their wholesale price tags. In turn, grocery stores have increased their own prices on items for consumers. Consumers have responded by not buying as much and pursuing less expensive types of items.
A spokeswoman for the company told the outlet that Whole Foods has taken steps to help customers with the inflation they are experiencing. She added that the mega grocery chain has also had a lower rate of cost hikes than the average rate across the industry. The store has also brought down costs on specific items like bread, cereal, and sparkling water, according to the spokeswoman.
At the virtual meeting, Whole Foods executives also said that the store would be doing more to bring people to their groceries.
While inflation went down slightly in December from November, the prices of groceries were still high and are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/inflation-is-slowing-but-grocery-prices-anticipated-to-remain-high-in-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">projected to remain that way</a> into this year. The inflation rate was 6.5% in December, which was <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3837568-whole-foods-asks-suppliers-to-lower-prices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lower</a> than the uptick in food costs.
The cost of total foods had <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">risen</a> 10.4% in December from last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Groceries, or food at home, were up 11.8% and dining out costs were up 8.3%. While those had <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/01/30/food-prices-inflation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dipped</a> a little bit, the high prices are still being felt by Americans all over the country.
The prices of groceries are also not up at the same rates across the nation. For example, the Twin Cities, Baltimore, and Dallas are all seeing some of the worst inflationary rates for steep food costs. Dallas rates were at 14.1%, Baltimore was at 13.5%, and the Twin Cities are at 13.7%.
Other cities are also feeling the impact, such as Washington, D.C., where food costs are up 7%, and Chicago, where they are up 7.7%, as well as Miami, which is seeing an 8.8% increase.

“Solar Panels on roof of Whole Foods supermarket”

Report: Whole Foods Asked Suppliers To Lower Costs So They Can Cut Costs To Consumers

Business

Economy

Food

Inflation

Superstar Russell Brand warned about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/amazon">Amazon</a>&#8216;s new palm payment convenience system the company launched in California and Texas and said it&#8217;s one step closer to giving away our freedom.
During the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/actor-russell-brands-unloads-on-nancy-pelosi-youve-gotta-be-fing-kidding-me">47-year-old</a> actor&#8217;s &#8220;Awakening with Russell&#8221; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0ISGLpWXUI">show</a> Monday, Brand highlighted the fact that Whole Foods stores were installing palm-scanning payment systems and all it takes is a &#8220;wave of the hand&#8221; to pay for one’s groceries. In the video titled &#8220;It&#8217;s Happening,&#8221; the host talked about the &#8220;nefarious nature of big tech&#8221; and asked if this kind of biotech is like another &#8220;snitch&#8221; from the company which he said has a history of &#8220;stealing your data&#8221; and giving it law enforcement. It starts at the :57 minute mark <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0ISGLpWXUI">here</a>.
&#8220;Move over freedom more like,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trying-to-f-up-ordinary-people-russell-brand-rants-against-the-great-reset-green-energy-agenda">Brand</a> said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not only ApplePay who&#8217;s the competitor here. It&#8217;s the concept of liberty.&#8221;
He added that the &#8220;mentality behind these ideals, behind these advances often includes data capture, increased power for companies like Amazon.&#8221;
&#8220;When we know Amazon have relationships with the police state, with CIA, with the FBI, with the government, have been guilty of handing over data without consent before,&#8221; Brand shared. &#8220;Oughten we be querying whether or not this is simply for our convenience or right from the get go.&#8221;
Throughout the piece, the star played various news segments with reporters/anchors talking about how all it takes is for a person to &#8220;hover their palm over the device&#8221; to pay for your items, repeating the same mantra, just a &#8220;wave of the hand.&#8221;
&#8220;&#8216;All you gotta do is see Kylie there&#8217;s a little device down here&#8230;&#8221; The actor said in a character voice. &#8220;&#8216;It&#8217;s not like it says literally in the Bible that the mark of the beast will be rendered in the palm of your hand or anything like that. Don&#8217;t worry just walk face first into Armageddon without questioning it. It&#8217;s convenient having an Apocolaypse.'&#8221;
He then mocked one reporter claiming how inconvenient it&#8217;s been to pull out a card out of one&#8217;s wallet to pay for things, before he took a swipe at President Joe Biden.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not all Joe Biden that can&#8217;t carry out rudimentary, simple procedures,&#8221; Russell said, adding sarcastically. &#8220;Are we? Or if you got nothing to hide, you&#8217;ve got nothing to fear. Just give all your data to Amazon and let them give that data to whoever they want.&#8221;
&#8220;Let&#8217;s just hope there&#8217;s never a point when they start saying &#8216;what are your political beliefs?'&#8221; he added. &#8220;The social credit score you. &#8216;Do you have the medications we want. Do you believe what we want you to believe. Are you interested in freedom are ya? You&#8217;re not interested in controlling your own life are you?'&#8221;
&#8220;Just wave your hand,&#8221; Brand continued. &#8220;Bye, bye freedom. Bye.&#8221;
Brand later pointed out that &#8220;in the past&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/amazon">Amazon</a> made similar assurances to customers worried about devices like Alexa and the Ring camera and that they could be used to &#8220;spy on&#8221; people.&#8221; He said it seems like every time Amazon &#8220;introduces some new convenience&#8221; it turns out to be some &#8220;little snitch&#8221; telling the CIA and the FBI exactly what&#8217;s under your bed.&#8221; He said the company promised that all that data is uploaded to the cloud and said, sarcastically, it&#8217;s nothing to worry about.
The &#8220;Get Him to The Greek&#8221; star went on to explain how those concerns were later found to be warranted after the company admitted to storing &#8220;Alexa voice data,&#8221; selling &#8220;biometric facial recognition services to the U.S. law enforcement&#8221; and the Ring camera company working with police as well, citing an article from <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/10/amazon-expands-palm-scanning-payment-tech-to-65-more-whole-foods-locations/">Tech Crunch</a>.

An Evening with Russell Brand at Esquire Townhouse with Dior

‘Move Over Freedom’: Actor Russell Brand Warns About Amazon’s New Convenient Way To Pay

Actor Russell Brand Warns About Amazon’s New Palm Payment: ‘Move Over Freedom’ 

Amazon

Celebrities

Entertainment

Technology

YouTube

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/whole-foods">Whole Foods</a> founder John Mackey warned that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/socialism">socialists</a> are “taking over” every facet of American society, and promised he’ll have much more to say when he steps down as CEO of the trailblazing supermarket chain.
Mackey, who founded the company in 1980 and stayed on to run it after selling it to Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017, said freedom-hating fascists have seized control of companies, education, and even the military. The explosive comments came in an interview with <a href="https://reason.com/podcast/2022/08/10/whole-foods-john-mackey-i-feel-like-socialists-are-taking-over/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reason magazine</a>.
“They’re marching through the institutions — they’re taking everything over,” said Mackey, who is stepping down at the end of September. “They’ve taken over education. It looks like they’ve taken over a lot of the corporations. It looks like they’ve taken over the military. And it’s just continuing.”
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&quot;I feel like socialists are taking over,&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/WholeFoods?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WholeFoods</a> CEO John Mackey tells <a href="https://twitter.com/reason?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@reason</a>. &quot;I believe in liberty and capitalism. Those are my twin values. And I feel like&#8230;a lot of the liberties that I&#39;ve taken for granted most of my life&#8230;are under threat.&quot;<a href="https://t.co/M9VC9pOone">https://t.co/M9VC9pOone</a>
&mdash; Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) <a href="https://twitter.com/nickgillespie/status/1557463255811080192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Although many consider Whole Foods and its parent company progressive, Mackey said he is a “capitalist at heart.” While building the company, Mackey espoused what he called “conscious capitalism,” and sought to “create financial, intellectual, social, cultural, emotional, spiritual, physical, and ecological wealth for all of [its] stakeholders.” The company promoted environmentally sound agriculture, paid living wages, and was a pioneer in providing health care to entry-level employees.
But incompetent Leftist governance, especially during the COVID pandemic, has made it difficult to champion those values while still making a profit, he said. He cited increased government unemployment benefits that made it more lucrative for prospective workers to stay jobless.
“A lot of people were making as much money, if not more money, not working at all,” he said. “And so guess what? They chose not to come back to work. They got used to it,” he said.
Even now, the younger generation that the supermarket industry relies on to unload trucks, stock shelves, and man the registers “don’t seem to want to work,” he said. The problem is most acute in Democrat-run big cities, he said.
“They only wanna work if it’s really purposeful, and [something] they feel aligned to,” he said. “You can’t hope to start with meaningful work. You’re going to have to earn it over time. Some of the younger generation doesn’t seem to be willing to pay that price, and I don’t know why.”
Mackey also lamented the Left’s ongoing assault on freedom of speech and other constitutional rights.
“I feel like with the way freedom of speech is today — the movement on gun control — a lot of the liberties that I’ve taken for granted most of my life, I think, are under threat,” he said.
The comments were apparently just a hint of what’s to come, when Mackey steps down and can speak even more freely.
“Pretty soon, you’re gonna hear about ‘Crazy John’ who’s no longer muzzled,” he said. “I’ve got six weeks. I can talk more about politics in six weeks than I can today.”

U.S.-WASHINGTON-UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

‘No Longer Muzzled’: Whole Foods Founder Issues Dire Warning About Socialists

'No Longer Muzzled': Whole Foods Founder Issues Dire Warning About Socialists

Free Speech

Second Amendment

U.S. Military

Woke Culture

A disabled teenager, her mother, and her nurse were asked to leave a Whole Foods Market in Vienna, Virginia after staff noticed the teen wasn’t wearing a mask, even though she had a medical exemption.
Teresa Schultz, whose 14-year-old daughter has high-tone cerebral palsy and requires a wheelchair because she is quadriplegic, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/08/mask-police-booted-disabled-child-out-of-virginia-whole-foods-now-corporate-is-apologizing/">told</a> The Federalist that two employees approached her family and told them to leave.
“They said, ‘You can’t be here with her,’ and I said, ‘Excuse me?’ They said she had to have a mask on and I said, ‘Can’t you see she is in a wheelchair and is exempt from the mandate?’ I told them that it’s the law. [One of the employees] said it wasn’t and I said that you don’t want to go here,” Schultz told the outlet. “I didn’t want to get my daughter upset because she is nonverbal. He said we have to leave, so we just left. I was so upset, and the nurse and I were like having heart palpitations. We were so upset. Never in the last year have we been asked to leave anywhere, and nobody has even questioned it because it is very apparent that my daughter is in a wheelchair, is nonverbal, and cannot wear a mask.”
As the Federalist reported, Teresa’s daughter, Mary, is exempt from wearing a mask under section E, clause eight of Virginia’s amended mask mandate, which is in effect until June 20, 2021:
<blockquote>Nothing in this Order shall require the use of a mask by any person for whom doing so would be contrary to his or her health or safety because of a medical condition …Any person who declines to wear a mask because of a medical condition shall not be required to produce or carry medical documentation verifying the stated condition nor shall the person be required to identify the precise underlying medical condition.</blockquote>
“We’ve tried to put a mask on her, but she just rips it off her face. She won’t tolerate it. Our daughter does not have any fine or gross motor control, and she has a form of CP that is high-tone so her muscles are very tight,” John Schultz, Mary’s father, told the outlet. “Groceries are an essential service and I would expect that if someone arrives on wheels that we get the benefit of the doubt. I can’t imagine this is the first time they’ve dealt with someone with medical issues not wearing a mask. It’s really odd.”
The parents told the Federalist that other businesses, such as Home Depot and other grocery stores, have not tried to force their daughter to wear a mask or risk eviction from the property. John told the Federalist that after calling customer service, he eventually reached a manager who said the family should not have been kicked out.
“When I first called the store I got the customer service manager, who happened to be the one who kicked Teresa and our daughter out of the store. I told him about the original mask mandate and the clause about persons with medical issues being exempt. I quoted it and he doubled down,” John told the outlet. “…He bounced me to another manager in the store who apparently was senior to him, and he and an assistant manager told me that the person was wrong to kick me out of the store. It sounds like they need some staff training and some empathy. People like [my daughter] really should not be subject to this kind of treatment.”
In a statement to the Federalist, corporate spokeswoman Heather McCready said: “I can confirm that the Vienna Store Team Leader has reached out to the family, apologized for their experience, and had a good conversation with them. We look forward to welcoming them back to our store.”

Family Kicked Out Of Whole Foods Because Disabled Daughter Couldn’t Wear Mask

Face Masks

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey ripped socialism last week during a discussion with the American Enterprise Institute, calling it a &#8220;disaster&#8221; and noting that it has failed everywhere it has been implemented.
Mackey said that the &#8220;single biggest misunderstanding about business and capitalism&#8221; was the notion that businesses exist solely to make money, noting that &#8220;until we get this corrected, capitalism is always going to be disdained and criticized and attacked.&#8221;
&#8220;It will be attacked for its motivations because its motivations are seen as somehow they&#8217;re impure and yes, of course, business has to make money, business doesn&#8217;t make money it&#8217;ll fail, but that doesn&#8217;t mean that&#8217;s its purpose to make money,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;A good way to explain it is, my body has to produce red blood cells and if I stop producing red blood cells I&#8217;m going to die, but just because I have to make red blood cells does not mean the purpose of my life is to produce red blood cells.&#8221;
The AEI host asked Mackey about a section in his book where he wrote about &#8220;cultural intelligence,&#8221; specifically three kinds of cultural intelligence: the traditional, the modern, and the progressive.
Mackey slammed the progressive worldview, which he said was distrusting of science “except when it serves their ideology.”
&#8220;Progressives, because they they dominate academia, Hollywood, and the media punch way above their weight class in terms of their actual numbers, but that&#8217;s the cultural war,&#8221; Mackey added.
While saying that some of the things that progressives value are important, Mackey added, &#8220;but we can&#8217;t throw out capitalism and replace it with socialism.&#8221;
&#8220;That will be a disaster,&#8221; Mackey continued. &#8220;Socialism has been tried 42 times in the last 100 years, and 42 failures, it doesn&#8217;t work, it&#8217;s the wrong way. We have to keep capitalism, I would argue, we need conscious capitalism.&#8221;
Mackey said some of the additional &#8220;disasters of progressivism&#8221; were that it teaches people to not be patriotic about America and portrays the country as &#8220;the worst that&#8217;s ever existed.&#8221; He added that progressivism was authoritarian, self-righteous, and canceled people who have different views. Mackey also noted that Whole Foods has had multiple stores that have been damaged in &#8220;peaceful protests&#8221; by the political Left.
Mackey said that actions by the Left have made it &#8220;harder to do business&#8221; since America is in &#8220;kind of a rocky place right now.&#8221; Mackey specifically mentioned the &#8220;defund the police&#8221; movement, saying that the company has to hire significantly more security guards now.
Mackey said that the culture in the business world needs to evolve, &#8220;otherwise the socialists are going to take over and that&#8217;s the path to poverty.&#8221;
&#8220;They talk about trickle-down wealth, but socialism is trickle-up poverty,&#8221; Mackey continued. &#8220;It just impoverishes everything. That&#8217;s my fear, that the Marxists and socialists, the academic community is generally hostile to business. It always has been. This is not new.&#8221;
&#8220;Innovationism is the greatest thing that humanity&#8217;s ever created,&#8221; Mackey continued. &#8220;I mean if you go back 200 years ago when innovationism was really beginning to pick up steam, 94% of everybody alive on the planet on earth lived on less than two dollars a day, 94% percent, only 6% made more than two dollars a day and that&#8217;s in today&#8217;s dollars. Today that&#8217;s under 10%.&#8221;
&#8220;The average lifespan 200 years ago was 30 now it&#8217;s 72.6 in advanced countries, developed countries it&#8217;s closer to 80,&#8221; Mackey continued. &#8220;Illiteracy rates 200 years ago across the planet were 88%, now they&#8217;re 12%.&#8221;
&#8220;Business people are not the villains of the story, they&#8217;re the heroes of the story,&#8221; he added. &#8220;The entrepreneurs are the ones that create great progress and they&#8217;re universally vilified.&#8221;
He added that the whole reason that socialism has gained steam is because people have been falsely indoctrinated into believing that businesses are motivated by greed and exploitative.
&#8220;That is wrong,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Capitalism is the greatest thing humanity&#8217;s ever done, we told a bad narrative and we&#8217;ve let the enemies of business and the enemies of capitalism put out a narrative about us that&#8217;s wrong, it&#8217;s inaccurate and it&#8217;s doing tremendous damage to the minds of young people. We have to counter that.&#8221;
Mackey also slammed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) “Green New Deal,” saying that it will cause the U.S. to regress.
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Whole Foods sign hanging on a store entrance in Yonge Street

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey Blasts AOC’s Green New Deal, Praises Capitalism, Warns Socialism Destroys

Capitalism

Socialism

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is taking heat on social media for daring to say that American obesity has caused COVID-19 deaths, even though obesity is a comorbidity that medical professionals have <a href="https://www.obesitycoverage.com/insurance-and-costs/pre-approval-process/comorbidities">cautioned</a> against.
Speaking with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/business/john-mackey-corner-office-whole-foods.html">The New York Times</a>, Mackey, who has made it his life&#8217;s mission to encourage better eating, said that a majority of Americans are becoming food addicts and refused to blame it on poverty.
&#8220;Some people have been moving in the right direction, and the majority of people in the wrong direction,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We can see that through the way people eat today versus the way they ate 50 or 60 years ago. Statistically, we definitely moved in the wrong direction.&#8221;
&#8220;The whole world is getting fat, it’s just that Americans are at the leading edge of that. We’re getting fat, and we’re getting sicker, by the way,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I mean, there’s a very high correlation between obesity and COVID deaths. And one of the reasons the United States has had more of a problem with COVID is simply that the comorbidities like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, they’re just higher in the U.S.&#8221;
The interviewer pushed back by questioning if that were a valid point, considering that most Americans do not have access to a Whole Foods in their neighborhood. Mackey, however, believed that Americans are food addicts and that the market has simply responded to their demands, noting that Whole Foods has tried to set up operations in low-income areas.
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&#8220;In some sense, we’re all food addicts. We love things that are rich, that are sweet. We love ice cream. We love popcorn. We love French fried potatoes. And the market is providing people what they want,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don’t think there’s an access problem. I think there’s a market demand problem. People have got to become wiser about their food choices. And if people want different foods, the market will provide it.&#8221;
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&#8220;Whole Foods has opened up stores in inner cities. We’ve opened up stores in poor areas. And we see the choices. It’s less about access and more about people making poor choices, mostly due to ignorance,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;It’s like a being an alcoholic. People are just not conscious of the fact that they have food addictions and need to do anything about it. And Big Food, the fast food industry, the processed food industry — they all have a lot of skin in the game. They want people to continue to consume more calorie-rich foods.&#8221;
&#8220;We have not done a good job of educating people about what healthy food is. I tend to think it’s going to come about through education and through people becoming more aware and conscious about eating healthier, and then the market will respond to that,&#8221; he concluded.
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Mackey took a beating on social media, with multiple Twitter users accusing him of hypocrisy.
&#8220;Says the man whose store we refer to as &#8216;Whole Paycheck.&#8217; John Mackey, I suggest you come &amp; spend some time in my lab w my participants and patients w obesity. You will see just how very mistaken you were when you spread this misinformation &amp; spewed weight stigma to the masses,&#8221; said Michelle Cardel, Ph.D., MS, RD.
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Says the man whose store we refer to as “Whole Paycheck”.
John Mackey, I suggest you come &amp; spend some time in my lab w my participants and patients w obesity. You will see just how very mistaken you were when you spread this misinformation &amp; spewed weight stigma to the masses. <a href="https://t.co/Ot37tNgKYl">https://t.co/Ot37tNgKYl</a>
&mdash; Michelle Cardel, PhD, MS, RD (@MichelleCardel) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichelleCardel/status/1309307941418303490?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Disingenuous John Mackey. Whole Foods purchased my fav Natural Foods store about 15 years ago, it was downhill from there. The local produce &#8211; gone. Junk &#8220;health food&#8221; &#8211; abundant &amp; prominently displayed Actual &#8220;whole foods&#8221; &#8211; choices decreased to make room for trendy foods,&#8221; tweeted one user. 
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Disingenuous John Mackey. Whole Foods purchased my fav Natural Foods store about 15 years ago, it was downhill from there. The local produce &#8211; gone. Junk &quot;health food&quot; &#8211; abundant &amp; prominently displayed Actual &quot;whole foods&quot; &#8211; choices decreased to make room for trendy foods.
&mdash; Captain Obvious (@FrancesJohnmyda) <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancesJohnmyda/status/1309263216497905664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Has John Mackey seen the prices at Whole Foods? These CEOs run their mouths from their gilded cages,&#8221; tweeted another. 
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Has John Mackey seen the prices at Whole Foods? These CEOs run their mouths from their gilded cages.
&mdash; Karen Smith 🇺🇦 (@karen1smith1) <a href="https://twitter.com/karen1smith1/status/1309294803956494336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Key Speakers At The 2016 Milken Conference

Whole Foods CEO Blasted For Condemning American Obesity, Linking It To COVID-19 Deaths

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