The New York Times had a completely silly story yesterday with the headline “Whole Foods, MAHA and the Battle Over Healthy Eating in America.” What battle? And what in the world does Whole Foods have to do with it?
There is no battle, and Whole Foods has nothing to do with it. Instead, the Times went out and found some right-wing kook and associate of Charlie Kirk who would give them the quote they wanted to whip up a fictitious element of controversy. You’ll have to wait for the 14th paragraph to get to the quote and the made-up premise of the story:
“They do notice Whole Foods’ lack of voice in this movement and wondering where their leadership is in this. … This is the moment that you guys have allegedly fought for your entire existence. Why are you slowing down when you should be ramping up?”
Whole Foods has been fighting for this MAHA moment for its entire existence? Whole Foods is slowing down? I’ve been shopping at Whole Foods for thirty years (starting with the San Francisco Whole Foods back in the 1990s), and somehow in my lefty blindness I failed to notice that this was a right-wing thing all along.
This kook, by the way, says she was at Chick-fil-A “like, four times a week” until she had a “conversion.” Sure she did. All fanatics have conversions. Then they consider themselves an enlightened elect while those of us who’ve been there for fifty years (my roots are in the hippy era) are insufficiently pure and have to be purged. Clearly MAGA wants Whole Foods to endorse MAHA. The New York Times has been foolish enough to help a fascist movement with corporate intimidation, something that all fascist movements have to do.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement has nothing to do with the kind of knowledge and commitment required to actually live a healthy lifestyle with a healthy diet. Instead it’s a right-wing movement of Pharisees, and, like all right-wing movements, it’s based on demonization and derp. Does anyone think that Robert F. Kennedy is going to teach the deplorables to stop buying ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks, to shop healthy, and to go home and cook from scratch for the rest of their lives?
Of course not. They just don’t have the wiring that would take. Rather, they think that condemning vaccines, fluoride, seed oils, Tylenol, and Red Dye No. 40 will make them healthy again. It’s really just a different kind of scapegoating and a new genre of derp.
If I start seeing deplorables in MAGA caps at Whole Foods — there are plenty of them around here — I’ll let y’all know what they’re buying.