total amount of fruit bought from whole foods on monday night: 3 oranges, 4 minneola tangerines, 1 mango, 1 bag of grapes, 4 white fleshed nectarines, and 4 bananas.
total amount of fruit moldy by wednesday morning: 1 orange, 2 minneolas, 1 nectarine.
17 pieces - actually the bananas don’t count because they were green when we bought them - 13 pieces of “fresh” fruit and 4 have spoiled.
31%!!!
That’s ridiculous - “the Whole Foods premium” for 31% of my fruit to rot within 3 days? Never bought a rotten piece of fruit from Ralph’s - it may not have tasted very good because it was improperly sourced but at least you could eat it. Shit, you can buy a fucking BAG of organic oranges from Trader Joe’s and they’ll keep for a week.
and it’s not like the fruit that we got from whole foods (that we’ve been able to eat) tasted that great. i don’t know how they managed to trick everybody (including me) into thinking they bottled Vertumnus and Pomona’s love nectar and injected it into their produce.
look, the reason why i grocery shop is not to feel as one with my yoga mat carrying, tofu and tempeh eating, let’s-try-not-to-fuck-up-the-world brethren; i don’t need to pick out valerian root supplements and goat milk soap with pretty-or famous-or maybe famous-or rich-or smug bitches; and i certainly don’t want the “health as a lifestyle” brand to be shoved down my throat (and why is it that this brand costs so much?).
all i want is to peek at people’s shopping lists and for the shit that i buy to taste good and stay reasonably fresh for a few days and if i’m paying the wf premium, the shit i buy better stay fresh and taste better than the crap I can get anywhere else AND a portion of that premium better go to promoting fair trade, developing sustainable farming models, and generally being a socially responsible business.
I am neither satisfied nor delighted.
For those of you interested in reading further, Sarah and the Goon Squad has a similar gripe and linked to some other takedowns.
*UPDATE
Just wanted to thank Consumerist for linking to the post.
For those who think we brought this upon ourselves by buying organic or leaving the fruit in bags, this is just to clarify that the oranges were conventional and they sat in our fruit bowl.
The peaches and tangerines were organic and were stored in vented plastic bags with the vents facing upward to allow the ethelyne gas to escape.
The 60% of the fruit that we were able to consume tasted like crap. We threw the remaining 9% away because of this.
- BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
- « beyond the steps
- » Bronzed Grouper w:: grilled potato and vegetable salad
- BROWSE / IN drunk on haterade food whole foods
- « no lobster for you (at whole foods)!
- » Bronzed Grouper w:: grilled potato and vegetable salad
COMMENTS / 10 COMMENTS
johnnyhongkong says… » Beef - the other red meat added these pithy words on Sep 18 06 at 11:51 pm[…] And, I still have an axe to grind with Whole Foods. The axe being: please for the love off Christ, stop selling shitty produce and propping up the corporate organic agricultural complex. […]
big ups to the o.g. eco warriors at johnnyhongkong says… added these pithy words on May 21 07 at 1:48 pm[…] We’re totally caught up in the Al Gore fueled anti-global warming, pro-carbon neutral lifestyle, Whole Foods sucks but hey at least they invest in wind power, Earth Day as a national holiday hysteria. While we’re not exactly carbon neutral, we are slowly reducing our carbon footprint by switching out all of our bulbs, driving a low emission car (not hybrid), joining the California Environmentalists and we still shop at Whole Foods even though we hate every bit of rotten ass fruit they sell. […]
johnnyhongkong says… » Blog Archive » seared! added these pithy words on Jan 10 08 at 1:35 pm[…] the problems with food safety, and still other stuff he gets salty about. In light of the posts on my battle with Whole Foods and my ongoing struggle with Carmen Santa Rosa about veganism, here’s a little amusee trio […]
Lee-Roy added these pithy words on Jun 27 06 at 2:42 amI don’t know that I’ve had this experience with wf produce as of yet (I don’t eat anything that is not murdered, rendered, and charred), though I wholly support your gripes. 31% is a significant loss and I will be on the lookout for borderline fruit in the future.
What is the sum of 8 and 0?
Little Miss Domestica added these pithy words on Jun 27 06 at 1:43 pmI just have to ask here - was the fruit all stored in the same bag? Possibly a non-breathable bag?
Now I am not asking because I am a fan of Whole Foods - I live in Canada and we don’t have it here. I am asking because fruits release different levels of ethylene gas as they ripen and if differing types of fruit are stored together where the gas can’t vent, the fruits will ripen at an accelerated rate.
Now, I am not saying that will account for a 31% loss, but it might be part of it.
I assume you have seen the post on http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/food/whole-foods-remarkably-feculent-fruit-183798.php about the wax.
Cheers!
johnnyhongkong added these pithy words on Jun 27 06 at 2:09 pmLMD: thanks for the heads up. the peaches and tangerines were stored in vented plastic bags whereas the oranges sat in our fruit bowl. our apartment was infested with little flies that accompany rotten fruit. damn you whole foods!
LR: i believe the sum of 8 and 0 is the amount of crap fruit we’ve lost…
Michael Langford added these pithy words on Jun 27 06 at 3:48 pmI doubt it’s an issue with the fruit coming from whole foods. Just to check: Ask them.
Try going to another whole foods in your area, buy the same thing, bring it home
If these still rot, buy the same thing, take them to a completely different persons house (like a co-worker) and ask how long until they rot.
I guess it’s either an isolated problem at that particular store, or something about your home causing the accelerated decay. If it’s a problem with you, it could be either your home’s environment (Ambient temp, weird chemicals, mold in the air, etc) or you could just be storing the fruit incorrectly.
Also, buying bagged fruit (other than apples, lemons and limes) doesn’t work NEAR as well as vegetables. The bagging takes away your ability to avoid overripe or otherwise unsavory fruit.
From Aliza Green’s “Field Guide to Produce”
Picking Oranges at the store:
Firm, Heavy for the Size, Shallow pitting and evenly shaped. Skin color is not a guide to quality. Avoid fruit with squishy areas.Storing Oranges at home:
Keep in the refrigerator (usually for ~2 weeks)Picking peaches at the store:
Stem end of the peach should be yellow or cream colored. Fuzz is unimportant. Look for a well defined crease. Should smell sweet. Should be soft but not mushy to the touch. Crimson is an indicator of variety, not ripeness. Peaches that are green around the stem were picked prematurely and will not ripen well. Oversoftness, deep brown/red color or shriveling of the skin at the skin end indicates overripeness.Storing peaches at home:
Handle all peaches gently, even hard unripe ones: All bruises will show when they get ripe. Ripen them in a cool room, with the stem end down. When you can smell them and they are a little soft, they are perfectly ripe.Picking Tangerines/Mandarin Oranges at the store: Feel the fruit, avoiding any that don’t feel like they fill the skin.The ones sold with stems and leaves are usually of high quality. Dented fruit should be avoided.
Storing tangerines: 1 week in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Clementines (a close relative) will rarely last more than 4 or 5 days.
johnnyhongkong added these pithy words on Jun 28 06 at 8:18 amMichael: Thanks for the thoughtful response about picking and storing fruit. My vendetta against wf goes beyond the 31% of rotten fruit - it was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back - it has more to do with the consistent undeliciousness of their fruit and produce (and also the propensity their fruit has to spoil in what I assure you are normal conditions, though it has been a little humid here in Southern California). I joked about it in the post but I do expect fruit and produce from wf to burst with Vertumnus and Pomona’s love nectar. Okay, if not burst, then at least taste as if they had graced the fruit with their blessings. More often than not, the stuff I find at my local wf is underpar with the quality the wf brand has become (wrongly, I think) associated with and the prices they charge.
Alyce added these pithy words on Aug 24 06 at 7:00 amI have had the same problem with produce from Whole Foods, especially “sale” items. I just peeled a 3 day old peach that wasn’t even soft to the touch but is somehow rotten brown inside! This is not the first time I have been unsatisfied. I have bought berries that looked fine in the package and were actually rotten mush once I tried to consume them. I pay a relatively high price for this produce, why is it rotten?
donpablo added these pithy words on Sep 05 07 at 4:04 amoranges and minneolas are out of season in june. when you buy out of season fruit it is coming from halfway around the globe or has been in storage for a long period of time. peaches and nectarines should always be purchased firm and allowed to soften at home. when they soften, you eat them. a soft nectarine is something that needs to be eaten right away. the best advice on peaches and nectarines is to buy local ones when they are available. you almost can never go wrong.
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