Whole Foods–Please Don’t Change to a Vegan Approach!

Whole Foods is an awesome store for finding many of the nutrient-dense, pastured and wild-caught foods we need to build optimal health through the principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation. They are carrying pastured butter, meats and yogurt. They also carry high quality eggs, a wide array of wild-caught seafood and traditionally fermented vegetables and drinks. In fact, Whole Foods is helping to save the lives of thousands of seriously ill people who are desperately trying to find a source of these foods–Whole Foods is their only source.

I just received a disturbing letter from a dedicated reader who is concerned that Whole Foods may be turning into a vegan store:

“I have been shopping more frequently at Whole Foods and I notice they have a selection of health books that are all based on being a vegan or low fat vegetarian. Then when I was checking out, I was offered a pamphlet by the young man bagging my groceries. The pamphlet told me to implement the following: low fat, plants mostly, and to cut way back, or completely eliminate all animal foods. It encourages nutrient dense foods but seems to say that these come from plants only. Even a look at the books they promote now seem to be mostly along the lines of vegan, vegetarian, and low fat.  Since when did Whole Foods get into the business of telling people how to eat? Makes me think they will do away with their seafood and meat departments at some point!”

For years before becoming deathly ill, my diet consisted of large amounts of organic salads, vegetables and fruits, grains, a little meat and eggs and no animal fat. I had chronic pain for 25 years on this diet, then acid reflux, then a serious inflammation in my spine followed by chronic diarrhea. Without learning about the work of Dr. Weston A. Price and the Weston A. Price Foundation–not only would I have lost my national career as a performing artist–I would have died at 45 years old!!! I am not alone in this story of ill health from this kind of diet–it simply will not provide a person with enough nutrients to be healthy over their entire life.

Now at 52, I have healed my digestive tract, been pain-free and have vibrant health from eating a nutrient-dense diet for the last 8 years. Whole Foods has been one of my partners in achieving this level of health. In my seminars across the United States, I recommend Whole Foods over and over.

We need Whole Foods to continue to be a partner to people of all dietary needs–not just veganism–because veganism may be a choice for some people, but it is not the answer for the majority. If this is an environmental issue for Whole Foods, please remember that sustainable agriculture based on traditional pasture farming is the ONLY way we will build our exhausted, nutrient-poor soils, as animals on pasture that provide nutrient-dense foods and build soil fertility are our sole vehicle to this means.

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle


12 thoughts on “Whole Foods–Please Don’t Change to a Vegan Approach!”

  1. Whole Foods book section has always skewed in the vegan direction. It is true of all the health food grocery stores in my area. Yet one of them, which started out vegan/vegetarian, had to add meat because of customer demand.

    I’m not sure what any individual store is doing, but my guess is that Whole Foods is in the business of providing what people want, so even if they prefer the vegan message, if they want to stay as popular as they are, they will still need to provide solid animal products. I don’t see them surviving and thriving otherwise.

    As a whole, the constituent base the makes up WF doesn’t appear to be largely vegan.

  2. Your story is much like mine; although I was never a total vegetarian I became very imbalanced as I went through menopause. My studies in Ayurveda have taught me that what happened to me (and to many) was a result of agni, digestive fire, weakening; I could not properly digest or assimilate food, my hormones were very out of balance, I would have died if I hadn’t figured out how to heal. In my case, I first found a doctor who diagnosed the hormone imbalance (I had to take hormones for a short time and had gyn surgery to remove growths), but worked with an acupuncurist, a naturopath, a qigong master, and more; I now am a member of the Weston Price organization and a local food co-op and my continuing studies at Kripalu School of Ayurveda have taught me that everyone needs to understand their own nature, the nature of their imbalances, and how to adjust their diets and lifestyle for this. It’s not hard once you learn the basic principles and eat seasonally, fresh, and appropriate foods for your type! For those who know, it’s really only the Kapha types who can/should eat more vegetarian, some Pitta types if their digestion is strong can eat more raw food, but Vata types need to eat cooked foods and are most in need of grounding, nourishing animal foods on a regular basis….

  3. Whole Foods,

    Please allow each individual to make their choices about what foods are best for their body and do not hand out any “propaganda” pieces to shoppers. What I as a shopper at Whole Foods want is access to the best and freshiest locally grown vegetables and meats from organic farms using sustainable practices. I have not and would not hire Whole Foods to be my nutritional advisor or consultant.

    If anything, I would like Whole Foods to begin having more awareness about soy and processed foods and stop carrying foods with soy or other additives and stop using so much canola oil in their prepared deli foods. Also prepared deli foods and fresh fruit that is cut up needs to be labeled about whether or not it is organic.

    If Whole Foods wants to recommend a vegan diet they should open a separate vegan supermarket chain.

    Dr Julia Wray

  4. sounds like fear mongering. was it a pamplet or an advertisement? they will only do away with their meat and fish when people stop buying it. i doubt their marketing agenda is complicated.

  5. Wonderful to hear stories of past experiennce with vegan/vegetarian diets. I also went that direction for 3 years and many years on and off. Finding WAPF and the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook was what I believe I was truly searching for. There was an instinct that our foods were not truly sustaining us and that I wanted something more. I was enticed by the spiritual dogma of not eating animals as well, but have come to terms with that now as my husband gets venison for us each fall. Holding the warm liver of a freshly killed deer is something that amazingly connected me literally to my food source. I was filled with respect and gratitude for the sacrifice that animal, and all animals make for me and my family to live healthfully. As for Whole Foods, I only shop in Wild By Nature which is what is closest to my location out on the East End of Long Island. They, too, have a typical approach (vegetarian/vegan/lowfat) on diets. It does need to be constantly spotlighted for people and businesses to become enlightened, but atleast I can suppliment our dietary needs along with our coop membership and local foods. Love your sight, by the way, and hope you’ll also check out some of my articles I wrote in support of the same principles you seek of here. On http://www.naturalnews.com search for articles by Nancy Piscatello. Thanks for the comraderie!

  6. Thanks Nancy,
    I am so glad that you wrote. My husband is a bow hunter as well–so we have had venison and wild game often over the years. Thank you for telling me about your site.

  7. Personally, I’ve had an excellent experience as a Pitta/Vata with a vegan diet. I feel much better, both physically and spiritually. So, though some people may find they do better with some animal products, I don’t know that it’s fair to say that Pitta/Vatas need a lot of animal products. For me, it’s a moral issue. If I needed animal products to be healthy, I’d do it. But since I don’t, I can’t see depriving a neighbor of his or her liberty and a natural life- or taking a baby from its mother and stealing her breastmilk for my own enjoyment. As you can see, I have strong feelings about the ethics of the matter. To me, animal husbandry is a nice name for the slavery of fellow sentient beings. I just don’t feel right about it.

  8. I won’t eat any of the prepared foods are wholefoods anymore because they all have canola oil.

    Recently we moved and so we now go to a different Wholefoods and they all do have slightly different feel to them, and stuff they promote more based possibly on the manager and employees. Well, this new store does prominantly display vegetarian/vegan books the way other stores in the area don’t. The store we used to go to is on Facebook, though, and they are now posting a couple of employees’ weight-loss blogs where they have decided to give up meat to lose weight and be more “healthy.”

    The way I see it, they can put wheatever books out they want, promote whatever type of food they want. It’s their store and I don’t own their stock, so I don’t think I have a say, and really I can’t get offended by that. What will lose them my businsess though is if they stop carrying full-fat yogurt, humainly-raised/pasture-fed eggs and meat. Then again, in some ways I almost would prefer they didn this as it would force me not to go in the other direction (CAFO products), but rather more towards what I’ve been trying to transition to anyway – sustainably raised local (Polyface has dropsites in our area!).

    The CEO of WF, John Mackey, is almost Vegan – apparently the only animal product he eats is eggs – so who knows maybe this is partially his mandate to try to push his eating choice? I do think if there is some unified effort to push low-fat and vegetarianism, they are not only wasting their resources on this, but potentially shooting themselves in the foot. Customers who don’t agree with them in this area will feel increasingly like they are under attack when they go, which just creates a negative sentiment. Unfortunately for many of us, it’s the only game in town for high-quality food. Although, in the Wholefoods where we used to shop (in Vienna, VA), a new (very small) market just opened right across the street from the WF and they mostly sell meat, eggs, and dairy from local sustainable farms, so at least in this area we’re pretty well covered :)

  9. It will be a process of education. As more and more are people are healing and building health with nutrient-dense foods, change will occur. I hope that you will write a letter to Whole Foods.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *