I frequently shop at Whole Foods. It is the closest grocery store to my house. They have excellent cookies, good produce, etc. They employ or have employed a bunch of my friends, and seem to pay them fairly well, even if they do not always treat them as kind as their image would suggest. And, after reading any Michael Pollan book, it is pretty hard to totally buy into Whole Food's take on organics. But still, despite all that, and that it creates a (w)hole in my wallet (badda boom!), I end up going there a lot.

But that said, it is worth remembering a few things for when you have a choice of where to shop. First, in an industry that is largely unionized, Whole Foods stands out as being anti-labor. This is a comment from their CEO:

The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.

Well that is just so sweet of him. As the quote would suggest, Whole Foods has been working to kill Employee Free Choice, a hugely important reform for working families.

And now, the same whack-job is lobbying against true universal healthcare:

John Mackey, chief executive of Whole Foods, said that while his company offers coverage, he worries that an employer mandate would lead to more stringent federal rules on what employer plans must include.

He said that would drive up the cost of employer benefits, motivating companies to end their benefits and instead let employees sign up for the public insurance option, figuring that paying a penalty would be less costly. This would result in eventual domination by the public insurance plan -- something Mackey suspects is reformers' secret hope.

"It's a Trojan horse," he said.

As Jake McIntyre notes, if you take an employee mandate and a public option out of health care reform, you are basically left with nothing except a huge payout to insurance companies, with millions upon millions of people still uninsured.

Does the fact that the CEO of Whole Foods is anti-labor or anti-universal health care mean I will never shop there again? No. But, there are a considerable amount of grocery stores that are much more friendly to labor, and presumably, to health care for all. From the United Food and Commercial Workers 1776 page, we see for example, that the following grocery stores are unionized:

Acme Markets
Giant Eagle
Shop Rite Supermarkets
Super Fresh Food Markets

It doesn't list Fresh Grocer. I have no clue about them. But either way, that is a big portion of our city's groceries stores.

And when you combine that list with the 30 or so farmers markets around Philly, most of which sell organic, locally made, fresher than Whole Foods goods, you kind of realize, yes, you do have a choice.

Will I forever boycott Whole Foods? No. Will I try to be more conscious of where I am shopping in the future? You better believe it.