Whole Foods Market is a marketing genius.

I was walking Moll earlier and I walked past Whole Foods Market and my brain basically started to collapse inwards on itself like a dying star when I realized something… 

Whole Foods Market is a world of marketing genius because as the name suggests…it sells some whole foods…annnnd it sells highly processed hyper-palatable super-duper delicious awesome non-whole foods too.

We think of Whole Foods Market as a health food store, right? A place where we can go to get our best fruits and vegetables, the purest most holier than thou meats, and sustainably raised, small-batch, artisanal duck tears infused face lotion eye tonic toner cream.

The name of the store latches on to the morality of food and health within us all. A narrative built and curated by an industry designed to make us feel shit to sell us a solution to that shitness.

Whole Foods Market sells non-whole foods too…

You can get high quality, organic, sustainably raised meat and produce that is said to be the fountain of health at Whole Foods, and you can also get pints of Ice Cream, family-sized bags of crisps, and those tubs of sea salt caramels that it is impossible to eat just 3-4 of.

My point is, that we are so often lured in by the concept of health, that we don’t realize that it's all just marketing. It’s all just the same stuff repackaged to try and match our narratives, emotions, feelings, and fears. One of the best ways companies can be sure of what we need is to be the ones who tell us what we need and then sell it to us.

Marketing, in general, is curated to solve our biggest problems and Apple doesn't sell phones because you need a phone. They sell them as a lifestyle product that elevates your status and level of acceptance within society. It just so happens to also be a phone.

Whole Foods Market isn’t named that because it only sells whole foods, it is called it because it is trying to virtue signal that whole food is better for you and that you know that if you are health conscious (because you all should be and if you aren't you are a trash person), then you will shop at Whole Foods Market.

I’m not saying that all marketing is bad. Everyone has to eat (well not Jeff Bezos, owner of Whole Foods Market and general arsehole space cowboy extraordinaire). Instead, I am saying that we all need to critically think about why we are doing what we are doing and believing what we are believing.

Critical thinking is an underutilized trait in many areas, especially in health and fitness, and one that could transform our behaviors, improve our results, increase our confidence and autonomy, and generally make us feel less shit.

For the record, I like Whole Foods Market and often buy whole and non-whole foods there.

I just don’t think I am the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world because of it, nor do I do so because I feel like I must be a terrible garbage alien if I decide to grab a few bits at Market Basket or Stop + Shop.

I hope you feel the same.