rinku: Trader Joe's and its like rely on an ill

Paul Eres (

rinku) wrote,
@ 2008-05-09 03:42:00

Entry tags:

health

Trader Joe's and its like rely on an illusion that I want to point out here.

Most people who shop there are under the illusion that simply replacing one or two unhealthy ingredients with healthier alternatives means they're eating healthy.

Soda is bad for you? Fine, just replace high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar!

Potato chips are bad for you? Fine, just replace the salt in it with sea salt!

Bread is bad for you? Fine, just replace bleached flour with whole wheat flour!

Hamburgers are bad for you? Fine, replace them with veggie burgers made of soy protein!

Peanut butter with additives is bad for you? Fine, replace it with peanut butter made of only peanuts!

Pasta is bad for you? Fine, replace it with organic pasta! This rule also works for milk, and a thousand other things!

Coffee is bad for you? Fine, try grinding it yourself from the bean!

Most of the food there is like that. They take a staple, unhealthy part of the standard diet and replace an ingredient or two and call it healthy.

But, the reason those foods are unhealthy isn't their ingredients, it's what kind of food they are.

So I really worry that stores like Trader Joe's (despite being nice places to find a few things that you can't find elsewhere) are doing more harm than good to people's health by tricking them into thinking they're eating healthier, when they aren't.

It's not entirely the store's fault of course, it's more likely the fault of people who want to feel that they're eating healthier without actually changing their diet in any significant way.

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shizumazero
2008-05-09 09:35 am UTC (link)

Funny post, although I'll be serious. >:|

Although calling them healthy in most case wouldn't be correct, some of these things certainly would be called healthIER. It's a good step how most foods, even the really horrible ones, are making directions to being "better".

Yeh, some steps are misleading. I don't think sea salt makes a lick of difference, there's always some bad deceptions going on. Always with the shadey business. I read my damned nutrition labels, as should anybody who really wants to know if it's really healthy/ier.

Edited at 2008-05-09 09:36 am UTC

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	rinku 2008-05-10 02:16 am UTC (link)
	Healthier, but it's still only the difference between like 20% healthy for normal food and 25% healthy for these alternatives, when what you should be going for are the 80% and 90% healthy foods. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jsangspar 2008-05-09 09:56 am UTC (link)
	These days, the appeal of a "health" food store is more in terms of fair-trade and environmental impact rather than eating healthy. You can eat healthy out of an average supermarket. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	jsangspar 2008-05-09 09:59 am UTC (link)
	Also, didn't you discover that coffee is the best thing on earth? I have an undulating caffeine addiction which I am grateful has never become full-blown. Yet. At worst, I go through brief withdrawal periods of a day or two when I'm slightly irritable and may or may not have a headache. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2008-05-09 12:00 pm UTC (link)
	I gave up coffee about 6 months ago when I gave up milk -- I don't think coffee is unhealthy but I find it unbearable without milk and I do think milk is unhealthy (especially for me as I am lactose intolerant). I do still get some caffeine from tea though, in particular chai tea and green tea. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rinku 2008-05-09 12:02 pm UTC (link)
	And Oolong tea, which is becoming my favorite. (Reply to this)(Parent)

rinku
2008-05-09 11:59 am UTC (link)

But most organic food is made by the same people who make normal food, they just use different methods, so I don't really see the fair-trade argument.

But yes, you can eat healthy out of an average supermarket, although a few things are best found in specialty markets too -- in particular, supermarkets don't usually have a wide selection of tea.

Edited at 2008-05-09 12:01 pm UTC

(Reply to this)(Parent)

nebulousbee
2008-05-09 10:14 am UTC (link)

I've thought about this too. The implicit claim by Trader Joe's and others like them is that natual/organic = healthy. Probably organic beef is healthier than steroid beef, but that doesn't mean it's really good for you.

It's like how people think if something is fat/sugar/carb free then it's healthy. My family buys the soda "Sprite Zero," which has no fat, no sugar, no carbs, and no calories. It also has no vitamins or protein or any mineral except sodium (and that's only 35mg). This isn't healthy, it isn't even food! If anything drinks like this just encourage people to eat for the sake of eating, because there's no nutritional worth to it at all. There's more to being healthy than just being not-unhealthy.

(Reply to this)

	cwoxviii 2008-05-09 12:31 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah I don't see what the big deal is. This stuff might not be "healthy" but I think it's useless to make a categorical distinction like that. The "healthiness" of food is a spectrum; this food is more healthy than the more processed alternatives. If it "fools" people into not changing their eating habits, well, that's no one's fault but their own. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	rinku 2008-05-10 02:13 am UTC (link)
	Everything is a spectrum, but what I'm saying is that this food is just as low on that spectrum as the standard foods they aim to replace. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	nancylebov 2008-05-09 01:34 pm UTC (link)
	I don't know to what extent people shop at Trader Joe's because they think the food is healthier, and to what extent they're looking for tasty food at good prices. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	rinku 2008-05-10 02:14 am UTC (link)
	Good prices? I think you're kidding. The prices there are usually 2x to 3x what you can get for the same food with the more generic ingredients. Organic food in particular is often 3x as expensive as the non-organic equivalents. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cwoxviii 2008-05-10 02:31 am UTC (link)
	Trader Joe's is actually fantastically cheap if you ignore the organic stuff (which I agree is a label that basically means "expensive"). Cheaper than chain supermarkets like Giant or Safeway that offer equivalent, but processed and less delicious, food. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

rinku
2008-05-10 02:39 am UTC (link)

I'm not sure you and I mean the same thing by the word "processed". To me, potato chips are equally processed if they use sea salt or regular salt, soy burgers are *more* processed than hamburgers, etc. If something isn't produce, it's processed to some degree.

A good recommendation I heard once about shopping at a supermarket is to avoid all the aisles and just shop on the perimeter. The way most supermarkets are set up, they have fruit and vegetables on one wall, meat and dairy on another wall, and all the processed stuff is in all the aisles in the center, with the freezer stuff being in the very center. If you ignore the aisles and just go around the edges, you can avoid all the processed stuff.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	furyu 2008-05-10 01:47 am UTC (link)
	If I were to cut bread, pasta, and peanut butter from my diet, what would I eat? I already don't eat meat, eggs, or dairy items; with a high metabolism I've always depended on grains and nuts to keep from feeling desperately hungry. Humans can't live on celery alone... (Reply to this)(Thread)

	rinku 2008-05-10 02:12 am UTC (link)
	I was going to answer but the "don't live on celery alone" seems like you don't really want to know because you're already vilifying any answer I would give. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	glennwarrens 2008-05-10 10:55 am UTC (link)
	I think the comment was intended more to state that not having a variety of similar healthy foods to choose from would in some way be detrimental. (Boredom factor, perhaps?) I doubt it was an attempt to vilify response. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rinku 2008-05-10 11:27 am UTC (link)
	I doubt he's stupid enough to think that cutting off a few common foods that everyone else eats will lead to a lack of variety, considering the huge amount of edible species in the world. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(Anonymous)
2008-05-11 03:40 pm UTC (link)

There is a huge amount of edible species in the world, but only a small segment is available or affordable to me (and Americans in general, maybe). Out of practicality, I'm limited to what's offered in nearby markets and grocery stores. They cater to everyone elses diet (bread, chicken, eggs, milk).

"humans can't live on celery alone" is a part of the question I want answered. It means I'm aware that fruits and veggies have a lot of nutrition, but I don't think a diet of *only* these things would be healthy or satisfying. What other things could I add to my diet to complete it?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	furyu 2008-05-11 03:41 pm UTC (link)
	The anonymous comment is me. whoops. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

rinku
2008-05-11 03:49 pm UTC (link)

I think it's incorrect to say that the market caters to everyone else's diet -- more precisely, it determines it. Agricultural subsidies, for instance, largely determine what food people eat, because they determine what types of food the government will pay farmers to grow. So I think it's a mistake to see it as a demand-dominated market, the supply side is probably much more significant in determining diet.

But even so, I think you underestimate how inexpensive a healthy diet can be. For instance, you can buy something like 30 pounds of lentils for $25 if you buy it wholesale, which will provide enough calories for a month or more for most people. You can even have it delivered, so you don't need to worry about what's sold in the local markets. I'm not saying you should only eat lentils, I'm just using that as an example of how cheap food can be.

But I still think you're too hostile toward any answer I could give to answer the main part of your question that you want answered for it to be worth my time responding. You're less hostile toward the other questions I answered above, so I restricted myself to those.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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