While the world most people inhabit rarely adopts Hollywood and Berkley fads, the ‘green’ movement has indeed caught fire with people who actually work to eat. Bemused by Kabbalah, Scientology, earth auras, and the like, regular America seems interested in being ‘green.’ Naturally, wherever there is a fad, an enterprising company will step up to exploit it. In this case, the practice of exploiting the public’s concerns is called ‘green washing.’ While most green washing is simply characterizing established practices as somehow environmentally friendly, the grocery chain Whole Foods has magically turned one of the least green practices into a core sacrament of the new religion.

Whole Foods pushes ‘organic’ products. While regular foods sold in the US have been conclusively proven to be safe through extensive testing, reporting, and regulation, Whole Foods was basically founded on the idea that organic foods were healthier and better tasting. Whole Foods eschewed the ‘corporate’ food industry in favor of a more commune like diet. Whole Foods customers responded to slogans like ‘organic,’ ‘macro-biotic,’ ‘unprocessed,’ and ‘preservative free.’ Whole Foods sold yoga magazines instead of gossip rags; they and their customers were enlightened. Many Americans bought into a healthier, purer lifestyle, and Whole Foods fueled their spiritual mission.

Of course Whole Food’s health claims were at best exaggerated. Regular foods are every bit as healthy as organic. Dreaded pesticides, in the quantities found on grocery foods, are perfectly safe. Best of all, regular foods taste just fine. At worst, the anti-corporate attitude of Whole Foods’s suppliers kills people. The juice company Odwalla, for inexplicable reasons, touted that its fruit smoothies were not pasteurized. Since pasteurization is what prevents the spread of deadly diseases through food products, it was only a matter of time before a young girl was killed by Odwalla products. Since then Odwalla has pasteurized its products using a special ‘flash pasteurization’ process. Flash pasteurization, by the way, is more health food hype, as all pasteurized foods must be heated for the same amount of time to have any benefit.

Aside from peddling snake oil, Whole Foods has morphed in to the environmentalism racket. Without changing much of their product line, they are now a temple to the green religion. Organic foods are the answer to evil corporate farms and processed foods that kill the planet. Whole Foods stores are plastered with green propaganda, and their recycling area is so complicated as to be a self parody. More than a few Priuses drop by Whole Foods on their way home from the yoga studio.

Of course hardly anything is worse for the environment than organic foods. While some organic products, like bananas, are about the same as their regular cousins, most organic foods take far more resources to grow and distribute. The average organic product requires about a third more land per unit of output than its FDA approved equivalent. Organic food subsequently requires more water and tractor fuel as well. Because the organic cannons preclude preservatives or irradiation, the ultimate amount of food consumed by the end user is smaller still.

Organic foods burn more fossil fuels, clear more wildlife lands, and consume more fresh water than regular foods. This is further evidence that the green movement is not so much about helping the environment as it is a counter culture backlash against everything deemed ‘corporate.’ The most environmentally safe diet choice is vegetarianism, since meats require up to ten times the natural resources as staple plants. Because even Whole Foods cares about its profits, it proudly sells the full range of animal produce.

Still, nobody is forcing the Whole Foods faithful to pay extra for inferior products. What people do with their own time, money, and bodies is their own business. Blessedly, unlike in Europe, the US does not preferentially subsidize organic farmers over their more efficient competitors. So, the next time you consider Whole Foods to fill your refrigerator, ask yourself if you are not buying food so much as buying into a green washed, counter-culture religion you might find objectionable.