The Wellness Bitch

For the amount of time and money I spend at Whole Foods, it would probably make more sense for me to stop blogging and start working there. Between what they’d pay me and the employee discount, I’d be making a great contribution to my strained family budget. Not to mention, I already know the employees and the layout of my local store so well, it wouldn’t take much time for me to transition.

Furthermore, I defend this grocery chain as if I’m related to Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey. I take it personally when people refer to the store as “Whole Paycheck” and I scoff at those who actually think that shopping at Trader Joe’s is comparable. (Clearly they don’t read labels.)

Like any business, particularly forward thinking ones that take risks, Whole Foods is not without its faults. This recent interview with Mackey in USA Today highlights some of the corporation’s biggest blunders in its 30 years, but it also provided a forum for Mackey to answer some burning questions about Whole Foods philosophy. And I have to say, I’m impressed with his answers.

I’m also impressed with his commitment to the lifestyle he sells. He’s a vegan, first off, and when asked: “Wal-Mart now sells more organics than Whole Foods. Does this drive you crazy?” Mackey responds:

They have a lot more stores than we do. … But the fact that Wal-Mart now sells organic food makes me proud. Organic has become mainstream.

Indeed. And in no small part thanks to the efforts and marketing dollars spent by Whole Foods.

Yes, he’s a businessman. And yes, he’s far richer than I.  And yes, there’s probably some PR spin in there. And, no I haven’t hired a private detective to give me the full dirty scoop on John Mackey.

But, I believe this guy wants mainstream America to WAKE UP. Whether they shop at Whole Foods or Wal-mart.

And that’s the kind of guy (and business) I can be proud to be associated with.

(Psst…John Mackey…If you’re reading this and want to hire The Wellness Bitch as your mascot…let’s talk.)

Remember those ads from TheTruth.com? In your face and often shocking, those commercials attempted to educate young people about the dangers of smoking in a way that was much more memorable than the ”Just Say No” drug campaign.

I haven’t seen them in a while so I don’t know if they are still running, but I realized that a similar technique would be a fantastic way to educate parents on the effects of the kind of crap they’re feeding their kids.

THE FOLLOWING COMMERCIAL MESSAGE HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY:

Scene 1: [8-year-old boy eats Fruit by the Foot or some other fake fruit snack]
Scene 2: [Same 8-year-old boy. Now with hair like this: ]

[And eyes bugging out of his head. The boy starts jumping up and down. Then he begins to shake his hands.  His eyes twitch. You think he's doing a cute little dance until he starts bumping into chairs and other nearby children. Then he quite literally starts climbing the walls. He is out of control!]

SCENE 3: WAKE UP CALL!!!! [YOURS TRULY with a bullhorn, perhaps?]

The fact of the matter is, such a commercial would not be far off from the type of marketing crap shown in between your kid’s favorite cartoons. In fact, food companies design commercials with the aim to inspire our children to ask for these snacks…convince them they can possess this type of “high energy” and prowess. Emphasis on possessed.

In this real life commercial below, the kid eats an Airhead and his head explodes. He is, as the announcer narrates, ”extremely out of control.”

Which, if you think about it, is kinda…true.

Why does it take a crisis to spring into action?

Is there a psychologist, sociologist, or behaviorist that can explain this to me?

A friend of mine struggled with his inability to motivate for years until he got a diabetes diagnosis. Now, a few months later he is in amazing shape and on a strict diet and workout regimen.

Another person I know quit smoking when she had a cervical cancer scare. She tested positive for the HPV virus and quit smoking cold turkey on the spot.

This is not uncommon. I’m sure you’re familiar with this exact type of situation or you know someone who is.

The other day a Facebook friend posted a link to this story, an “Eco-Alert” quoting a renowned virologist, Frank Fenner, who thinks it’s very likely

humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change 

Yikes! This guy is no looney conspiracy theorist, either, apparently. He oversaw the eradication of smallpox, for crying out loud.

As a not-so-in-the-closet catastrophist, I took this blog post very seriously. But I feel fairly paralyzed as to what I can do about it.

I’m just little old me and despite doing the best I can to WAKE PEOPLE UP, combined with a strong personal effort to treat the planet and my fellow man with kindness, people just don’t seem to get it. It’s as if the majority of our friends and countrymen are waiting to hear the president in the form of Morgan Freeman get on the TV and announce an asteroid is coming before they actually TAKE THIS CRISIS SERIOUSLY.

The article concludes:

While many scientists are also pessimistic, others are more optimistic. Among the latter is a colleague of Professor Fenner, retired professor Stephen Boyden, who said he still hopes awareness of the problems will rise and the required revolutionary changes will be made to achieve ecological sustainability. “While there’s a glimmer of hope, it’s worth working to solve the problem. We have the scientific knowledge to do it but we don’t have the political will,” Boyden said.

When we get to the place where a scientist thinks there’s only a “glimmer” of hope, we’re a breath away from crisis.

Consider yourself diagnosed.

We’re so excited to welcome Snack Girl to the Wellness Bitch blog today. Are you surprised that someone who blogs about healthy snacks has a beef with McDonald’s? Read on.

How do you get 560 calories into a 16 ounce drink? That takes the talent of a major global corporation: McDonald’s (of course).

The McDonald’s Frappe՛is on billboards, on the radio, on the internet, and I even heard they were giving out FREE ones at my local McD’s.

How is a girl supposed to avoid all that advertising?

I succumbed one day when my kids asked to go to the famous McD’s play space. It is a rare treat, and I get to listen to traffic while they scream delightedly at going down a long covered slide.

Also, I wanted to try this Frappe՛. I figured I needed a coffee and it was my snack time. Usually, my snack time has about 100 to 200 calories depending on how hungry I am and what I had for lunch. When I asked at the counter, they didn’t know how many calories were in the Frappe՛(and they didn’t know what was in it).

It tasted delicious. The mixologists at McDonald’s really know their stuff. When I came home, I checked the calorie content and was absolutely blown away. 560 CALORIES, 24 GRAMS OF FAT, 70 GRAMS OF SUGAR – wow!

Honestly, I thought I was ordering a coffee drink with some added sugar – not a CREAM drink with some added coffee!!!!

The second ingredient in a McD’s Frappe is cream.  I looked on their website. And, it takes talent to get high fructose corn syrup listed 3 times on an ingredient list.

My advice is to stay FAR AWAY from the Frappe and stick with coffee.

Lisa Cain, Ph.D. writes about healthy snacks on Snack-Girl.com. She is a published author, mother of two, and an avid snacker

There’s a lot of discussion and griping about how wellness is only for the wealthy.

That the poor are so desperate to feed their families, that they have no other choice than to buy cheap imitation grape drink and Dollar Store brand cheese doodles. That the poor don’t have the benefit of spending time in Barnes and Noble browsing through Michael Pollan books. That the poor are so tired from working two jobs that they can’t summon up the strength to do more than throw some canned franks and beans into a pot to warm.

I’d like to know how those people– those compassionate champions of the working poor — how do they explain it when middle class Americans…or even upper class americans with nannies and luxury cars …make those same choices? Because they do. I see it all the time.

I walk into a $1 million home to pick up my kid from a playdate and find him eating rainbow goldfish crackers.

I see nannies pushing overweight kids in stroller. And moms in designer shoes handing their two-year-olds mocha frappaccinos to sip on.

I’m not a cold-hearted bitch. But I don’t think eating or living well really takes much money, brains, or higher education. Clearly, if that’s all it took, we wouldn’t be seeing commercials for Abilify, alongside ones for Macy’s One Day Sale.

Hey. Come a little closer. I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

I’m not rich. I put on a good show with my nice house and leased mini-van. My kids in their hand-me-down Old Navy clothes. My mock designer hand bag from Target.

But we’re struggling. We have debt. We count our pennies.

I don’t have the money for a gym membership or a trainer or even to go to weekly yoga classes. I take books out of the library or buy them second hand on Ebay.

But don’t cry for me. And don’t think I’m complaining that my life is so hard.

But, I think that bad lifestyle choices aren’t reserved for the poor.

And it’s about time we stop having that conversation and move on. Frankly, it bores me.

Your sympathy and your outrage would be better spent WAKING UP our government. And our schools. And your neighbors.

On my way to the office this morning, I spotted a woman walking to the train station with a can of diet coke in her hand.

I know if confronted, she’d compare her morning cola to the cup of coffee that her workmates drink. (As long as she didn’t tell me to go fuck myself instead.) And, it’s true: Coffee (particularly the average 7-eleven or Dunkin Donuts variety,with a splenda thrown in) is not that much better at all.

Now that we agree, I really need to WAKE YOU UP to the fact that you are not getting your work day off to a great start with a chemical cocktail of aspartame and caramel color.

Want to know why you’re known as the bitch around the office? Why you feel cranky at 10 am? Perhaps your job sucks. Your boss is an ass, and all that jazz.

But trust me, if you started your day off with sauteed spinach and garlic, with turkey bacon thrown in (like I did!), your shitty job and boss might look just a little bit better.