Whole Foods does a number of good things for it's employees and for the community. But, that does not make every program a good program. I do appreciate most of what Whole Foods does for it's employees and for the community.

However, under this program I would pay the lowest price. If I happened to be obese I would pay almost 12% more for the same products. That is a punishment. It is obvious that it is a punishment when you apply the same program to gays or other minorities. If you are gay you pay more and the other employees all know it. You can try to make it sound nice by saying that straight employees just get a larger discount. That does not change the fact that gay employees would be paying more than straight employees. It would be discrimination and it would be wrong.

If I am wrong about this then why not require the obese employees to pay the full retail price. They would then be paying 43% more than me. That would be an even greater "reward" for them to become fit. That would make it a really great incentive.

The editors added the happy note that they heard a rumor that Whole Foods was funding programs to help their obese employees escape from this punishment. That's nice, but it does not change the fact that they are being punished for being fat. They could simply fund helpful programs like those and skip the part where obese employees get publicly embarrassed and charged more for the very products they need to improve their health.

I should say that my point in mentioning gays and other minorities was not to suggest that Whole Foods discriminates against those groups. Quite the contrary. I think it is clear to most people that it is terribly wrong to discriminate against employees who are part of most minority groups. Perhaps it is only because obese people are perceived as having a choice it appears acceptable to discriminate against them in exactly the same way.

Dude, I respect your right to an opinion, but sometimes there IS no deeper strategy, or conspiracy at work ;-)

Um, John Mackey stepped down, you know, b/c people were upset with how he said what he said more than what he was actually saying. Which people do sometimes, yeah.

It IS progressive for companies to REALLY take care of their employees, to want them to be healthy and have the right tools, to educate them, to offer free education, to pay for expensive trips to institutes for the ones who get to go, to provide gainsharing every month, etc., instead of having every extra dollar go to the top of the pyramid. WE get it. It is HIGHLY progressive to pay out of pocket for a third-party inspection system to inspect you to make sure you are upholding your own values, to be the ONLY organic grocer EVER, and to use wind energy systems, complex recycling programs (and education), and more.

We strive to have everything as organic as we can, and won't label anything as organic that isn't. If an organic lemon touches the conventional lemons, we have to remove it. We donate our leftovers to shelters, daily, and we are always actively collecting for at least 3 different organizations. We feature as much local as we can, and we are not moving 'away' from organic in the least. On the contrary, it is becoming more and more mainstream. :) Natural and organic are two different things, hence the different labels. We have a list over 100 ingredients long, including aspartame and trans fats to just name TWO, and will feature NOTHING that carries so much as ONE of these ingredients. NOBODY ELSE, not even small local grocers in hippie towns, ARE DOING THIS. ;-)

Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Hey thanks! Maybe better you email me personally from my site at www.schoolofrawk.com. It has my email listed on it. ;-) I look forward to it. Gross about McDonalds, but totally true, agreed, in philosophy. However, I even remember when I was a Brownie in 2nd grade and how the girls who sold the most girlscout cookies got bonus patches and rewards. The rest of us weren't "discriminated" against, we had the option to go out every day and try if we wanted. Ditto for salesman who get paid commission bonuses, as I brought up earlier, and so forth. So, again, it is impossible to call Whole Foods discriminatory against the obese (because it simply isn't true) or anybody else; it is simply a BONUS that everybody has equal opportunity to go work for or not. Period. I'm waiting for non-smokers to protest the extraordinary tax on cigarettes still.....and so far, nobody. Why is that?

Looking fwd to hearing from you, and have a great weekend. :)