Health food stores can be an organic junk food paradise!
In my continuing quest to simplify, detoxify and cheap-ify my cleaning routine, I recently found myself in one of our local health food stores, looking for Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap*. Now, this particular health food store is good sized; it’s locally owned and pretty much carries everything that could possibly be available under the banner of over-the-counter health.
Oddly enough though, as I was wandering the cleaning/soap supply aisle searching for the Dr. Bronner’s, I realized I was looking at just as much commercial, specialty stuff as I’d find in any grocery store. The brand names were different, and the little logos weren’t as familiar, but the marketing was the same: convince people they need a zillion products specially made for cleaning not only individual rooms in the house, but individual appliances and surfaces as well.
So, instead of finding just a few simple, all-purpose eco-friendly products, I was overwhelmed with a whole aisle of stuff. The shelves were lined with exactly the same sorts of products we’re so used to: several different brands of expensive bathroom cleaner, shower cleaner, toilet cleaner, kitchen cleaner, oven cleaner, stovetop cleaner, and more. And of course, each of these came in its own plastic bottle, some with spray pump tops.
This was no different than elsewhere in the store, where the shelves were loaded with processed commercial foods – candy, cookies, potato chips, pretzels and snacks of all kinds; frozen dinners, soups, and more. The only difference between this stuff and the standard fare you’d find in a grocery store is that these so-called “healthy” choices are labeled organic and often, vegan. This is green-washing or maybe health-washing at its best. Whatever you want to call it, it’s all processed and most of it is junk. Organic junk maybe, but junk nonetheless.
The truth is, we’re all such creatures of habit these days and we’ve been so very well trained to buy the stuff we see advertised, this is just how we – or most of us, anyway – automatically think now. This health food store is simply responding to the demands of its clientele. As a result of decades of intense marketing by the manufacturers of the familiar brands we’ve all come to know and “love”, folks looking to “green” their lives or improve their health simply shop for more of the same in a different venue: the health food store. It’s a habit that’s expensive and not at all green when you consider the volumes of packaging involved in buying a half-dozen (or more!) different products just for cleaning a couple of rooms.
Simple living isn’t simple – or green – if all you do is switch out your old products and habits for different, eco-marketed versions. Part of simple living means – to me anyway – rethinking everything we do. Do we clean our house a certain way because we must? Or is it habit? For example, is blue juice in a bottle really superior to vinegar and water for cleaning windows? Have we ever tried the alternative? Or do we just accept the claims that the blue stuff is the glass cleaner of our dreams? Why is it blue? Why does it smell so bad? If it smells that bad, can it really be harmless? Could there perhaps be a better, simpler, cheaper – and truly greener – way?
Likewise with the junk food. Are we really going to be healthier if we switch to organic chips, cookies, and pretzels? They may be made with ‘pure cane sugar’ or ‘organic stone-ground wheat’ instead of high fructose corn syrup and white flour, but they’re processed, packaged carbs nonetheless. Given that the standard American high carb diet is implicated in our society’s declining health even as we spend more than any other developed country on so-called “health care”, it’s pretty much a given that organic carbs are no better for you than the standard kind. I guarantee I’ll gain just as much weight by eating pure, organic, earth-friendly carbs as I will the standard commercially processed industrial ag carbs. In the end, a carb is a carb is a carb.
Please note that I’m not suggesting we bypass our health food stores completely. Good stuff is sold there. Among other things, these places are great sources of bulk food items, particularly herbs and spices that are dirt cheap compared to the itty-bitty bottles of McCormick and other name brands that sell in the grocery stores for $2 – $3 (or maybe even more!) The store I visited has a machine so you can grind your own organic peanut butter fresh, with no sugars, oils or other additives. If I run out of pastured eggs from the buying club, I know I can pick up a dozen from the health food store. Yes, even with aisles clogged with processed commercial specialty stuff, these stores are still legit sources of healthier products if we shop carefully.
My point is this: if we’re really going to truly simplify our lives we’ve got to stop being zombie shoppers. It doesn’t matter if you’re wandering the aisles of Wally World or your local organic emporium. Wasteful consumption is wasteful consumption no matter how “green” and eco-friendly the packaging. When corporations tell us what we need by way of their slick advertising campaigns, why should we obey? It’s time to start asking questions, to start thinking for ourselves, to separate their wants from our true needs and shop accordingly.
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Hi Kathy,
Wow, great post. It really made me think. I will think of it the next time I am in my local health food store and will try to be more concious about the choices I am making for our family. Thanks!
Glad the post helped – I love it if I’ve helped someone pause and think! Thanks for commenting.
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