Opinion

Would you buy food from morons? (If not, don’t go to Whole Foods.)

Henry Miller Senior Fellow, Pacific Research Institute.
Font Size:

STANFORD, Calif. — Whole Foods markets are big business in this part of the world, upscale havens for rich shoppers seeking “healthy” foods. But notwithstanding their financial success, the two co-CEOs of the company are utterly clueless.

When one of them, John Mackey, gave a talk to Stanford MBA students in 2010, it was replete with airy-fairy New Age ideas. “Why should the purpose of business be to make money?” he asked. “A doctor doesn’t say his purpose is to make money, but rather to heal people. Did Bill Gates say his purpose was to make money? No, he had a vision that everyone should have a PC.” Mackey claims to have created a “conscious business” — one that is not a slave to profits but strives to serve others, change the world, and fulfill a higher purpose. If you believe that, you’re probably also convinced that Bill Gates made his billions by working in a free clinic in Harlem.

Mackey seems not to appreciate the difference between making life-saving vaccines or pacemakers — or even computer software that boosts society’s productivity — and selling overpriced groceries to the affluent and gullible. How overpriced? When I last checked out my local Whole Foods (Redwood City, Calif.), I found “Darjeeling Tea- and Ginger-Cured Smoked Salmon” for $39.96 a pound. But that was a veritable bargain compared to dried morel mushrooms priced at a whopping $1,280 a pound. (That is not a typo.) Whole Foods is widely referred to as “Whole Paycheck” — because that’s what you’ll spend shopping there.

There are more holes in Mackey’s worldview than in his stores’ insect-ravaged organic arugula. Many doctors do, in fact, enter the field to make money. Does Mackey really believe that a diet doctor, cosmetic surgeon, or aesthetic dermatologist chooses his field to “heal people”?

Now let’s turn to genius number two, Whole Foods’ co-CEO Walter Robb. Interviewed about genetically engineered foods while attending a recent conference in Beverly Hills (where else?), he said, “There hasn’t ever been a government-funded, peer-reviewed, third-party study on the long-term efficacy of [genetically modified organisms] so “the science is inconclusive at this point.” (And therefore, Whole Foods will require that all foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients — 70-80% of processed foods — be labeled as such by 2018.)

Presumably, Robb meant “safety,” rather than “efficacy”; for the reasons discussed below, even he isn’t dumb enough to question the voluminous data on genetic engineering’s usefulness and impacts. I will address both efficacy and safety.

Let’s consider “efficacy.” According to a just-released analysis by U.K.-based PG Economics, the net economic benefit from genetically engineered crops (primarily corn, cotton, canola, soy, sugar beets, and papaya) to farmers in 2011 was $19.8 billion, which translates to an average increase in income of $329/acre. For the 16-year period 1996-2011, the aggregate global farm income gain was $98.2 billion, and of that total benefit, half was due to yield gains resulting from lower pest and weed pressure and improved genetics, while the other half came from reductions in the cost of production.

What kinds of farmers benefit from genetically engineered crops? A majority (51%) of the 2011 farm income gains went to farmers in developing countries, 90% of whom are resource-poor, small operators. From 1996 to 2011, the cumulative benefits were divided about equally between farmers in developing and developed countries.

According to the PG Economics analysis (as well as many others), genetically engineered crops have offered important benefits in addition to improvements to farmers’ bottom lines.

First, because of increases in yields, their use has obviated the need to cultivate vast additional amounts of arable land.

Second, genetically engineered crops have reduced significantly the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices. The reductions result from less fuel use and greater soil carbon sequestration from less tillage with the cultivation of genetically engineered crops, as compared to conventional varieties.

Third, between 1996 and 2011, the cultivation of pest-resistant genetically engineered crops reduced pesticide spraying by 474 million kilograms (a decrease of 9%).

Are genetically engineered products safe? There is a quarter-century-long consensus in the scientific community that the newer techniques of genetic engineering are essentially an extension, or refinement, of earlier methods for genetic improvement. As long ago as 1989, a National Research Council analysis concluded, “Crops modified by molecular and cellular methods should pose risks no different from those modified by classical genetic methods for similar traits. As the molecular methods are more specific, users of these methods will be more certain about the traits they introduce into the plants.”

Even the notoriously risk-averse FDA “is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods (plant biotechnology) differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way, or that, as a class, foods developed by the new techniques present different or greater safety concern than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.” For that reason, the FDA does not discriminate against genetic engineering techniques; rather, the degree of regulatory scrutiny (and the need for information on labels) depends on factors related to risk, such as whether a new food contains a substance completely new to the food supply or has higher levels of an endogenous toxin.

Skeptics who remonstrate that genetically engineered foods have not been proven safe for human consumption are rebutted by the fact that to ensure their safety, all genetically engineered crops are extensively tested for toxins, allergens, and nutritional value before being marketed. In fact, as a group, they are the most-tested food products sold today. Conventionally bred new varieties of crops, in contrast, undergo no systematic testing for safety or nutritional value.

Antagonists of genetic engineering like Robb frequently cite the absence of long-term human feeding studies of genetically engineered plants, but that is a non-issue. The safety of any new genetically engineered crop is carefully tested in the laboratory, in the field, and in animals. It is impossible to design a meaningful long-term feeding test in humans, however, because it would require the intake of large amounts of a particular genetically engineered food or ingredient over a significant portion of the human life span. Who would be willing to consume, for decades, a fully standardized diet (essential for comparing groups and isolating the effects of the food under study) that is, for example, 30 percent soybeans, corn, or papaya?

There is simply no practical way to learn anything from human studies of whole foods, which is why no existing food or food ingredient — conventionally produced or genetically engineered — has been subjected to this type of testing. Academic toxicologists and food safety officials around the world agree that long-term feeding tests in humans are not only virtually impossible to perform but are not necessary to establish safety.

Since 1996, there has also been an outpouring of scientific evidence and published peer-reviewed risk-assessment research (much of it government-funded) that provides strong evidence in support of the safety of genetically engineered crops and the foods made from them. During those 16 years, there has been no credible scientific evidence that genetically engineered foods or ingredients cause allergies or other acute problems or that they have any negative long-term health effects. Several trillion meals containing genetically engineered food ingredients have been consumed by people around the world, and not a single adverse effect has been documented.

If Mackey and Robb really wanted to inform their customers about which food products were derived from genetically altered organisms, the labels would need to be on everything made from plants, animals, or microorganisms, with the exception of wild game, wild mushrooms, wild berries, and fish and shellfish. (Yes, even the organic and “heirloom” stuff.) And what, pray tell, would that accomplish?

Mackey and Robb may “talk the talk” about adhering to high ethical standards, but they perform a profound disservice by opposing technology that can reduce the need to spray chemical pesticides, reduce soil erosion and the release of CO2 into the atmosphere, conserve water and farmland, alleviate famine and vitamin-deficiency diseases for millions, and even lead to the development of edible vaccines incorporated into fruits and vegetables. In other words, genetic engineering is an important tool for moving toward greater sustainability in agriculture and for improving the human condition.

Could these two co-CEOs really be that ignorant? Or is it just that genetic engineering isn’t politically correct among some of their constituencies and social circles?

Henry I. Miller, a physician, is the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He was the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology. Barron’s selected his most recent book, “The Frankenfood Myth,” one of the 25 best books of 2004.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel