Black widow spider. Photo: Ian Waldie, Getty Images.

Talk about sour grapes!

Toronto resident Brett James was reaching into his refrigerator to grab his wife a snack when he found a black widow spider lurking under the bag of grapes he'd purchased at the local Whole Foods Market, the Toronto Star reports. He thinks the poisonous spider came in with the grapes.

"When I lifted the bag, the spider was underneath, just sitting on top of another bag in the refrigerator," James tells Slashfood. "I wasn't sure exactly what it was, and I had heard stories before, so something was in the back of my head that it could be serious."

He lifted the spider out of the fridge on a paper towel and put it in a plastic container. After poking around on the Internet, he said he identified it as a black widow, a spider whose venom can cause muscle cramps, tremor and chest pain.

After college, I took a job bussing tables at a very high-end restaurant attached to a very expensive country inn near my hometown. It was the kind of place where you had to stand with your arms spread at the beginning of a shift and submit to having the maitre d' inspect your cuffs and the knot in your tie (even women had to wear ties).

I'd been working there for a few weeks when I noticed that employees were throwing away massive platters of food from the wedding buffets that took place nearly every weekend afternoon -- I'm talking untouched trays of smoked salmon, artichoke hearts, blinis with caviar and mini lemon souffles. I also noticed that the wait staff would pour the remaining pitchers of fresh-squeezed orange juice straight down the sink after brunch. Finally, I asked the head waiter why we didn't just save the food to eat at employee mealtime.

"Because, if we allowed employees to eat leftover food, pretty soon you'd all be eating whatever you wanted straight out of the fridge," he told me sniffily.

What, like untrained dogs?! I gave my two weeks notice the next day.

I was reminded of that incident when I read this New York Times post, about a man fired from Whole Foods for trying to save and eat a tuna fish sandwich that was about to be thrown away. Whole Foods claimed that the man's behavior was "misconduct," which means, in addition to having lost his job, he'd be denied unemployment benefits. The man, Ralph Reece, challenged the misconduct ruling and won.

Good for him, I say. Not only is keeping employees from eating leftover food degrading and wasteful, the "misconduct" charges were, according to Reece's lawyer, souped up in order to save Whole Foods money for not having to pay unemployment. And this from a company that is supposed to be one of the best places in America to work!

As anyone who has ever entered a Whole Foods knows, it is painfully easy to spend money in that store. I often walk in with budget-friendly list and a promise to myself not to impulse shop. However, the sight of the produce section lulls me into a fugue state that I don't snap out of until I'm paying for my purchases, horrified that I've taken such a big bite out of my checking account but unable to do anything to alter course.

It appears that the tightening economy is starting to hurt Whole Food's coffers, as they've issued a web coupon in the hopes of luring people back into their stores. If you spend at least $25, this coupon will save you $5. Not a bad deal at all. You can find the coupon here (don't try to print the image that accompanies this post, it's not the entire coupon).

[via Eat]

Sure, your neighborhood wine shop and its personal service are fab when you're trying to track down an esoteric wine or find some high-quality bargains, but when you don't have time for another stop there's always the grocery store. Not all states allow grocery stores to sell wine, but if yours does, it's a quick grab if you choose wisely. Here are a few of my favorite grocery stores that go beyond Yellow Tail and Inglenook with their wine selection.

1. Fresh Market offers 10 percent case discounts and a changing Best Buy wine, with good value selections from around the world.

2. Fresh & Easy specializes in imported and domestic food-friendly wines like--gasp--Champagne under $30 and their own version of Two Buck Chuck, called The Big Kahuna. I love the Les Deux Rhones Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

3. World Market. OK, it's not exactly a grocery store, but World Market does specialize in value wines from around the world, and they sell awesome tableware, too. I like to pick up the Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc there because it's usually several dollars cheaper than at the wine store.

4. Trader Joe's is famous for its Two Buck Chuck, but seriously, go beyond the Charles Shaw because there's better quality there for a few more bucks, like the Columbia Crest Two Vines Cabernet Sauvignon for $6.

What are your favorite grocery store wines?

We've heard a lot about reusable grocery bags this year. Not only did Whole Foods stop supplying plastic grocery bags on Earth Day this year, but the city of San Francisco banned them as well.

There is certainly no shortage of reusable shopping bags out there, but Whole Foods is rolling out one with some celebrity power behind it. The organic grocery store chain has teamed up with Sheryl Crow, who designed the new bag. The bag features the design of a tree with some of Sheryl's words on it and is made from 80% post consumer product.

I think I'll check it out next time I'm in Whole Foods. What do you think?

[via Just Food]

As of now, it's Pomegranate located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The 20,000 square feet of shopping space includes aisles full kosher gourmet foods. An article from New York magazine calls Pomegranate a "kosher gourmet megastore." The supermarket seems to be a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

Unlike other specialty markets, Pomegranate caters to the thousands of Orthodox Jewish families living in New York City. The store has three kitchens: dairy, meat, and parve (fish, vegetables, fruit and grains). Each has its own on-duty full-time rabbi. Customers can choose from a rich selection of freshly baked challah and homemade cheeses to aged prime beef-rib steaks to an olive bar and sushi bar. The gourmet food market is an obvious business trend. Is the kosher version of Whole Foods the new trend?

I live in Brooklyn, not far from Pomegranate, and I see several smaller gourmet kosher markets on Kings Highway. The prices are not cheap. So, I do not think that Pomegranate will have a hard time competing with existing stores. You can now visit the supermarket that's located on Coney Island Avenue at the corner of Avenue L.

This past Saturday's New York Times had an intriguing article on how Whole Foods is trying to overcome its nickname, Whole Paycheck. Considering the high food prices sweeping the entire nation, this attempt is crucial for the company's survival. Since its financial peak in 2006, Whole Foods' stock has dropped more than 70 percent. The market for organic foods and specialty foods is in trouble.

A report from TNS Retail Forward produced a survey last month that shows that 20 percent of shoppers have altered where they purchase groceries because of the economy. To make matters worse for Whole Foods, market researching firms, like the Hartman Group, say that consumers are less interested in organic foods.

In this current economic environment, what is Whole Foods doing to change its image as an overpriced grocery store?

1. Offering more discounts
2. Increasing lower-priced store brands
3. Advertising products they sell at a good value
4. Organizing budget-focused store tours
   

Do you think Whole Foods will be able to suppress its nickname Whole Paycheck?

As it with most of my favorite cookbooks, I picked up my copy of The New Laurel's Kitchen at a thrift store about four years ago. I vividly remember buying it for a buck, because on that same trip I bought a 4 quart slow cooker that was priced at $3.99. I got something of a thrill that I didn't spend more than $5 that day.

Originally self-published in 1976, the revised edition was brought out ten years later by the Running Press. As cookbooks go, this one is an amazing resource. For those of us who are trying to get back to ways of cooking that include making our own yogurt, baking healthy loaves of bread that don't contain high fructose corn syrup and using lots of dried beans and legumes, this is a necessary book to have in your collection. I often turn to my copy when I need reminding as to the best way to cook barley or how to grow sprouts on my dining room window sill.

This book is far more than just a simple cookbook. It also contains sections about how to cook whole foods for children, the elderly, pregnant woman and people who are extremely active as well as offering advice on how to eat healthfully on a budget. It's not glossy, the only illustrations are two-color line drawings, but they are appealing in their simplicity. This is really a good book for those people out there who want to have more control over the foods that they and their families eat and lessen their dependence on pre-processed packaged foods.

Awesome: the idea behind bulk food. Cheaper, more control over the quantity, easy.

Not-so-awesome: the collection and storing of bulk food. Most supermarkets provide plastic bags, which are not only bad for the environment, but are messy to store, can break or leak easily, and typically result in a pile of unusable crumbs.

But a friend of mine has come up with an easy solution that I'm jealous I didn't think of first: she bought a few of these Droppar storage jars (at left) from IKEA (although any small metal or glass jar with a lid would do), and brought them to her local Whole Foods store. The cashier first weighed the jar itself, which she wrote on a piece of tape and placed on the jar lid.

Each time my friend buys in bulk, she simply brings her jar with her, writes the checkout code on a sticker which she keeps on the jar, and brings it to the cashier, who subtracts the weight of the jar and charges her for just the food. Easy, environmentally-friendly, and easy to store when she gets home. (Another idea? Just wash out peanut butter or pasta sauce jars, place stickers on the sides, and reuse those).

Warning: this should work at Whole Foods and Wild Oats, or other similarly-minded food stores, but I don't know if other stores would agree - you'd have to call your local supermarket out find out.

Despite all tendencies towards exploratory cooking and eating, there are some areas in which I'm not particularly adventurous. For instance, I rarely venture beyond the safe confines of the three types of mushrooms pictured above (I can hear the gustatory police coming for my foodie card even as I type this). It's not so much that I'm not interested in venturing beyond my mushroom comfort zone, but it's more that it's a edible language that I haven't had the time, energy or financial means to learn (some of those exotic mushrooms can be quite pricey).

I was happy to stumble across this Mushroom Primer on the Whole Foods website yesterday, as it offers useful information on the different varieties of mushrooms, their seasonal availability, whether they typically come fresh or dried and how you might go about using them. It is a nice starting point for me and makes me want to start experimenting right now.

Why would a company CEO go on a financial web site and post about his company under a pseudonym?

That's what the Federal Trade Commission is investigating. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has admitted that it was he who posted under the name "Rahodeb" (an anagram of his wife's name) on Yahoo's financial boards. In fact, he didn't just post about finances and stocks in general, he specifically posted about rumors that Whole Foods might buy Wild Oats. This was in January of 2005. Whole Foods bought Wild Oats a few months ago for $565 million.

Or should I say, "might buy them." The FTC is trying to block the agreement and is using this new info for their case. Mackey insists he did nothing wrong since all of the stuff he talked about was public knowledge and harmless.

[via Boing Boing]

Skyr isn't carried in too many American stores, but the Icelandic yogurt definitely has its fans. It is thicker than conventional yogurt, largely because it is strained, much like Greek yogurt. You are most likely to be familiar with the yogurt if it is carried at your local Whole Foods, where it is packaged into small containers and flavored like conventional yogurts, with berries, vanilla, etc. Despite the generally positive reaction from consumers, Whole Foods no longer promotes the fact that they carry Skyr, or any other Icelandic products, because of the company's offical policy of dissapproval for Iceland resuming commercial whaling last year.

The average consumer, perhaps the average Skyr fan, in the US isn't aware of the whaling issue and because Whole Foods hasn't promoted it, they're not likely to - especially because Whole Foods is planning to stock more Icelandic products this spring. Whole Foods will be carrying Nói Síríus chocolate easter eggs in approximately 70 stores. To entice WF to stock the eggs, Nói Síríus seems to have offered them at almost no cost, as the marketing director of the chocolate company said "There are no profits involved, this is first and foremost a sales experiment." More will be imported next year if they prove popular. Whether Whole Foods will be promoting them now, or in future, is still unknown, though it certainly seems like it would be a good business strategy to promote the products you carry if you're going to carry them at all.

Whole Foods had been expanding breath-takingly fast over the past several years, with new locations - many of which are huge or feature unusual amenities - popping up all over the place. Being everywhere is one way to beat out the competition (think Starbucks), but another way is to buy them up. Whole Foods has just announced that they will be buying Wild Oats Markets, one of their top competitors, for $565 million, with the deal expected to to close over the next few weeks.

Colorado-based Wild Oats has 110 stores in 24 states and British Columbia and has not been doing as well as its rival. Whole Foods has twice the sales per square foot of retail space, though Wild Oats has smaller stores, and recently lost both their chief executive and chief financial officers.

Some stores will be closed and others will be relocated to fit in with existing Whole Foods stores, but Whole Foods feels that they can improve the Wild Oats stores on the whole and "put jet propulsion under [them]" to bring their sales up to Whole Foods levels. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey estimates that it could take two ears to fully integrate the Wild Oats stores

More than six months ago, Whole Foods decided to ban the sale of live lobsters and soft shelled crabs in their stores because they determined that the practice was inhumane. The sea creatures, in Whole Foods' study, were not "treated with respect and compassion" on their journey from sea to market and until that issue could be resolved, no lobsters were to be put into the sale tanks in the fish department.

Since the ban was enacted, the natural foods store has not found any companies that meet its standards for the human treatment of lobsters. Until now, that is. Whole Foods is opening their first market in Maine next week and the Portland store will be stocking live lobsters. They have contracted with the Little Bay Lobster Co., a New Hampshire-based company, which will keep lobsters in private compartments for transport after catching them to reduce their stress.

Stocking live lobsters doesn't mean that they will be selling live lobsters, though. In the stores, an employee will use a "110-volt shock [to kill them and] to spare them the agony of being boiled alive in a pot of water."

Maine's lobster fishermen aren't thrilled with this plan. First, they are offended that a company that so heavily promotes its support for local farmers and fishermen would choose an out-of-state company when there are so many local ones to choose from. Second, the fishermen say that "they tell us we're doing everything wrong, obviously it doesn't sit very well with us," noting that using "a lobster electric chair" to kill the lobster sounds like a gimmick that won't impress consumers. Especially not in a state that loves its lobsters.

In the loving spirit of Valentine's Day, Whole Foods wants some of their customers to know just how appreciated they are by offering a new product, Aquamantra's I AM LOVED in stores in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada.

Described as tasting sweet by consumers, the liquid affirmation is natural spring water that "resonates with the energy and frequency of well-being" - seemingly due to the "powerful messages" delivered by the bottles' labels: I AM HEALTHY, I AM LOVED and I AM LUCKY.

Do I sound skeptical? As much as I loved the Stewart Smalley sketches on Saturday Night Live, I don't really think that affirmations alone - especially ones that come from the labels on bottles of spring water - are going to make people feel loved. That being said, it probably wouldn't hurt to pick one up for your significant other before Valentine's Day because that affirmation will mean a whole lot more if it is coming from someone special, even if it is arriving on a bottle of water.

Of course, if you go for chocolates instead, you won't need an label for your S.O. to figure out why you chose it as a Valentine's Day present....