The image greeting us on the Good Earth Natural Foods website is three hands supporting a globe. Black hands and white hands, touching. This is not your father's racist, oppressive corporation.
You won't find us listed on the New York Stock Exchange, nor are we going to open a store in neighborhoods all over the planet.
Not because those punks at Whole Foods beat them to the punch and became the health food darling of Wall Street and sucked up all the good real estate. No, it's because Good Earth Natural Foods wants it that way. They're not about expansion and profits. Unlike all those companies ruled by greed and cruelty and the unrelenting pursuit of profit, Good Earth Natural Foods lives by higher principles...
We simply want to sell our customers food grown and processed using the radical but ancient concept, care.
Some of that food, e.g. chicken and turkey, is grown and processed using the radical but ancient concept of attaching so little value to another life that you can justify killing it so you can have a tasty meal or make money selling it to others who want a tasty meal. Stop. It is SO divisive to point out such tiny inconsistencies. So much negative energy and Good Earth Natural Foods is all about positive energy. Anyway they didn't specify what they meant by care. They didn't say they cared about the lives of non-human animals. Maybe they meant they cared about cultivating the image of the caring store, which is a very profitable brand positioning, just ask Whole Foods, those bastards, with their ticker symbol (WFM) and stores all over the planet, a planet they don't care about a fraction as much as Good Earth Natural Foods. Shit. Here I go projecting my cynical, divisive thoughts onto Good Earth Natural Foods. Back to their website then...
Often care takes a backseat to the pursuit of the almighty dollar. We feel that is wrong and shortsighted ... We always endeavor to remember that food contains spirit.
Huh? What kind of scented candle smoke were you guys inhaling when you came up with that one? We always endeavor to remember that food contains spirit? Okay, well endeavor to remember this: some of that food was a combination of body and spirit until you slaughtered the body part. But I guess the gentle folks at Good Earth Natural Foods are okay with this. Using the radical but ancient concept known as hypocrisy, they're able to slaughter animals while at the same time pontificating about "fresh, ethical products" and care never taking a backseat to the almighty dollar.
BTW, there's a help wanted section on their site. Good Earth Natural Foods is looking for a fish and poultry worker.
to provide customers with fantastic service ... while ensuring that they receive a fresh, ethical product. Our fish is ethically harvested and not farm raised.
This is kind of a head scratcher. Maybe they mean it's unethical to kill fish raised for human consumption but kill them in their natural habitat and everything's cool. And what are we to make of fresh, ethical turkey and chicken products? I've read a fair amount of ethics. Maybe I was always distracted just when I got to the part about the perfectibility of the soul through slaughter. But forget that. Their audacity wipes away all their sins. Hormel, Tyson and the other big boys lie about the humane treatment of their animals prior to slaughter, but even with entire PR agencies at their disposal, they never go so far as to claim the act of slaughter itself is an ethical act. The HOrmel PR people would bow down at the feet of Good Earth Natural Foods. Teach us, oh masters, our lies are unworthy. Impart your wisdom to us, your imperfect servants.
The help wanted ad continues...
We do not sell fresh red meat but we do provide organic, hormone-free and anti biotic-free chicken and turkey products.
i.e., we are too ethical to serve red meat. But chicken and turkeys, screw 'em. We only got room for so much ethics. What do you want from us? Didn't you see our photo on our website of black hands and white hands holding up the globe? That's multi-culturalism and environmentalism in one fell swoop, pal! We have recipes for entrees like Zen Stew in our healthy living section. We even have a wellness center on the premises. (human wellness, not chicken or turkey wellness) So don't go talking to us about our little ethical lapses just because we take a short break from boasting about our refined ethics to slaughter a few turkeys and chickens.
It's a very strange ethical system they got going on at Good Earth Natural Foods. Kill some animals but not others. Take credit for the ones you don't kill. The ones you do kill, take credit for not pumping them full of hormones and anti-biotics before you kill them then make the wild claim that this killing somehow results in an "ethical product."
All I can say is you guys at Good Earth Natural Foods are the coolest kind of hypocrites. Anybody can violate their stated principles. But not many are brazen enough to claim the violation of those principles is an ethical act in itself.
