More on Whole Foods's beef recall

So glad Whole Foods is committed to quality beef products like they purchased from Nebraska Beef of Omaha. With a wrap sheet like that, wouldn't you think WF would have made damn sure they weren't buying from this E Coli factory? And to suggest that WF didn't know that Nebraska was used by their middle men is laughable. The more I read about this, the more I'll keep buying from McKinnons in Davis Square. At least they don't insult my wallet and intelligence.

You apparently do not need anyone else to insult your intelligence, you have that covered. What makes you think any other "mass producer" of products such as these are any better? Safeguards can only do so much, and things will unfortunately happen, even to the best of manufacturers. In my opinion a significant problem is the scope of of the impact. At what point in the past few decades did meat processing plants begin processing food for practically the entire country? I think there should be more plants across the country with production limitations which would in-turn reduce how large an impact would be. And possibly with those limits more emphasis would be placed on safety and quality, rather than quantity.

I shop at Whole Foods in Ann Arbor. Michigan. I trusted them. Paying those outrageous prices because I thought their products were the best.....who's kidding whom here!!!!!I I'm done shopping there......

We should get a refund for all the beef we have bought from them over the years. WF should be ashame of themselves. How can a company be so sensitive to quality organic productI not know where their food comes from. I'm going to buy food from the other grocery store that "works for me." I may even have money left over to pay for gas.

Whole Food is joke, i can't believe i have been paying top money for E Coli beef. I will stop shopping there....

You can't blame Whole Foods for this. The real criminal here is the US Department of Agriculture. How many times does a company have to seriously violate the law before it is shut down? 2002 ... 2003 ... 2004 ... 2005 ... 2006 !!!!! Who does the US Department of Agriculture work for. Certainly not the public. There is no consumer protection in the United States. People have to die before any action takes place and even then it is slow coming and more people usually suffer for it.

I can't believe that anyone who shops at whole foods is stupid enough to by beef--there, or anyplace. cows are mammals. why don't you just eat your young?

WHOLE FOODS IS FRAUDULENT! THEY WANT EVERYONE TO PAY THE HIGH PRICES BUT DO NOT WANT TO DELIVER QUALITY. I USED TO SHOP AT THE WHOLE FOODS THAT JUST OPENED IN ORLANDO FLORIDA AND THEIR BURGERS MADE ME SO SICK AND I FOUND A ROACH IN THEIR CONDIMENTS.

the perfect solution to the problem is for everyone to quit eating all forms of meat

I am often astounded by how often WFM "realizes" it's selling product that doesn't fit its so-called purity standards. Farm raised tilapia were sold for months before someone realized they were fed massive doses of antibiotics. I expect better from a company that touts itself as the leader in organics and natural foods. Their marketing message is smoke and mirrors.

You certainly can blame Whole Foods.

Dealing with a processing company such as this is exactly the opposite of WF's image (perpetuated by their advertisements, employees, and prices). Am I angry at my local WF employees? Of course not. I do imagine it is someone's job to stay on top of quality control and one would think that would involve investigating who is processing your beef.

Clearly WF is not where the problem originated, but other reader's decision to avoid them in the future is understandable.

I have to laugh at all of you idiots who blame Whole Foods for these issues when it is clearly the USDA and their lack of enforcement and oversight that has for years created these outbreaks that we are subjected to over and over and over...... So today, it is Whole Foods and tomorrow it is Shaws, or Star Market. How often do you ask where your meat or poultry comes from when you shop? Whole Foods has gone above and beyond during this outbreak working with the Dept of Health and the FDA. So I say all of you idiots don't shop there and let the rest of us sane consumers shop in a less crowded store.

Whole Foods is in fact big business.

Shop your local co-op or natural foods store. Avoid farm-raised fish. Buy local, buy in-season, buy organic, buy wild caught fish and seafood, buy from farmers in your area that use sustainable practices in growing their goods.

And if you feel so safety inclined, consider becoming a vegetarian.

Caveat emptor
> "seriously violate the law"
Bad laws are usually ignored. Close down the USDA. Then consumers will buy from trusted sources and their local farmers.

simple solution : don't buy beef... period, the end.

Yes you can blame Whole Foods...if they are selling premium foods and at premium prices they dam well better know where it is coming from. A few simple phone calls would have revealed that one of the suppliers had been shut down and cited many times for health violations...that should have been enough to cut them off...

The real crime here is the claim on their foods! People are paying such high prices for their supposed top quality "Organic products". Ask yourself this! Are the organic products that I am paying for screened and processed at the same quality as the others? Do they use pesticides and if so are their "ORGANIC PESTISIDES" Approved and has there been a study done on them to see if they are carcinogenic? You all could be in some real danger and we keep saying these foods are better for us! Why because they tell us! When there has been no study and no evidence that they do us better.
We are just all victims of the big sales pitch of the "Organic Craze" If these products are really "Organic" Shouldn't they have spots on our Apples imperfections in our produce, just like if you grow it at home! If not I would have to say we are really not getting what we are paying for.
If something is not done soon we are going to see a lot more people hurt and possible die from the greed we see in this industry! They all should be ashamed, but so should be for swallowing the snake oil they are selling!

I'm sitting here having a hamburger from WF now... Mmmm, so good! I love WF, they have some great stuff there.... *girgle girgle* Excuse me. Any way, like I said, WF is such a dedicated Co. and they are so, because they care about the products they sell and the customers, they have... ehhh, whew, getting hot in here. *girgle girgle... PROJECTILE VOMIT!* Oh Christ! Help me! Oh... oh no, I've soiled myself, NO it's in my shoes! Some one help me for Christ sakes! *Blahhhrrolf!*

There is plenty enough blame to spread around.
The sensible thing is to avoid ground beef. It is the riskiest of all common grocery beef products.
Buy steak at Publix, Stop&Shop, Albertson's, Kroger or Safeway for the same price.
I will continue to shop at WFM - many other products there I enjoy.
Peace.
Go Sox!!

There has been some evidence that organic foods are healthier. By and large, one of the best studies I remember was that rats prefer organic food! Rats aren't much influenced by sales pitches.....of course, the study may be flawed. More studies need to be done, and by people without a commercial agenda. Part of the problem is that organic food is harder to ship. I've noticed that organic vegetables purchased from Whole Foods go bad faster than non-organics purchased from Safeway. Local food does trump all this, and nice organic local food does last longest, and is probably much healthier. Its tough to find in some places. We don't buy much from Whole Foods, and most of its local. I feel bad for those who live in an environment not conducive to personal/community agriculture.

This company makes me sick! They are a fraud and no better than Wal Mart. Their agenda is nothing less than putting every mom & pop health food store and natural COOP out of business. I am ecstatic that their true colors are being exposed! Market Basket sources a huge amount of locally grown produce that is of an excellent quality. They also sell "naturally raised" meats and poultry that are excellent as well and cost a fraction of Whole Foods. A better name for that company is "whole profits". They are a sham and a disgrace!

The most interesting thing about this is that you're posting on the Boston Globe's site about it. You realize this is about as useful as praying, don't you?

The thing that's really needed is local, humanely treated and sanely processed beef outside the industrial model. Read anything written by Joel Salatin or Michael Pollan if you want to know about industrial food/alternatives to it. My favorite quote this week comes from Sandor Katz, author of "Wild Fermentation" - "We must break out of the restrictive and infantalizing role of consumer. We are all inherently capable of producing food." (to that I add we are capable of producing things other than food as well.) We all have options like co-ops. CSAs - let Whole Foods provide things that can't hurt us, like their good, well priced 365 brand things (organic black tea - 80 bags for $3.99 in NY - as opposed to 16 organic teabags for $3. I found elsewhere.)

WF in Western Mass gives the impression that they have butchers at work there and that the beef is ground into hamburger at the store. Well, we now know that that isn't true. And, nice carbon footprint, trucking in processed beef from Nebraska. I'm ditching WF for my local, small markets. They're cheaper, better, use local producers, and are a lot more honest.

Lots of idiotic comments here buying into the panic.
Why don't you all wait until the full story comes out?
Oh wait! Then you'd have to make a judgement based on fact.

If Whole Foods was so health conscious why in the world are they selling their customer pre ground tube beef. Pre ground tube beef is nothing more than beef in a petri dish being shipped accross the country. Do not buy pre ground tube beef wether it's from Wal Mart or Whole Foods, choice or select, this product is nothing more than bactaria in a tube.
Go to a local grocery store or meat market that still grinds their own beef where the travel time is from the grinder to the case, not accross the country inside a tube.

No really, how many of you posters are sock puppets? Because from the sound of it half of you work for other supermarkets. It's pretty transparent. Next time you try to drag whole foods through the mud, try and sound a little more reasonable.

The PETA people are equally comical. The PETA solution: Don't eat beef.
Gee thanks, never would have thought of that on my own, much less expected that from you.

Meat is murder... tasty, delicious, lip smacking murder.
OK I can live with that. The question is where and how do we get safe beef?
Clearly the USDA needs to play a role, but since all regulatory agencies have been gutted during the Bush years we'll have to wait. Small producers are a nice idea, but just like Coleman, they need to be processed. The difficulty with processing is that all of the regulations make it difficult for small processors to be economically viable. The big processors don't want to deal with small batches from small producers and everything favors giant economies of scale.

Personally, I stopped eating commercially ground hamburger except on rare occasions. When I do eat hamburger either I grind it myself or I get it from my farm share which uses a boutique processor. Not an ideal solution, because it's not cheap, but with a young child I'm just not prepared to bet her life on industrial food production. Ultimately, my solution has been to smaller portions of higher quality meat.

Now we are ALL reaping the "wonderful benefits" of "deregulation"! Of COURSE corporations HATE government oversight and regulation! All the people who have been hoodwinked into identifying with the neoconservative agenda ever since 1980 and Reaganomics...all that "decision-making" by the American electorate has emasculated the ONE entity capable of protecting ALL of us from corporate rapacity and irresponsibility...our own governmental regulatory structure! Well, people, GET USED TO IT! It's going to get a LOT worse before it gets resolved. Corporations only want BIG GOVERNMENT when it means subsidizing corporate profits with tax money. When it comes to government helping the average citizen, corporations are vehemently opposed to that. What we have here in the USA is privatization of profits and socialization of costs, risks, expenses and pollution! Neoconservatives LOVE this reality!

So, the big question remains. What should we take away from this as consumers? Does this mean that organic foods are no safer than regularly processed foods? Was this a fluke? Should WF really be justified in charging over 50% more for their products if they aren't any safer?

And for the people who are saying "don't eat meat", or "don't eat beef", I call shenanigans. The only reason the human brain evolved was due to the consumption of meat protein.

I have'nt eaten any meat ,fish, or eggs in the last year
and I feel great!!! Beef=problems but the
corporations don't want you to know that
because they'd lose money REAL BIG
if people stopped buying it.
You don't need meat. It's just a pack
of lies that makes you think you do.

Cut and pasted from the WF website:
"Meat Raised to the Highest Standards — Ours

By working in partnership with outstanding meat and poultry producers, Whole Foods Market brings you the best tasting, freshest and most wholesome, naturally raised meat available. We offer a wide variety of meats including game, duck, sausages, low fat cuts, range-grown turkey and natural chicken. We make meals easy by creating oven-ready meals, stuffed meats and kabobs. And many of our stores feature a full service Meat Department where customers receive custom cuts, cooking instructions and personal recommendations.
Industry Leader

Whole Foods Market is proud of our role as a leader in the natural meat industry. By working with our knowledgeable and passionate meat and poultry providers as well as with forward thinking humane animal treatment experts, we have been able to champion innovative production systems that not only improve the quality and the safety of the meat we sell, but also support humane living conditions of the animals. We believe that working with producers toward positive improvements creates an environment in which real change can be achieved.
Committed to Food Safety

Whole Foods Market is committed to ensuring the safety of the products we offer our customers. Routine microbiological testing is conducted on our meat and poultry products, and, to be as thorough as possible, we also test the feed used by many of our producers for animal by-products and bacterial counts. To enhance the regular Health Department audits, Whole Foods Market works with independent inspectors to verify that our storage and handling procedure are sound. We will continue to improve our food safety programs to bring you, our customer, safe, great tasting products." Lies! Lies! Lies!

Why don't you all just become vegetarian and stop worrying about ecoli in meat. (oh and for those of you who are going to respond about ecoli in spinach or something - don't bother) at least feaces and brains aren't in the spinach.

This comes as no surprise at all if you've read "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser.

Did any of you who believe (not proven) that organic/natural is so much better for you, never mind over priced due to higher production cost, ever stop to look and investigate the issue that being organic may infact lead to higher instances of e-coli due to how the cattle are feed and not who processes them?

I don't care what anyone else says, Shaw's Supermarket in Hanover is the absolute LAST in quality.

this can happen and sure WF did a big mistake not checking the source of meat,
but the problem with Whole Food is these astronomical prices that are difficult to comprehend sometimes.

Even before this meat fiasco many WF shoppers are taking a second look on whether it is worth shopping at WF anymore - and this meat recall it will be easy for them to shop elsewhere

To those who think that feces are not in spinach, you may be naive. In the USA as well as in China, human feces is allowed to be spread on agriculture. And, China has no controls of what is allowed in food. The USA did prior to the elimination of regulations by the powers that be in Washington, D.C., which ignores science for political gain and silences scientists on the federal payroll.

Additionally, stockpiled animal manure may either run-off or be dumped into ponds, and waterways. When these waters are used as they have always been used to irrigate crops, as was the case with the spinach with e-coli, a problem occurs. Too much contamination and illness or death occurs with or without controls..