Memo to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey: when much of your customer base consists of reusable-bag-using, wheatgrass-munching “progressive” types, it’s probably not such a good idea to publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing current health care reform proposals. At least if you don’t want said customers organizing boycotts of your stores.

It all started with Mackey’s Tuesday WSJ op-ed, which suggested, among other things, that the health insurance options provided to Whole Foods employees should be a more popular option to control health care costs, tort reform should be enacted to control health care costs, and that the government shouldn’t dictate to insurance companies what diseases and treatments they should cover. Oh, yeah, and that our country wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if more people shopped at Whole Foods:

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Blogs, including political heavy hitters like Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and Huffington Post jumped right on the story, and calls for a boycott came soon after. The Boycott Whole Foods Group on Facebook says in its description:

Whole Foods is NOT a company that cares for communities and they have built their brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. No more. My $ will no longer go to support Whole Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.

Well, at least this time Mackey is signing his name to his views instead of trolling anonymously on the Internet. A conspiracy-minded reader pointed out to us that he sold almost $1.4 million worth of Whole Foods stock a week before the piece ran. Coincidence, we’re sure.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare [WSJ]
Boycott Whole Foods [Facebook]

(Photo: AlishaV)

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