September 24, 2007
Yes! Organic Market Coming to U Street Corridor
Like ravenous dogs preying on fresh meat, local bloggers have pounced on the news that local organic grocer Yes! Organic Market will be coming to the Union Row building project, located at 14th and V streets NW. In a press release from Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, the 5,000 square foot market is scheduled to open in Spring of 2008, offering residents, “natural foods as part of a unique shopping experience.” Despite the ominous approach of another “large national chain store,” local residents seem pleased that at least one of several retail spots will be going to someone local -- not to mention to a grocer, something the U Street Corridor has been begging for for years.
News of the store's arrival has made its way to surrounding neighborhoods, including Columbia Heights, where residents have been patiently waiting for their fix of organic squash since the loss of Whole Foods from the DCUSA project. Meanwhile, the Prince of Petworth adds that another Yes! Organic market is coming to 4100 Georgia Ave., just north of the Petworth metro. With three Yes! Markets surrounding Columbia Heights – the other is in Adams Morgan – what will happen to Ellwood Thompson’s interest in opening a store near 14th street and Columbia road? How many organic grocers might it take to saturate an area?
|
How many organic grocers might it take to saturate an area?
There can't be enough of them! All organic, all the time. I've never heard of Yes! but I'm looking forward to checking it out.
just because a grocery has "organic" in the name doesn't mean their bread is fresh or the employees are helpful. you get my point? go to any yes! Store, you're buying similar produce at larger chains but with inflated prices. At the larger chains have better employee benefits.
Fantastic! Yes has an awesome selection of vegan/veggie food and will potentially beat out whole foods for me.
DC Best Supermarket, on U between 15th and 16th, has improved greatly in the past year. Most food staples are available, and fresh meats and poultry are more than acceptable. An organic store would definitely help the neighborhood.
This shit is getting to be like Starbucks. If you don't like this overpriced, "organic" grocery store, go to the one across the street.
"How many organic grocers might it take to saturate an area?"
Well, what if every food item sold in this country were suddenly without pesticides? (Organic Fritoes...I'd buy 'em) ALL of it. The absence of chemicals would spontaneously make Safeway and Giant "organic" then, wouldn't it?
I'm sure there is a saturation point of grocery stores - in general - but I've never quite understood the implicit argument that people seek out chemical laden food.
Bottom line: if the food is fresh, tastes like it is supposed to, prices are reasonable, and it is in a high traffic area, then why would people who normally schlep to SW/Giant/etc for milk with RGH really bypass a market that has good food and is closer? I don't think having a neighborhood grocery - organic or not - is ever bad, nor "saturation."
All of that, and I'm sick of HUUUUGGGE grocery stores that herd you (with "retail customer experience engineering") past the bakery and soda and deli departments before they release you like cattle to cross the vast expanse of real estate to finally get to the produce on the far end and the enormous distances you have to navigate just to run in for ONE stupid lemon. So yeah, I like smaller local stores, personally.
saturate...grocery prices.
Yes! is not a national chain! It is a LOCAL chain.. they only exist here, in DC. Not in VA or in MD. They've worked hard to invest in the District. They have put their stores in long shot corners (Potomac Ave, Brookland) to help neighborhoods. Really, I'm scared to go check the Columbia Heights listserv but are they really screaming that it's some awful national chain.
If so, we eat our young. We don't deserve anything nice.
having gone to the yes! in brookland i was not surprised at prices being more expensive than Whole Foods (items such as cereal, soy milk, pasta sauce, etc). However, their produce was marked as local and organic and was cheaper than whole foods which is often "conventional" but still expensive. they also have a very good and reasonable bulk foods section, which is better or as good as the whole foods one.
BostonRay knows: Organic means only that you are paying a LOT more money for no additional nutritional value. None whatsoever. You do get, in return for this extra cash, a much higher exposure to e-coli bacteria. Organic farmers are also the most wasteful producers on the planet having to use twice (2x) the acreage to produce the same yield as a normal farmer. Lots more greenhouse gases for Gorebull warming too! The "pesticides" that your phobia fears are only in minute trace amounts that would never harm an animal, let alone a human and you can wash that off. You are being sold a slick marketing bill of goods aimed at the gullible. E-coli can and has killed as proven. All the deaths and sicknesses thus far have been traced to organic farms. Quite a risk and cost to assume for no known benefit.
I've only ever been in the one in Woodley Park, which is tiny, but htat was probably a decade ago. Is Yes more or less expensive than Whole Foods?
I meant Cleveland Park
"Organic means only that you are paying a LOT more money for no additional nutritional value..."
Hmm. Interesting point, I want to hear more of this compelling argument...
"Lots more greenhouse gases for Gorebull warming too!"
Damnit! I hate when unbalanced fringe-nuts don't let you know about their lunacy up front. Shouldn't they be forced to wear signs, or something?
"Organic farmers are also the most wasteful producers on the planet having to use twice (2x) the acreage to produce the same yield as a normal farmer."
I'm sorry, you probably meant to write "...as a farmer who sprays gallons of lethal pesticides all over creation."
What, pray tell, is normal about that? Were farmers who farmed before the widespread introduction of pesticides abnormal?
Guest10: better living through chemistry?
I'll pass, thank you anyway. Chemicals and pesticides might grow things more "efficiently" but there is nothing there that I want to consume - in ANY quantity.
Every time we turn around, it seems that we are finding hidden problems with substances and frankenstein science that everyone really really really thought were completely safe. (Trans fat, anyone?) Until we all come to a final consensus, I'll stick to naturally grown everything.
Trans fat.
Mad cow.
DDT
asbestos (and yes, they used to think this was fine)
what else?
"what else?"
Tobacco
No!
Yes! is a horrible shop. Overpriced items that you can get somewhere else.
I don't care if it's a national chain a local chain or a chain gang. It's overrated.
BostonRay says: The word pesticide means that it only kills bugs. Only kills bugs and bugs alone. A few special interest groups with financial ties to the $12 billion organic scam have seemingly convinced a lot of gullible people that pesticides = bad. Like tobacco, where are all the bodies killed by minute trace residue pesticides? Where are the death certificates? We know where the e-coli bodies from organic food are - buried in a grave. You get minute trace quantities of pesticides every time you inhale air. It's called breathing. Unreasonable fear of a non-risk is called a phobia. I guess it makes some spend a lot more $$ for no reason.
You have to laugh at these fads.
"Where are the death certificates?"
thalidomide
(Yeah, you would be correct to point out that thalidomide doesn't KILL people. It just horribly disfigured them. Oh, and it was considered safe.)
"The word pesticide means that it only kills bugs."
Which explains all of the warnings against the inhalation and/or ingestion of these "for bugs only" death sprays, correct?
Methinks Bostonray has inhaled a little too much pesticide.
I love people like Bostonray who trust huge chemical manufacturers to ensure his health.
Do you think if I told Bostonray that I'm a size 5 that he'd believe that too? Oh yeah, and as long as we're believing all big-business and government assurances, then Bush is smart, the war is justified, and Iraqis love us and want us there. And taxes are fair and the rich pay their share.
And agri-chemicals are just fine for your longterm health.
BostonRay says: Guest #20/21 - if you drink too much water in a short period of time it will kill you too. If you stand on the top step of a step ladder it can result in serious injury or death. It takes some very stupid people to do stupid things and that is how lawyers make their money. It's not stupids fault - it's the manufacturer's fault. If you are not paying attention and fall into a hole you don't just sue the guy who dug the hole - you sue the manufacturer who made the shovel that dug the hole. Always remember the first rule of Toxicology - Its the dose that makes the poison.
Following the 'Precautionary Principle'as you appear to do is a phobia. Just trying to get you to stop wasting your hard earned money on a completly fraudulent industry for no reason.
BostonRay: so what dosage of thalidomide IS safe?
Isn't it POSSIBLE that science doesn't have all the answers to everything just yet?
And yes, I understand that some substances won't kill you in small doses. (Arsenic and mercury springs to mind here.) But why risk a build-up if you don't have to? If I have the money or inclination, what is so wrong about eating tomatoes grown the way my mom does in her backyard?
If I have the money (and I do), I cannot imagine not bothering to spend a bit more to bet against the natural self interests of huge chemical conglomerates - who, I am pretty sure, do NOT have my longterm interests at heart.
Remember the self-calculating bet that Ford made when they figured out that the Pinto was a death trap? They did the math and figured it was cheaper for them to pay for the dead people than fix the issue.
I wonder if Monsanto has that same cost-benefit agenda.
What do you think, BostonRay? Is it possible?
BostonRay replies: Guest #23, I don't understand why you are referencing Thalidomide when we are discussing trace pesticide residue on fruits and vegtables. Thalidomide is not a pesticide. Actually it was invented as a seditive in Germany around 1953 and perscribed as such, tragically, to pregnant women. The issue that I have with organic methods is that it is massively inefficient and uses manure as fertilizer. When manure is normally spread on land then the field has to lie dormant for at least a year and this eliminates the e coli. Due to inefficiency some of the organic farms cut this time period short. Monsanto has to prove pesticide safety to the feds, organic farms don't. Organic is a $12 billion industry - occasional bad e coli spinach, like last year around here, is collateral damage to them. You gotta follow the money. You are right about Ford, they really calculated those deaths.
BostonRay replies further: No, science does not have all the answers yet. For every one thing that is discovered results in many more questions. That is the nature of the scientific peer review and it is very valuable. Trace pesticides do not "build up" in the body. They are evacuated usually in the urine. For instance, the body requires a certain sodium level to survive. When that level is reached it will trigger the kidneys into automatic dumpling of any excess. The annual "use too much salt scare" is another fraud from a special intrest group with ties to the salt substitute industry. Organic suppliers pay extra $$ to farmers for organic certified food. Not all farmers are scrupulous as a lot of them are run by corporations. They do in fact place the organic grown certified stamp on normal pesticide treated produce for the extra money. No one in the organic industry checks to verify organic.
I referenced thalidomide because - like today's pesticides - it was a chemical that was, at the time, THOUGHT to be safe. So safe that it was prescribed to pregnant women.
How are those initial claims of safety regarding thalidomide different from all the safety claims regarding pesticides now? They've made mistakes before, and NO ONE really knows what the current (and unprecedented) levels of pesticides (and the unprecedented build-up) do to our health longterm. I don't see how you can be so sure.
I agree about unscrupulous farmers not aging the manure/compost sufficiently. That is why I don't buy organic lettuce from just any 'ol farmer. (Lettuce, radishes, etc that grow in the dirt but aren't cooked before eating are not ok VS peaches, apples, etc that grow above the soil but eaten raw are fine, as is anything that is cooked. But that's just me.) That includes mass market (WF) store suppliers. It IS a problem. Witness the spinach episode and it is an ongoing concern.
So you are (justifiably) suspicious of some farmers being more concerned with their bottom line than with your health. Huh. That sounds exactly like my suspicious that the agri-chemical purveyors might have similar purpose in mind when then absolutely positively emphatically assure us that all these chemicals are "fine."
Your distrust in the errant, money-grubbing farmer is the same as mine for the the money-grubbing Fortune 500 chemical conglomerate.
Ford...Monsanto...short-cutting farmer...why are you trusting one of those so much more?
And you simply cannot lump sodium (and I cheer your point from the rooftops, there) with pesticides. A couple years back, a CNN reporter had a huge blood workup that revealed 250 chemicals in his blood. About 100 were attributed to air pollution, but the rest were identified as chemicals and additives from food. Some of them were at red-line levels, and the Mayo doctor said it would take months for some of them to subside sufficiently, and much much longer - if ever - on a few. (These tests cost a ridiculous amount of money so nothing we could probably duplicate.) The guy had HUGE amounts of the teflon chemical - and that doesn't just flush out next time you pee. And the Mayo doctor said there is absolutely no way you can know what these combinations are doing to your body (assuming you believe that all 250 are safe in and of themselves).
So the Mayo doctor was wrong about the persistence of some chemicals?