Hey everybody! Hope you are having an awesome weekend! I have a treat for you today: This Slate article, entitled “Unacceptable Ingredients. How many of the groceries sold at Walmart would be banned by Whole Foods?” 

A bit of background – Whole Food has this policy of “unacceptable ingredients” where it doesn’t stock certain products that contain, for example, aspartame, MSG, or high fructose corn sirup. In its entirety, the list contains 78 items. The point of it is to make the shopping experience easier for the consumer – the act of censuring the choices consumers have means they don’t have to read (as many) labels and can trust that they put a product into their cart that meets their expectations, every single time.

The Slate article asks some interesting questions – first of all, how many of Walmart’s products contain “unacceptable ingredients” as defined by Whole Foods? Who comes up with this list and what is it based on? Does it make sense? And what would Walmart’s shelves look like if it implemented Whole Food’s policy?

In addition to some food for thought, it’s also a cool use of media with awesome graphs and imagery, so go check it out if you have 10 minutes on a lazy Saturday!

Would you prefer your supermarket to pre-select some choices or make them all yourself?