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If I had the choice, financially, I'd not go there. Not only because of ethical concerns, but because shopping there is a nightmare.

Luckily, my local (well, it's a Texas-based chain with locations in Mexico) grocery is fairly close to Wal-Mart prices. But I imagine it's not all that much more ethically sound. (They do have their fancy store with locally grown and organic produce, but it's vastly out of my budget.)

It's only those weeks were every dollar and quarter matter that I'd drive the extra distance to Wal-Mart (there's a tradeoff, too, but they also have the cheapest gas) just for the food. Especially because their produce sucks anyway. It's not possible to get more than 2 days, 3 max ahead, because it is lousy to begin with and goes off at a frightening speed.

If it's a really tight week, I'll look for chicken there, but their seafood totally sucks too (all farmed and shipped from Asia).

So usually, it's not really the grocery budget that pushes me to Wal-Mart; it's everything else: toiletries, toilet paper/kitchen towels, school supplies, OTC medicines, batteries, etc. that makes me wind up there. And once there, I'll get the non-perishables.

I'd love to try farmers markets, too, but it doesn't make sense to me to drive 20 miles when--especially this time of year--there's not a lot of produce there anyway. Brownies and all kinds of already prepared foods tend to dominate, and even if I wasn't on a student budget, I still wouldn't pay $5 for a single brownie.

In this lousy economy, there really isn't much choice but to shop where your dollar will buy you the most - within reason. I don't buy meat at Wal-Mart, simply because it is not of the quality I desire. Why should I pay double for things like bathroom tissue and canned goods? If other stores didn't price themselves into the stratosphere, I'd shop at them.

When a Super Target opened near where I work, I was thrilled. I grabbed a cart, puffed out my chest (proud I wasn't shopping at Wal-Mart) and got on my way. "They want HOW MUCH for that? And where's the store brand??" I knew my efforts were doomed when I started to say, "I'll buy some items here and stop at Wal-Mart on my way home." I realized I was planning to make two separate shopping trips which was an unacceptable waste of my time. I circled the store in search of at least one item I knew I could not find at Wal-Mart for less. Dejected and defeated, I parked my empty cart at the door in Target and sighed to myself, "I'm never going to get out of Wal-Mart."

I'm not sure what practices you're referring to. There are so many practices by every single business in the world (including farmer's markets) that I can't find the time to keep up with them all in their latest contortions.

I do know that the place frightens me. If we're going on "first reactions" my first reaction to the place when I drive up to it is that I feel as if I've walked on to a set of a science fiction film where humans have become strange and distorted into ugly almost unrecognizable shapes. Some of them don't walk anymore, they drive around in little carts loading the front of the cart with snack food in between stopping at the pharmacy for their prescriptions. Then two thoughts come into my mind: "I don't want to be like these people" and "I don't want to be around these people". Rude perhaps on my part? But true.

Studies report that it takes twenty-five subsequent good impressions to erase a first bad impression. That has never happened to me at Wal-Mart for the same scenario plays out each time.

When I'm around a group that does not appear to be the sort of person I want to be, I want to get out of there for it feels like I might "catch it". That is Wal-Mart, for me - aside from whatever their "practices" are. The people there (not all but many) are scarier than any corporate practice could be.

I go there to find electronics things, paper goods, all the trash one needs for daily life today. I can not understand what on earth that stuff is that they call meat and feel sorry for those that must struggle with cooking it. The vegetables and fruits once in a while can be decent but it's like finding a needle in a haystack. Once something good has been found I gloat, gleeful that I've saved a few cents on something after walking through the outerspace-like terrain of the store through the aliens.

That said, I've lived in rural areas where driving half an hour to Wal-Mart beat anything closer to town for food quality. It was a beacon of bright happy light in those places and again, nobody cared about the practices - in that case because comparatively it was better than what had been there before.

I won't shop there at all. I guess I'm lucky to live in an area with many alternatives and very few wal-marts.

"I'm not sure what practices you're referring to."

These practices are very well documented. Here is a link.

For people who are tight with income, it is understandable to seek out the best prices, but you must realize that these prices come at a HUGE hidden cost, that you are likely paying dearly for simply by having a Walmart in your community, even if you yourself dont shop there. Other businesses charge more for the same products because Walmart, as the largest buyer in the US, can pressure its suppliers to sell below cost. The result is small businesses are forced to close down and lay off their employees.

Erika, your husband was laid off for a while. Think of the thousands of people who were laid off because Walmart put them out of business. By shopping at Walmart, you are basically enslaving yourselves and your communities to a corporation. Then look at the wage disparity between the lowest paid workers and the highest paid "worker" and you will see that my use of the term slavery is not misplaced.

I boycott ALL the big stores, unless it is absolutely necessary to shop there. I would rather spend a few more dollars knowing that the employees are being treated and paid fairly, that I will have local stores in town instead of having to go to a strip mall on a highway, and that I am NOT feeding a corporate beast that does not have anyone's interests at heart (not their workers, their suppliers, the security of the country, local community economies, the environment, or their consumers) other than those of their board of directors and biggest shareholders.

While watching the documentary, Walmart: the High Cost of Low Price, I cried. I was living in rural Pennsylvania at the time, a place where Walmart is one of the few shopping options. I swore it off and found, even though I was paying a little more shopping elsewhere, I felt better and I was spending less! Spending less because every time I would go into Walmart I couldn't help picking up the $2 cute glass ramekins, and the .99 socks, and the $5 tank top, and...

That said, although I have cut down drastically, I would estimate, I still find myself there once every 3-6 months. I might feel really broke. Or, I might need such a variety of things, that I get lazy and seek the one-stop experience. But the groceries are horrible. I always feels dirty after I leave there, and even more so if I buy groceries, because I try to value what I put in my body. Food that comes from a huge mega chain that hawks crappy, chemically, processed food to low-income people just feels yucky. Even though they're getting into organic now. They'll do ANYTHING to make a buck. Anything. I'm happy that more people will be able to afford healthier food, but I'm also torn, because at what cost does that come?

Ugh. I always end up in this gray area when I think about Walmart.

My easy answer: I try to avoid it as much as possible, and I'm usually successful.

I understand what you wrote, Seyo - yet in the rural area I lived in when a Wal-Mart was added it did not put anyone out of business, the two tiny crappy grocery stores with bad meat and rotten vegetables are still there as is the grim Dollar Store with the products that break after four days and even the thrift shops are still in business as are the auto parts stores etc.

It did, however, put people to work in an area where few jobs were to be had and where even those low salaries are much desired as opposed to no salary at all. And the quality of food offerings was higher.

Wal-Mart actually allowed some people who I knew when I lived there to go to the dentist, to get their cars fixed, and to dream of bigger things than being a cashier though to be a cashier at Wal-Mart was a prize for them, and it allowed them to bring home better things to eat (and fresher) than were available to them previously.

To me it is not cut and dry, evil vs. good.
It certainly is not a beautiful thing, but in lieu of any one else going in to offer anything in these sorts of places it is something.

For most people, depending on where they live, options available, and financial circumstances, this is not an "all or nothing" proposition.

Personally, I try and suport local businesses, but understand that people appreciate large selection and low prices too. Since Wal-Mart came to my region, (200 miles from a major metro area), many local stores have upgraded their product lines and services to remain competitive. Others have fallen off, or even closed, which probably was inevitable anyway?

We have choice. That's what's important. Choices change with the times, and we try to keep up.

When it comes to food, remember that once upon a time farmers and herders threatened the hunter-gatherers' way of life.

I work for a major company that supplies numerous goods to Wal-Mart. When they say jump you don't even ask "How high?". You just start jumping and don't stop until they tell you it's ok. They make my work life miserable a couple times a year so I boycott them out of principle. The only attraction is the convenience factor. I agree that the meat is horrible (is it me, or does the beef have an ungodly red tint to it?) and don't think the produce is all that fabulous.

Beyond the food quality, I can't stand the people-- the people that shop there with their 5 screaming kids or the people that work there and act like they'd rather be somewhere else. I have had mostly positive experiences with customer service at local stores, but the Husband's co-worker has vowed to never darken their doorstep again after an incident with the automotive department.

I think the company has good points and bad points, but the bad outweighs the good in my book.

In my own discussion the "being afraid" of the people was tongue-in-cheek. But not exactly.

Every person gets courtesy from me no matter how they look or how they act or who they are, in equal amounts. Actually I give the average person on the street equal courtesy as any "celebrity" I've ever met, and not everyone can say that. Every person gets respect too, in the areas in which respect is due in my own mind.

I find that I can not have as much respect or admiration for those who treat their bodies as if they were a trash pile to be added to. I believe that being grossly overweight is often a choice rather than something that could not be changed - and I believe that poor grooming is slightly deplorable at the least in the ways of health but moreso in the ways of self-respect, and I believe that if foodies can separate the stylish foods and the foods that are more attractive and gorgeous than other foods (which is what foodies do) then in terms of deciding what is beautiful or not I guess I do it with people and how they choose to present themselves. After all, they have more choice than the average apple does.

And there are a lot of really grossly overweight very poorly groomed people going into the Wal-Mart's I've seen, in noticeable amounts. I'm sorry it is that way, but that does not stop it from seeming bizarre to me. Whether it is a Wal-Mart style thing or whether it is an economic thing I have no idea. I tend to believe it is a little bit of both.

If Wal-Mart were the last food store on the face of the earth, I would become anorexic.

I can't do it; I refuse on principle. I took the future mother-in-law once because she likes it...I agree with the "feeling dirty" experience. My cousin buys socks there...that's all, just socks. He can not explain why he can't buy socks at Target or any where else he shops, but there it is.
When small local businesses like ours hang in there and do what they do best, they make it. If they continue to have a "take it or leave it" attitude or think cutting prices to levels they can not afford just to "compete", they don't make it, which is as it should be.

So Karen, "everyone" gets your respect except those who are, in your opinion, too fat or too poorly groomed?

Karen did you ever go to a Carrefour? I used to grocery shop at Carrefour in the late 80's before hammered the company with union junk and they pulled up and walked. The Philly Carrefour is now a Walmart. Carrefour was by far larger and more impressive than any Walmart. The baguettes were amazing.
I don't know how bad it was for them but I loved shopping there. That was surreal. Walmart is pedestrian to me.
When it comes right down to it and where I live now I will shop there. As I said earlier not for meat or produce. If there were someplace else closer I would shop there too. It is a matter of what is close and contributing to the local economy, which here Walmart employs a lot of people and they have to eat too.

I would LOVE to have a choice, but frankly, I live the "heart" of Wal-Mart country....about 12 min. from headquarters. We don't have a Whole foods or a Trader Joes....matter of fact there isn't one closer than 5-6 hours away. We have once local grocery chain other than wal-mart....all the others died out when I was a kid, but it charges twice, sometimes three times the price of wal-mart (as does the local natural foods co-op...even with a discount) and I simply can't justify the expense, not with three little mouths to feed. Not everyone can afford those kind of principals.

When you live out in the middle of nowhere, you take what you can get, grocery-wise. I'd love to shop at whole foods or wild oats or trader joes and nowhere else, but I just don't have that luxury. I can't justify the expense of gas, to drive 6 hours to shop. I do the best I can with what I have. I buy the freshest vegetables and fruits that I can and just because you go in a store that sells junk food, doesn't mean you're required to buy it. I can get in and out wal-mart with a pretty healthy cart actually.

And Karen.....wow, I don't really think your comment on overweight individuals is even close to appropriate. I think it was pretty offensive and way off topic.

Until the economy improves, I have to hold onto as many pennies as I can. When things get better and more of the wealth is spread around, I'll seek out more "politically friendly" places to shop. This isn't a decision I'm comfortable making - but sometimes shopping at Wal Mart is a necessity - a necessary evil, if you will.

I lived in a town in SW Colorado with a tiny population. I had no choice but to shop in the next town. Until Wal-Mart opened, the local supermarket would charge a premium for food because they knew they could (they had NO other competition...zero). That wasn't true once Wal-Mart arrived. They got their prices in check in a big fat hurry.

Believe me, I'm not happy about the effect Wal-Mart has on mom & pop businesses but they deliver a product to a public that obviously needs them, or they would cease to exist.

I would starve before entering a Wal-Mart. One alternative is Costco. The average floor employee at Costco earns more than $17/hour and has health care 91% covered by the company. Also, the founder and CEO of Costco only pays himself $350K/year, which, while still a bundle, pales to the CEOs of just about anything else.

Doesn't Costco cost like $60 or more a year just for the privilege of shopping there? I've heard they have some good food, but that's on the goat cheese/whole beef tenderloin sort of level.

Let's be honest and admit that it's not a viable substitute as a regular grocery store for people who buy their food at Wal-Mart. In my city, there are only 2, and they are by the more upscale and fairly remote suburbs.

Did anyone else totally love that Wall-Mart South Park episode?

I go to Costco once a month as well. You cannot grocery shop there unless you have a freezer or you have a lot of people to feed. I buy beef there but not poultry. They recently changed their packaging on the chicken and I don't like it.
Costco is 50.00 for a regular membership or 100.00 for a business membership which returns 2 percent per year in the form of a gift check.
Only one person needs to pay the 100.00 then the rest of the down line pays 50.00. I also go to Trader Joes once a month. In all honesty I cannot shop at just one grocery store ever, just not possible to get everything I need.
As for fat people they come in all economic levels just like people come in all degrees of tolerances and prejudices. I don't think any of that was germane to the topic. I see drunk people going to liquor stores.....
Karen is a unique person and her take on things is her take. I will agree to disagree since I am on a baking marathon and I have 3 kinds to go!!!!

The question was "Are you okay with the implications of grocery shopping at Wal-Mart?".

Part of my answer was based on the fact that I do not consider shopping at Wal-Mart to be a healthy experience in many ways, and many of the people that I see there exemplify that fact to me.

In polite conversation discussion of the grossly obese in todays world is generally avoided, true. It is not politically correct to discuss it. Probably because of how obesity is growing in our culture at such a fast pace.

It may be offensive to some that I mention that those who are grossly obese offends me. Sorry. But I will say it anyway because I am tired of tip-toeing around the issue. The issue is health and the foods we eat and the culture we live in that somehow is producing more gross obesity with the health problems that do go along with it.

It does have to do with food, what we eat, whether we end up being grossly obese and unhealthy or whether we do not (along with many other factors). Therefore it is not off-topic. If the people who are shopping at Wal-Mart have a standard of obesity that is higher than it appears to be at other places one can buy groceries, why? Why?

I don't know. I do know that again, it is frightening to me. Could be it's partly about beauty. Could be it's partly about "class" but really to me I do not think so, for I truly do discount that in people as to who they "really" are. So to me, what it is - is that Wal-Mart is unhealthy in some basic way.

That's just what it looks like to me. And that it appears to be a trend that I have no personal taste for distresses me, and yes. I will say it.
Wal-Mart is not evil. But something about what it is or what it represents? I'm not okay with those implications. It's not economic. It's cultural, the implications I dislike.

If you want to look at it from outside the culture, consider the term "The Ugly American" (something I do not truly believe in). The "Ugly American" is big, fat, loud, and ignorant in the eyes of the rest of the world. If I had not already decided that the Ugly American really does not exist I might be tempted to believe in it after a few visits to Wal-Mart.

That makes me sad. A bit angry, too.

Wal-Mart arouses strong passions.

One should not forget one of the most e-mailed topics ever here on SE - The Custom Cake from Wal-Mart .

And yes, I did see that South Park episode. It was a beaut. :)

Where I live Wal-Mart is the best option to get the best food I need for several of my recipes. The county in North Carolina that I live in is dominated by Food Lions ever since Winn-Dixie filed for bankruptcy and closed several of its North Carolina stores. The alternate choices--a lone Piggly Wiggly and a lone IDA--are even more inferior than the Food Lion monopoly. Although I am aware of and hate Wal-Mart practices, I prefer to shop there to get exactly what I need for my recipes.

So Karen, "everyone" gets your respect except those who are, in your opinion, too fat or too poorly groomed?
psychsarah at 1:58PM on 12/12/07

Nope, not everybody, psychsarah. I will show respect but hold little of it within myself for knaves or fools. And in my later years I actually outwardly show no respect at all for those who lie, cheat, and steal. I'll actually do my best to diss them to their face.

But in the category you mention above I may find compassion within me for the people who exhibit those specific behaviors and will show respect outwardly to those that exhibit them but inwardly, no - I can not respect those behaviors unless extreme circumstances warrant it, in my mind. If we are what we eat then I have to wonder what is going on when those behaviors are exhibited in people. What are they eating?

This is the shade of grey sort of thinking that allows "Big Stores" to thrive. There's nothing that is "needed" that must come from a Big Store. There are things people want, certainly, but what on earth is sold at Best Buy that is essential to live? There's no significant need in that store. It may be that they have things one can't get elsewhere, or have them cheaper or closer...but those are exactly the decision points that the Big Stores are predicated on. The choice to shop at one is based on wants, usually. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it's disingenuous to claim that it's only based on "need."

Well, I am 7 minutes from Walmart that is being converted to a Super Walmart. I dont love the crowds, the blocked aisles, shitty parking or the screaming kid in aisle 9 because his mother won't buy the bloody reese cup.

However, when it comes to household items, (TP, paper towels, dawn, tin foil, soap, shampoo, garbage bags, dog food, etc.) I can't beat the price. Locally, a 17lb bag of Kibbles and Bits at Target is 12.59. Walmart has it for 8.88. The giant Tide is $13.88 at Walmart. Target is 16.99.

I know all the horror stories about Walmart, I don't buy any "food" there except sams choice flavored waters (.50 each) and Act II microwave caramel corn. I stick to household and toiletries, occasionally socks/underwear and clearance summer clothes for my every growing niece.

For the price and the super strict budget Im on right now, thats my choice. When things get a little better financially for us, I will go to Target and whatnot.

Yeah, im the odd man out. Walk a day in my shoes...

If I gotta think about implications just to put some decent food on the table...wait a minute, if you gotta think about implications...you got way more time on your hands than I do! And less of a life!

I used to shop at Ghetto-Mart all the time - thinking that I was saving money on everyday items, clothing, toys, etc. But in the end, those cheap things that I bought never lasted for more than a few months and I'd have to replace them, spending even more money.

But I do still shop there - when you have 2 kids, after school activities, limited time and a budget - one stop sometimes is worth it.

The thing about style is that people buy based on it, or don't buy based on it.

And it exists in all things. In food. And in people.

If I don't like Wal-Mart's food style, I have a right to not like it.

If I don't like a person's particular style, I have a right to not like it.

If style were not taken into consideration (style or "presentation") in things done by humans, we might all be eating the same foods and they might not be all that great - for reaching for style, reaching for "something better" or something finer or something different - that sense of being creative - is what is at the base of every great recipe any one knows. Reaching for something that looks and tastes good.

Everybody has a recipe of their own they write for their lives.

I don't have to like all of them.

And honestly, not all of them are bound to be all that successful in general or admired by the general public all that much in general.
And that is why certain styles and certain foods are aspired to by most people.

Reality vs. what we pretend to be like. There's a gap.

Wal-Mart advertises on television - its ads look a certain way.
Take that ad and then film the place and set them side by side.
If they want to sell what they are, then why not run the film that shows the reality? Would that get people in the door and buying?

Karen did you ever go to a Carrefour? I used to grocery shop at Carrefour in the late 80's before hammered the company with union junk and they pulled up and walked. The Philly Carrefour is now a Walmart. Carrefour was by far larger and more impressive than any Walmart. The baguettes were amazing.
I don't know how bad it was for them but I loved shopping there. That was surreal. Walmart is pedestrian to me.
When it comes right down to it and where I live now I will shop there. As I said earlier not for meat or produce. If there were someplace else closer I would shop there too. It is a matter of what is close and contributing to the local economy, which here Walmart employs a lot of people and they have to eat too.
JerzeeTomato at 2:12PM on 12/12/07

Carrefour is a French company , Jerzee Tomato - I didn't even know they had them here. I've been to them in France.

The best grocery store I've been to in the US was a Harris-Teeter in NC. It really was almost like a Fresh Market without the haute attitude. It was simply excellent. Prices mid-level, food excellent and added touches like free balloons for small children and free cookies and coffee too. The balloons kept the kids busy, the cookies kept them happy to go through the store and the coffee made me feel cared for.

I agree with you about WM assisting the economy in certain areas of the country wholeheartedly.

One wonders why other companies do not go in to do the same, really. You know, the ones who are not "evil". Who are they I wonder.

Funny you should talk about Harris Teeter. I don't like them in NC. It would be the store I would not go to. In NC (where our other home is) I shop Trader Joes, Fresh Market, Costco and Lowes Foods and not Walmart at all. The Raleigh area is not as rural as our house in Penciltucky and we have more choices. I do pick up some grocery items at Target Supercenter the prices are good in NC but the prices on everything else are bad. Go figure.
Carrefour was in Philly area from 1988-1993, some of the best grocery shopping memories I have. They even did double coupons which back then I needed. Baguettes were 1.50 each. My car had crumbs in it for years after.

LoCo-of course I was being tongue-in-cheek about Karen's comment. I didn't take issue with anything else she said, in fact, I agree with you that she made numerous good points. It just seemed that her comment said she respected everyone, but then said there was a certain class of people not deserving of her respect. It seemed contradictory to me. Take your comment that you can respect people and still not like to be around them, and imagine that we were talking about a certain ethnic group rather than a group of overweight/obese people. Just a thought...

Karen-I think you and I are both opinionated people, and I hope we can respectfully disagree about our opinions of overweight people. I think these lively discussions are great for everyone to challenge their thinking about complex issues that may seem simple on the surface, like where to shop. I find it fascinating that so many cultural and social issues are raised in a discussion of grocery shopping.

ccweb, you are 100% correct. The vast majority of the stuff sold in the big stores is consumerist crap anyway, and 99.9% of it can be found at smaller individually owned stores. When I mentioned NEED, I meant it: for example, specialized tools or materials that the hardware store doesnt have, you have to go to the Home Despot for. I cringe whenever I have to set foot in that store too, thankfully my hardware stores are very well equipped, and I only find myself in a Home Despot once a year or so.

As far as food is concerned, I find it shameful that in a country as fertile and covered with farmland as ours, rural areas dont have at least adequate if not excellent outlets for fresh and high quality food at affordable prices. And guess who is to blame for the fact that there arent? Big corporations, corrupt government, and lazy uneducated consumers who sit back and wait for a mega store to arrive in their area rather than organize themselves and pressure their local government into action. Set up a food Co-op! Organize a farmer's market! There are solutions other than those being force fed to you by corporate America. Corporate america wants to give you the cheapest product and will attempt to exploit their workers as much as they possibly can.

Co-ops and farmer's markets arent elitist big-city only things, and they havent been around for ever either. In the 80's there was no healthy and high quality food to be found in the city, all we had were high end expensive specialty gourmet shops and regular crappy supermarkets. As well as you know the name Alice Waters (and you should), I'm sure no one knows of Hilary Baum, AN ACTIVIST, and it is largely thanks to her that we in New York have such great food choices today. No one came here and handed us a farmer's market, she organized them. The idea being that high quality food was being produced all around us, but wasnt getting to us at fair prices, with FAIR LABOR PRACTICES. If you arent a CEO or a Big Shareholder, then this matters to you.

psychsarah, I think it's great that so many issues fall inside the discussion of food also. To me, it's never "just" food.

As far as considering the comparison of obesity to ethnicity, I have considered it and for myself, as I believe that until proof is found that people are born obese and must stay that way - that their eating behavior has nothing at all to do with it or that for these people eating behavior is simply uncontrollable in any way by their own actions - ethnicity and obesity are not on the same page.

I don't "hate" fat people. People are more than the way they look. But I do take issue with unhealthy things that get in my face when I try to go grocery shopping. If someone could prove to me that gross obesity and the ill health that is at this point in time assumed to go along with it, costing many people both money and pain whether they are the ones doing it or not, was not unhealthy or was a positive force in the world, I'd not think the way I do. But right now, I see the more and more people who are becoming more and more grossly obese in our society the same as I would anyone exhibiting any other unhealthy behavior. I don't like to see it in our society and I'm not going to pretend to so that it can all be prettied up and ignored.

That I transposed it into "style" was at first a hopefully gentler or ironic way of saying it rather than to dig deeper. That was a mere brush of the pen. There's much more to discuss than style or what any person likes or not in this issue.

As time passes and healthcare costs increase for all individuals across the board due to this issue - when it starts affecting all people's paychecks it is to be imagined that it will become something more widely discussed (though of course there is information out there already in many respected news sources about the cost of obesity to the public).

Is gross obesity just something that someone "is"? That is your claim, psychsarah. I like to give human beings more individual powers than that in my mind.

Is gross obesity not harmful to anyone? Is it a good thing or just a passive non-hurtful thing?

Is gross obesity totally unlinked to eating behavior?

I'm sorry to have side-tracked the discussion this far. But when I think "Wal-Mart" and "implications of grocery shopping there" this is what comes to mind first. To me, what I see at Wal-Mart in terms of this category is not healthy.

I get upset seeing unhealthy things for some reason.

Trader Joe's is on the same level of WalMart...just with shades of grey. Don't shop at either.....always lived in a place where Walmart didn't exist (until now). Stopped shopping at Trader Joe's when a baker friend told me what hoops they make him go through, similar to the below cost requirements of WalMart fame. After a little more research years ago.... Those wonderful frozen berries or whatever people love were picked by children in third word countries but I know....they are so cheap...& so on & so on

Are there any high brow, upper crust pretentious establishments who keep out the riff raff, and cater to the young, healthy blue-eyed blonde beautiful people with celebrity friends and more money than they can possibly spend?

Perhaps that would make Karen comfortable. I sure hope you aren't a brunette, because the blondes wouldn't like to have to look at you while they shop.

I get upset seeing unhealthy things for some reason.
Karen Resta at 12:37PM on 12/13/07

That's where I said "things"?

I meant things. All unhealthy things. If I didn't add "and people" it was because I presumed I did not have to for clear understanding. :)

PerkyMac, I have had my share of judgement tossed down upon my by others for very many things in my life. I am not exempt from that nor am I perfect nor am I young blonde or rich. I don't tend to think of life as a nice little cozy place in general and that may show in my commentary. If you are offended I apologize but that will not alter what I will write.

One last oh boy do I hope its the last comment I make. renzata, read what I wrote more closely about the poor. If it sounded like I thought less of them in any way then I wrote badly. I've been poor and I've also at times not been poor. I can assure you that being a fourteen year old who had to find a way to support herself alone without parental help due to the parent being rather amiss in ways would put one in the category of being poor. If you'd like to read about me being poor, to prove it here is a story at post #5 that includes both poverty and food. Actually the food is rather Wal-Mart like in style. Hah.

karen, fat people drive the economy, they spend billions at fast food joints, billions on fad diets that never work and they keep the health care folks busy.

also, your are not at the top of my list of phoney people, your only about half way up the list.

This has been a fascinating thread. I'm anti-Wal-Mart. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a Wal-Mart and that is due to an active decision not to spend my money there.

I won't echo, but I will second many of Brooke29's reasons and will add the following problems that I don't believe have been mentioned:

1. Wal-Mart is notorious for not wanting to pay overtime. They will schedule their employees for work weeks that are not 40-hour weeks in order to avoid the possibility that an employee will need to work overtime. (By keeping people part-time, it also helped for a long time to keep many of its employees ineligible for company health care plans.) The company has also been sued in the past for forcing employees to work more than 40 hours, but having them clock out at the 8-hour mark, so that they don't pay O/T. I won't go into the litany of stories about this, but a quick Web search will pull them up. In addition, the top managers in each store receive sizable bonuses for keeping their yearly payrolls below a certain figure. That is why you often see Wal-Mart stores less organized/dirtier than some of their competitors. Their staffs are smaller and since so many of them are not full-time employees, they take less pride in their place of work.

2. Related to the payroll issue, when employees reach a certain hourly wage, the managers feel pressure to get those employees off the payroll. Since they cannot fire a person without cause, they start doing things like changing the employee's shift, lowering the number of hours for which they are scheduled, give them jobs that they cannot/do not want to do (i.e. a 60-year-old cashier is suddenly transferred to parking lot shopping cart collection duty), etc. The managers then become extremely inflexible when the employee asks for a "favorable" schedule. One of two things then happens:

a. The employee quits
b. The employee is fired for insubordination when they complain about the shift in hours, change in duties, etc.

This allows the company to keep payrolls low.

3. For those who say that Wal-Mart brings jobs to communities where there are none, often, this is a direct result of the way in which Wal-Mart does business. Wal-Mart is (I believe) the largest importer of Chinese products in this country. The products being made in China by factory workers who make several hundred dollars a year, are products that were formerly made by American employees in U.S. factories; factories that closed down because the were unable to compete with their Chinese counterparts. Wal-Mart's corporate culture of getting the lowest priced products onto the market comes at the expense of American jobs. Wal-Mart then comes in and pays minimum wage to factory workers who used to make four-to-five times as much, plus health care and a pension. The U.S. has a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China -- which, even those without a degree in economics know -- is bad for the U.S. economy and its long-term stability.

4. Finally, Wal-Mart is a socially-insensitive company. Some of you might be aware of the Nazi t-shirt scandal from last year, when it was discovered that the company was selling in its U.S. stores a shirt emblazoned with a totenkopf -- described by Wikipedia as "a military insignia featuring a skull above crossed bones. It is distinguished from the similar traditions of the skull and crossbones and the Jolly Roger by the positioning of the bones directly behind the skull. For a long time in widespread use in several countries, its association with aspects of Nazi Germany has led to its decline." It took several months for Wal-Mart officials to even agree to tell its stores to remove the shirt, and for more than a year after that edict came down from corporate the shirt was spotted on Wal-Mart shelves across the country. The company also had another Nazi-symboled t-shirt on sale several years ago that was removed. In addition, just yesterday (Wednesday 12/12/07). Wal-Mart removed "[t]he panties, which were sold in the juniors department, [which] seemed to suggest that girls don't need money, they just need a sugar daddy — in this case Santa Claus.The hipster briefs — carrying the slogan "Who needs credit cards ..." on the front and "When you have Santa" on the derriere — caused an uproar among parents, who called for the $2.96 drawers to be pulled off the racks."

I could continue, but this post is already long enough. Long story short, Wal-Mart is not just a bad company, those who support Wal-Mart by shopping there are hurting themselves, and the United States. You can find farmers almost anywhere. You can find farm markets almost anywhere. Wal-Mart organic is a crock (that has also been proven.) Don't be a sucker.

I am very torn about continuing to comment on this thread.... On one hand, I just feel like dropping it, because as Karen said, we are all right in our own minds and this could go on forever, with people getting progressively nastier to one another. On the other hand, I'm loathe to think that my silence would be viewed as agreement, and I feel like I sort of started some of this discussion with my "tongue-in-cheek" comment.

So, while there are clearly differences between ethnicity and obesity, it was an analogy meant to promote broader thinking about the discrimination overweight people face. That said, there is much scientific debate regarding the genetics of weight, so it is possible that one day we understand that one's weight range is just as pre-determined as one's skin colour. Furthermore, there is scientific debate regarding whether being overweight is actually unhealthy, believe it or not. (Since the media only ever tells us the horror stories about the "obesity epidemic" most people never hear the other side of the coin).

Ok-I think I'm done. I'm trying hard to resist the urge to comment on the blimp analogy because it will only become inflammatory.

Happy holidays to all. Hopefully all of our holiday shopping will be more mindful and informed as the result of this discussion.

LoCo, are you out of your damn mind, or are you actually a Walmart lobbyist??? Working Families for Walmart IS A GROUP FOUNDED BY WALMART AND THEIR PR FIRM. That IS NOT an unbiased group, and they most certainly DO NOT represent the opinions and positions of working people.

Neither is the Foundation For Economic Education. They are a free-market, libertarian think thank whose mission is to promote deregulation of markets, and therefore side with large corporations who find any government oversight to be a hindrance. This includes regulation and enforcement of WORKERS' RIGHTS. The FEE is pro-capitalist and anti-regulation. Certainly NOT UNBIASED.

The PBS documentary does try to balance the views, but the overwhelming take away is that Walmart does more harm than good, and again the fact is that they have done and would continue to do much worse if they werent under such scrutiny.

Here is another non affiliated (neither union nor corporate) organization dedicated to pressuring Walmart to reform:

http://walmartwatch.com/

You are simply put, wrong. Walmart is evil.

You are an interesting person, PerkyMac. From shooting off warnings that come from Biblical quotes to deciding that I have diabolical hatred of groups that I did not even mention in my posts.

I wish you the best, but in a real way. Not in the way you write to me above.

I wish those with health problems from obesity a way to find health if they wish to.

If they don't I feel badly for those who have to pay higher health insurance premiums due to the illnesses that so far the medical community claims derive from gross obesity.

And honestly, if you think I am alone in being concerned about this it is my belief that you are wrong. Your insistent heaping of spite won't change that though bullies often are rather scary.

We welcome hearty debate and dissent as long as it is focused on the topic at hand, and not the people. Looks like this thread has run its course, particularly given the personal nature of the last few comments. We're closing the comments.