Wal-Mart

"Today, twenty-one cents of every food dollar spent in the United States is spent at Wal-Mart (and some experts say it may be fifty cents by 2010" (from "The End of Food," by Paul Roberts, page 61).

Whoa. I had no idea that Wal-Mart was so pervasive in our eating habits. I wonder if its success at infiltrating our diets has something to do with the fact that there are really no limits to what products it can sell. People know Wal-Mart as an everything store, not limited to foods, and it has no particular niche. We all know Monsanto is evil, but they only sell seeds; McDonald's is equally threatening, but its specialty is fast food, etc. Wal-Mart can and does sell everything...

I spent a little time at the Wal-Mart website. They categorize their products into fourteen different departments, ranging from jewelry to baby items, grocery to pharmacy. They also sell discount iPods and music downloads for only 64 cents a pop. The site even offered to sign me up for updates from their stores, so I'd be sure to not miss out on the latest sales and new products. I guess they really are the epitome of the One Stop Shop.

Wal-Mart has really played the desire of American's for convenience. Hell, can you think of many others places that you can buy a flatscreen tv, diapers, and a gallon of milk all together? And the stores are everywhere, and everything is cheap, cheap, cheap.

The website also boasted new recipes appearing every week - so, at Wal-Mart, you can not only buy your food, you can learn to cook. Or perhaps learn to serve microwavable foods in various forms... The top two categories of recipes were "Fresh & Healthy" and "Budget Friendly." Ah, now doesn't that say something about our society's culinary habits. We say we want to eat healthy, but it all depends on the price. And can I also point out that the "healthy" Mexican Taco Salad recipe calls for "one 1.25 ounce envelop taco seasoning" and "one package assorted greens." Uh-huh. A packet of artificial colors and flavors and some shrink-wrapped lettuce... real healthy.

Very interesting. Everything you (think) you need, at one place, for cheap. Everywhere. They must have some surprisingly sharp executives at the steering wheel of the Wal-Mart enterprise to make it happen.

Also -- this came up when I searched for an image of Wal-Mart. Do you think the Wal-Mart big guys followed those rules?