One of the most important things Whole Foods Market does is expressed in our first Core Value: Selling the highest quality natural and organic products available. You'll find that statement on our walls, our website, our brochures, etc. But what do "natural" and "organic" mean, and who sets the definition? I'll start to get into the nitty gritty details of these questions in this post.

I've been avoiding this post. Not because I don't love talking about what I do, but because I couldn't figure out how to shrink this topic - an overview of our Quality Standards - into an easily digestible post.

Michael Franti is an American poet, musician, and composer. He is the creator and lead vocalist of Michael Franti & Spearhead, a band that blends hip hop with a variety of other styles including funk, reggae, jazz, folk, and rock. He is also an outspoken supporter for a wide spectrum of peace and social justice issues. And he is today's guest blogger!

Okay, we're cheating a little this week and perhaps this post would be better named "What We're Watching..." 'cause that's been the preferred method of media consumption this week. A friend of mine reminded me of some excellent TED | Talks that I'd encouraged him to listen to a few months back.

• Mark Bittman on what's wrong with what we eat

Every week I see dozens of myths and misunderstandings about food and our company come across my desk, confused thoughts ranging from "Everything Whole Foods sells is organic" to "Canola oil is a secret poison" to "Whole Foods Market is owned by Paul Newman." This is the first in a series of posts aimed at sharing - and clearing up - some of the more popular misunderstandin

The New York Times ran an article Wednesday called "Slow Food USA Preps for Its Big Moment" about the Labor Day weekend Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco. An interesting read.

About the only things sprouting up on lawns this summer in central Texas are "Alarm Stage Drought" signs.

In a wide ranging interview posted to his blog Chews Wise, Samuel Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc: Natural Foods and How They Grew, talked to Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey about "the Wild Oats deal, rising food prices, the company's soon-to-be-launched humane meat ratings system, and the prospects for sustainable seafood." This is a great read for anyone interested in the natural foods industry and Whole Foods Market in particular.

Check out this 20 minute video of Mark Bittman's talk at the EG (Entertainment Gathering) Conference from TED. (TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design - has a lot of great stuff from a wide variety of thought leaders.) TED describes this piece as "a fiery and funny talk" where "New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk." Do you agree with Mark's suggestions for necessary changes?

Update: June 13, 2010

Since I wrote this post about two years ago, we’ve had a few changes and I wanted to make sure anyone reading this is up to speed on current information.