The Good Earth Stores: A Eulogy

I have hardly been to Utah County, since moving away 7 years ago.

I’m showing you 2 pages of The Good Earth’s 10-page sale flyer here–10 pages without a single healthy item in it.

The Good Earth was where I shopped for sprouting supplies; whole unprocessed non-hybridized grains; and a big selection of organic produce–as I raised my four kids.

I always say, when asked if I like Florida better than Utah, that it’s a mixed bag, but I miss the healthy options I had in Utah.

What a shock to find that the “health food store” I taught classes in, shopped at, and loved…

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…has become mostly a very high-end convenience store that sells 10 times more processed protein and pills, than they do greens, vegetables, fruits, and truly healthy foods.

The Produce section is a small fraction of what it used to be 10 years ago. What I mean is, they literally spent money remodeling the store, to sell far less produce.

I’m not sure I can even entirely blame The Good Earth. Maybe they’re just stocking what sells, and nobody even knows what healthy food is any more, let alone buys it.

Though it doesn’t seem to be going very well for The Good Earth–the parking lot was nearly empty every time we went.

Ken and Rae Howard, the husband-wife founders of the 7-store chain, kept fluoride out of Utah County’s water, fighting the political fight year after year.

The whole nation had succumbed to dumping a toxic industrial byproduct into drinking water, pretending that it prevented cavities, and ignoring its toxicity.

So they were heroes of mine, and I knew them personally. But a dozen years ago, they died.

The stores were run by a son-in-law, last I knew of. Maybe they’ve sold; I don’t know.

What I can see, though, is that they’re selling 95% upscale, sometimes organic junk food, and a ton of pills. The processed-food aisles are expanded, and Produce is minimized.

Why? Maybe it’s not that the second generation got lazy and doesn’t have the original vision of the founders.

Maybe it’s just that they notice what people buy, and re-order what sells. And don’t re-order what sits on the shelves.

My observation the last 20 years is that people don’t even know what good nutrition is any more. They think that health nuts buy organic chips, and then gripe about how much they cost.

They think “Paleo” is eating healthy, then “Keto,” then “Carnivore.”

After all, the marketers are putting it in front of them all day, every day–so that must be what good nutrition is, right?

My guess is that old timers in Utah County still go to The Good Earth for Produce, since they were the first ones committed to organic. But they then leave spending 3x more on gluten-free pretzels and fair-trade chocolate and organic candy from the bulk food section.

Basically, addiction equals profit. Even the health conscious spend more, if junk food is put in front of them on their way to the checkout. I know I left there with some stuff I didn’t intend to buy.

When I posted a tour of this store I raised my kids shopping it, on Facebook, a few people said they’ve always assumed that If it’s sold at Good Earth, it must be healthy food.

If you read the labels, you’ll discover that junk food is still not healthy food, even if the “healthier” store sells it.

What I saw there, visiting for 3 weeks in August, is reminiscent of what I see in Whole Foods Markets, as well as the few privately owned “health food stores” that remain in the U.S.

Which is, nothing much to do with what research, evidence, and life experience will teach you are whole foods that kept people healthy for thousands of years.

Remember when Whole Foods Markets almost all had a juice bar? You could get cucumbers and celery and carrots juiced there.

Now ALL of them are gone. Replaced by coffee and pizza and pastry bars.

All across the front of the Whole Foods Markets are cookies, candy, and anything you’d find in any other grocery store. My husband actually prefers shopping at Publix versus WFM in Florida, as he claims they have more organic produce!

Anyway, this was a news flash for me. What had happened in Utah had snuck up on me, like Rip Van Winkle going to sleep under a tree, since I moved to Park City in 2016. And Florida in 2020.

Whereas maybe you’ve experienced it more gradually and just got acclimated to it. I walked into The Good Earth and was so shocked.

Because we have NO privately owned health food stores anywhere near us, in Florida, and I hadn’t been to Good Earth in such a long time.

I had thought of them as the last of a dying breed of health food stores actually committed to good health..

So it happened all at once, for me. Kind of like if you and I were friends and I hadn’t seen your family for 8 years, and I ran into you, and it seemed to me that your 11-year old I hadn’t seen since he was 3 seemed had grown up overnight.

Because I wasn’t there every day seeing it happen gradually. So I didn’t know that The Good Earth isn’t any better than the 2024 version of a Whole Foods Market.

We’ve been cheapening and deteriorating the food supply in more ways than one. Sure, it’s more expensive, that’s inflation–but the ingredients in our food are getting worse, and cheaper.

And our “health food stores” have apparently shifted from being all about whole foods, and sprouting, and truly superior alternatives–

–to slightly less-crappy, more-expensive junk food.

Like if 10 is a green smoothie, and 1 is Pringles–most of what’s at Good Earth is a 2.

What do I get from this? Support local farmers. Support growing fruits and vegetables by actually buying it and eating it. Salads, green smoothies, juicing.

We always need greens, vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds. We should be growing them at home (indoor or outdoor, or both!).

But we should be buying and using produce–not just to support farmers growing good food, but also so we can be healthy!

Even the Carnivore Diet guys have wised up and started eating plants. Sure, there’s a Jordan Peterson here and there whose gut is so damaged he’s reactive to almost all foods. And a YouTuber here and there, too, having to help people overcome horrible digestive problems and flatulence and bad breath and more, from the worst fad diet of all time–

–but, even the author of the book The Carnivore Diet finally had to start eating plants. (Google him: Paul Saladino.)

Your health demands fiber, and micronutrients. Weirdly, they’re in short supply in the boxes, bags and packages in health food stores, too.

I’m sad that our health food stores have “sold out,” but when we all figure out health isn’t found in a pill or an alternative potato chip, maybe they’ll give us better food. Meantime, everyone, even people with no yard, can take steps to grow more of their own.

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