The string beans

I was at Whole Foods the other day getting lunch at the hot bar. I was at the mixed veggies and there were string beans next to them. In this picture you can see two sets of tongs, but when I was getting the food, only the mixed veggies had the tongs, so I used that for both – I took mixed veggies and some string beans.

Well, a lady who worked there started yelling at me – “Sir! Don’t do that with the tongs, you are causing cross contamination!” And she gave me a second set of tongs.

I was shocked. Not because she yelled at me, but because she spoke English. You see, every time I’ve have a question or complaint in the past they would tell me they don’t speak English and they would quickly walk away. That day they spoke English!

I didn’t say anything to her, but I was thinking the cross contamination comes from all the customers’ hands all over the tongs, and all the people breathing and sneezing all over the food. Not from tongs going from string beans to mixed veggies, which by the way, had string beans in with them. I’m not sure why I was taking them from another bin, I think I was probably taking the shallots that were in with the one batch of string beans.

When I have complained in the past, it was about the empty bins at the height of lunch. It’s not uncommon for 50% of the bins to be empty, you can see that by this one photo below that was taken about 12:30 pm one day. And the bins there have no variety anymore. Nothing new. Same old, same old. It’s like they are trying to save money at the customers’ expense.

The rest of the staff is always nice. I just notice the people with the hot food and salads are moody. I guess they get complaints every day. I only took that photo below with the empty bins because there were a lot of people complaining – not so much to the staff but to each other and just saying things in the air. I mean, you come for lunch and that’s what you are greeted with. And it’s like this almost every time I stop by.

Whole Foods has been going down hill for a couple of years now. There’s a new Sprouts opening in my neighborhood next month. I don’t think I’ll be going back to Whole Foods once Sprouts opens.

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