Whole Foods, MAHA, and the battle over healthy eating in the U.S.

AUSTIN, Texas — The Whole Foods flagship in Austin is a shrine.

With its acres of organic and regenerative produce, a craft beer bar with cheese pairings, and seemingly endless shelves of specialty groceries sculpted to perfection by an attentive floor staff, it is a shrine to what fixed Whole Foods Market in the American imagination as a luxuryland of healthy, aspirational eating.

But with its world headquarters office tower looming overhead, self-service kiosks, harried Whole Foods workers loading carts for pickup customers and grab-and-go shoppers lugging armfuls of ready-to-heat dinners, it is also a physical manifestation of what the brand has become: a mainstream American supermarket.

Even so, the presiding presence of Whole Foods past, John Mackey, who founded the company in 1980