The result sometimes feels less like a machine than like an organic whole, a huge, thick-skulled, powerful animal moving with equal menace and grace through its element.
In the design, there are no corridors as such, and no separate service spaces: nothing in other words to harden an organic whole and break up its curving films of glass.
That would put it on par with organic grocer Whole Foods, which has 346 stores in North America and the United Kingdom.
Whether diners dig into the dirt or not, it does take the idea of organic to a whole new level.
Likewise, I would suggest that roasting a whole organic free-range chicken instead of buying gleaming packages of plumped up breasts is as easy and as good as it gets.
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Except for wild game, wild mushrooms, wild berries and fish and shellfish, virtually all the food in European and American diets has long been derived from genetically modified organisms yes, even the organic stuff at Whole Foods and the local farmers market.
So GMO labeling is not a clear benefit or negative for the organic sector as a whole.
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Relay focuses on the organic and natural like Whole Foods does, but with the farmers market tacked on the side.
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As can be seen from the popularity of rip-off artists like Whole Foods markets, organic foods are popular.
"To some people the 24- to 36-hour ordeal of smoking a 20-pound pork shoulder seems a little crazy, " says Erik Leander, a home chef who buys whole hogs from an organic farmer and has kept a smoking diary for five years.
Finally, their retailer information comes directly from Whole Foods, Applegate and Organic Prairie.
That is the whole problem, in an organic nutshell.
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Whole Foods stacks its offerings, organic and otherwise, as high as gravity and physics will allow, suggesting an abundance so rich that a farmers' market must have just parked at the store for the day.
"In the race to get on the store shelf, it's a whole lot easier if your product is organic, " says Robbins.
One of Chung's more recent positions is in Whole Foods Market, the high-priced organic foods retailer.
Once, Whole Foods Market seemed like an unstoppable grocery juggernaut, spreading organic meat and locally grown breads to the masses.
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Organic CSAs tend to be more expensive than conventional ones, but also a better bargain: you pay less for your organic produce getting it from a CSA than you would buying it at Whole Foods.
Whole Foods thrives by presenting food as theater, playing up the pious organic angle even as it peddles tempting offerings of culinary excess.
The exception to the trend is WHOLE FOODS MARKET (77, WFMI) , the world's largest retailer of pricey organic foods, whose operating margin is 4.9%, double the supermarket average.
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