Whole Foods has had a pretty bad year. Its stock cratered in 2014, as lower-cost competitors undercut its prices. But now earnings are up, the stock is on the rise, and the company has a new problem: some of its workers would like a union.

I am in the kitchen of the house I grew up in, holding a head of cabbage stable on the cutting board with both hands, while my mother thrusts a cleaver into it, slicing it in half. The leaves are densely packed in a squiggle of translucent white and green. She hands the knife to me, instructing me to cut the cabbage into thin shreds. When my slices are too coarse, she thwaps the back of my hand with a wet soup spoon and tells me to cut them finer.

Haha, would you believe me if I told you that Whole Foods, the grocery store of Wealthy Housewives On Their Way to Yoga Who Just Need a $12.99 Juice, is still trying to convince America that it is not an "expensive" grocery store? What's the big joke, guys?

Have you ever shopped at a "Fresh & Easy?" No, me neither. (If you said "yes," you are an outlier, you are not representative, do not answer any more rhetorical questions.) You probably haven't shopped there because Fresh & Easy has "a novel store format that is bigger than a convenience store but smaller than a supermarket, and focused on fresh-food offerings." No wonder it's going out of business.

If you live in Los Angeles and are a forgetful person, trips to the grocery store are about to get 100 percent more annoying.

Think of "fruits" and "vegetables" like parsley. Parsley is a vegetable. And here in America, we use fruit and vegetables the same way that we use parsley: as window dressing, as a little green thing that makes the real food (Cheez) look better.

Both patrons and employees of the Tatsuda's IGA supermarket in Ketchikan, Alaska were left flabbergasted on Saturday after a black bear cub waltzed into the store and immediately beelined it to the produce aisle, which he then ransacked in the OMG CUTEST way possible. But since all good things must come to an end, our baby bear's running-amok was eventually foiled by an unidentified man, assisted by party-pooping local police. At least we'll always have this video.

Oh look, the New York Times says that NYC's Korean grocery stores are on the wane.

A lady in New Mexico received a yogurt sample from her local grocer. She recognized the flavor: semen. She spat the yogurt out and called the cops. Forensic evidence later revealed sperm cells in the lady's yogurt.

With cheap house brands, Carrefour wants to become "the IKEA of groceries." (European Trader Joe's.)

[An Amish girl rollerblades home with groceries in Ohio. I mean, I know, it seems weird, but rollerblades aren't powered by electricity or anything, are they? Pic via AP.]

Washington DC is forecast to get 20 to 28 inches of snow. Naturally, the capitol is preparing for the impending blizzard by hoarding Lunchables, half & half and Chunky Monkey according to this tipster photo taken at Safeway last night.

The Way We Live Now: Underminingly. Have we forgotten the principles of Chaos Theory that we learned in that Jurassic Park sequel? All these "cutbacks" to "save money" will "destroy us." Is the bright side really a dangerous money fire?

That didn't last long. The faux Trader Joe's in Manhattan — "Trader John's" — has already been covered up. Gristede's, the chain that came up with the genius idea, was sued last week. [VanishingNewYork]

Shockingly, a lame attempt to replicate the cheap-wine-and-snacks formula of Trader Joe's under the name 'Trader John's' in Manhattan has resulted in a lawsuit.