Why Walmart Shoppers Might Want To Avoid Whole Foods

Walmart and Whole Foods are two of the biggest players in the retail game today. Walmart is ubiquitous in the U.S., and it is believed that around 90 percent of the nation's population has a Walmart store within 15 miles of their home (via Good Housekeeping). It prides itself on great low prices and tries to live up to that name with its Great Value brand, which unfortunately has a lot of unhealthy offerings.

Amazon's Whole Foods Market, on the other hand, promotes itself as a super healthy grocery store chain that does things a bit differently. For example, as per Eat This, Not That!, the brand stays away from stocking items with ingredients it deems unhealthy. Instead, it offers a plethora of organic products to its health-conscious customers. When it comes to choosing between the two options, you may get flummoxed if you're a Walmart regular trying to buy groceries at Whole Foods. This is why.

The products on offer vary greatly

The thing with Whole Foods is that it really is quite serious about sticking to its rules, which means that you'd be hard-pressed to find products that contain any of the banned ingredients. As a description on the official website reads, "We believe that the best ingredients belong on your plate. That's why we've banned hydrogenated fats, high-fructose corn syrup, sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose and saccharin — along with more than 100 colors, preservatives, flavors and other ingredients from all of the food we sell in our stores."

As per a 2014 Slate analysis of the items available at Walmart, 14 percent of its products would not have made it to the shelves at Whole Foods on account of the fact that they have high-fructose corn syrup. And if you consider the total amount of products with other ingredients that Whole Foods has banned, 54 percent of the items would be off the list. Basically, if you usually shop at Walmart and find yourself at Whole Foods, might struggle to get the products you usually love stocking up on and will probably have to settle for its organic version instead.

Plus, as reported by Business Insider, Walmart offers much better deals to its shoppers and stocks plenty of well-known brands as opposed to Whole Foods, which works better as an occasional shopping destination.