Whole Foods logo on a shopping wagon - dennizn/Shutterstock One minute, you have a dinner party's worth of charcuterie supplies in your shopping cart, and the next, you're buying enough burrata and smoked olives to feed a small nation. Call this phenomenon the "Whole Foods Effect," or the moment when an otherwise reasonable grocery shopper forgets their savvy, price-conscious ways in the face of fine foodstuffs.