New York's crush on Whole Foods may only grow with the revelation that the organic-grub juggernaut is run by a complete nerd. The Journal's Website uncovered, and today's Times reports, the dark, dark secret of company co-founder John Mackey. Mackey, it turns out, has spent the last seven years hanging out on the Yahoo Finance message board anonymously talking up his own stock. Even better, Mackey used the same forum to talk smack about a rival under the login name Rahodeb. Here's a sample: "OATS has lost their way and no longer has a sense of mission or even a well-thought-out theory of the business." Um, oh, snap? Best of all, though, is that the board's other users appeared to know Rahodeb's identity and were merely humoring the guy. Mackey hasn't yet been caught shilling on Citysearch or running up the Amazon ratings for Cooking the Whole Foods Way, but we assume that's forthcoming.

Whole Foods Executive Used Alias [NYT]