Whole Foods is the supermarket of choice for the Prius-driving set. Which makes it all the more odd that its founder and CEO John Mackey is in the news for saying how much he hates Obama's Affordable Care Act.

In the course of publicizing his new book, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business), on NPR on Wednesday morning Mackey, 59, used the words "fascism" and "fascist" to describe Obamacare. Specifically, he said: "In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production but they do control it and that's what's happening with the health care program with these reforms and so I'd say the system is becoming more fascist."

Howls of outrage from across the land prompted Mackey to make a partial retraction.

But this is not the first time Mackey's put his foot in his mouth. Here he is on unions: "The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover."

This is not the first time Mackey has complained about Obamacare either. Three years ago he wrote an op-ed about it in the Wall Street Journalwhich began with the famous quote from Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

John Mackey

In that piece he complained: "The last thing our country needs is a massive new healthcare entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our healthcare system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction – toward less government control and more individual empowerment."

Huh? This is not the liberal point of view at all. We're confused. Is John Mackey a paradox? A hypocrite? A socialist? A libertarian? All of the above? Let me explore.

First of all, John Mackey is an employer. And by all accounts he's a good one. Whole Food ranks number 32 on Fortune's list of Great Companies to Work For because the company caps salaries of executives at 19 times the average full-time salary. Mackey has paid himself a token $1 a year since 2006. In a system picked by its employees, Whole Foods' free health insurance program gives everyone $1,800 a year to spend on health-related costs not provided by its insurance. What doesn't get spent rolls over.

"Once you start spending your own money instead of someone else's money you know to be more careful with it," he said on MSNBC on Friday morning.

Mackey is a businessman. Yes, he founded Whole Foods (motto: "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet") in 1980 to sell healthy, organic, unprocessed food. But the company grew to its enormous size because Mackey bought up smaller natural and health food stores round the country. He's like the Barnes and Noble of healthy shopping.

Mackey is a stockholder. Well he was. Six years ago he turned his entire Whole Foods stock portfolio over to a charitable foundation. Nonetheless he is CEO of a publicly traded company and keeps a sharp eye on the share price. Nothing to worry about there. Whole Foods currently trades at $90 a share. That's up from $50 10 years ago.

Mackey is a philosopher. That's what he studied at the University of Texas before dropping out, and it remains obvious in the way he thinks. The on-air use of the word fascist was stupid, but it doesn't reflect Mackey's overall thoughtful approach to his business practice and the responsibility he feels in running a large company.

Mackey was a hippie. He still is. Kind of. "My search for meaning and purpose led me into the counterculture movement of the late 1960's and 1970's," he writes in his new book. "I studied Eastern philosophy and religion at the time and still practice both yoga and meditation. I studied ecology. I became a vegetarian. (I have been vegan for 10 years.)" Before starting Whole Foods (originally called Safer Way because of Safeway) Mackey has been an enthusiastic food co-op member.

Mackey is an entrepreneur. He prides himself as never having taken a business class. He believes in the spirit of innovation. He is a free-market thinker who has made his peace with the fact he is a businessman and a capitalist. Not perfect he says but "fundamentally good and ethical."

Mackey is a dreamer. He can use the word "love" in the same sentence as the word "stakeholder", and he's on a mission to tell us that business needs to discover a higher purpose other than just making money. "Business does great good in the world," he says bemoaning the fact that it shares the same approval rating as Congress. It "can be a wonderful vehicle for both personal and organizational learning and growth".

Mackey can be a bit sneaky. Using the pseudonym "Rahodeb" (an anagram of his wife's name, Deborah) he spent seven years posting to Yahoo Finance forums as a critic of the rival supermarket chain Wild Oats Markets – which he was trying to buy. He succeeded in 2007 and subsequently said the posts were a mistake in judgement, but not ethics. (According to The New Yorker, he would compliment his own appearance, "I think he looks cute," he wrote about himself.)

Mackey is very, very rich yet genuinely doesn't seem to care about his money. Having sold Whole Foods stock over the years, Mackey is worth millions and millions of dollars, but lives a life of abstinence, flying commercial, backpacking for fun and driving a Honda.

Mackey doesn't believe in the science behind climate change and anyway thinks it will be good for the economy. Yet since 2006 Whole Foods has offset 100 percent of its energy cost with the purchase of wind power credits.

Mackey IS Whole Foods. He doesn't have children and sees himself as the 'daddy' of his every member of his vast company. If you find it contradictory to hate him but love what he's created, don't worry – Mackey will understand.