...would be about the price I would take to sell out. Can't really blame 'em. The sad part is that Clorox and these other corporations don't really need to suck up these small companies except maybe to burnish their images.

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Colgate Palmolive, or CL, does not make $411 bn in revenues a year. That would be amazing. They make something like $14bn in revenue a year, roughly. Their market cap. is about $28 bn. Forgive me if in fact I misread the article and that's not what you said.

Great article, I've been severely disappointed lately by stuff like this. It's funny, to me anyway, that these corporations we stand by in this country like CL and PG, also have a taint to them that makes it necessary to hide, as much as possible, when they buy something that people are using to be 'good to themselves'.

Good work here, this is an excellent way to chip away at the Establishment.

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Clorox; Coca-Cola, etc, are big, OLD corporations. As such, they hsvr to 'move with the times', or die out.

How can you tell, you ask? Occurs to me that a lot of folk own stock (hopefully not all in 401k's!).

After having read this article, I'm certainly going to trace the ownership of Hodgson's Mills
Oat Bran, and their Wheat Bran as well. I've been using those for decades in all kinds of cooking and baking.

Next time I go see my stockbroker, I'm going to ask him to check out who owns Hodgson's Mills...

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So yes, this article clearly documents the web of ownership in which wealth and power is ultimately concentrated into in the USA, including all the socially conscious brands. Who amongst us thought they were going to shop their way to a revolution? You are not going to get a change from a brand name.

The way the big players are taking such a huge fall, leaving a lot of people with questions and disillusionment, means that we can and must sidestep the existing system. The laws of corporations guarantee that the end result will be that the bottom lines of CEOs and major shareholders are all that matter. Switching to a new brand name for its short lifespan until it succumbs to the system is no solution. Social responsibility just isn't a part of the contract, and that's where it all starts going wrong.

The current establishment cannot be contested on their own terms. The only meaningful conversation is how we are going to change the rules of the game. Instead, cultivate the alternatives, for example by networking existing independent producers and communities and keeping them independent. That which does the most to make the elite irrelevant disempowers them. That can get us traction for real change. We have got to organize to where we can effectively walk out of Rome.

"O cease to labour for the gold-toothed dead,
they are so greedy, yet so helpless if not worked for."

- D.H. Lawrence

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I got over it when I learned about Tom's of Maine tooth paste, I still use it. What really broke my heart was when I learned that the Converse sneaker company was bought by Nike, a brand I won't buy no matter what. No more All-Star Chuck Taylor high tops. What's the difference between the mega-corporations that own those brands? Probably not much.
What to do? How about buying some stock and then through proxy votes and contacting other share holders lobby to change corporate governance. It's a tough way to go but the alternative is making your own sneakers and tooth paste.

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By law every CEO is mandated to suck every nickel of profit he can out of the business by the end of 3 months.

A few years ago Apple was accused of having "too much cash" by a lot of the jokers calling themselves analysts. The reason that's important is that companies buying other companies is considered an acceptable, important, and necessary action to suck out more profit when you've maxed out what your base company can do.

Apple doesn't offer a dividend - so they have to justify that they can re-invest earnings better than you could. By holding money in cash, which, as the anal-ysts contend, just "sits there", you aren't actively re-investing that money, and it should go back out to the consum- I mean shareholder.

Understand where this is going - if enough of that talk builds up, Apple could face a shareholder revolt. It happens. They escape that by being flat out the best at what they do, so all people can do is grumble.

And of course, in what George Soros has called "The end of the World Economic System" Apple's cash reserves had them floating pretty nicely. Until recently they hadn't laid off so much as a janitor. While everyone else is hand-wringing about the lack of credit available, Apple has been getting by ok on all that cash "just sitting there".

A few weeks ago they finally laid off 50 employees - but the truth is it was the "Enterprise" division, which Steve Jobs has come just short of expressing loathing for - I won't go into that here since it's not relevant to the article.

But this understanding IS important - companies that don't buy other companies, that don't revolve on credit, that try to actually save money for times like these, are asking for real trouble. Madness, yes, but that's rampant capitalism for ya.

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in 1067, making it (like the Vatican) self-regulating.

In studying charters from the Middle Ages to the present day, I found that they had two things in common: (1) the chartered body was not to be held accountable for wrong-doing and (2) they concentrated the decision-making power at the top.

The second explains why companies outsource their work abroad. The CEOs only care about rewarding themselves.

The UK is a plutocracy--rule by the rich, for the rich--and its US outpost is one too. That is why corporations are required by law to put profit (ostensibly for shareholders) above all other considerations.

If it feels to you like you're living in feudal times, it's because you are.

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Burt's made it to big box stores quite a bit before Clorox bought them - actually, this provided the impetus for the purchase. What is really interesting is how substantially Clorox has cut the line of Burt's Bees products. You might think with more capital Clorox could/would provide more products, however their focus has instead been on increasing their profit margin through the downsizing of their product lineup.

On the bright side, Clorox hasn't tweaked the formulas for their products (yet), so they are just as natural as they used to be. Truth be told, it's only a matter of time before a smaller, successful company is bought out by a larger corporation. This is the American way, haven't you studied up on your Rockefeller's and Carnegies? The easiest way to get into a new share of the market is to buy your way in. The flip side of this is that Clorox is now supplying natural products because consumers demand them.

Anyone want to throw down on shares of Burt's Bees/Tom's/etc. so we can take ownership back?

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It takes everything once noble decent and good and then deforms and destroys it. Think of locusts descending on a field, stripping it bare, and then going on to pillage another 'market.'

Truth is, anyone with working brain cells figured out the whole 'natural' scam a long time ago. I'm old enough to remember this started in the 70s and has been one of the most popular scams going.

You might remember the famous SNL skit about Quarry cereal ("It's better, because it's mined") which lampooned the whole craze. But Americans bought into it and as long as people trust corporations to bring them 'a slice of nature' in a semi, this will never end.

The story of Burt Shavitz is illustrative of why even the best of intentions cannot work in our culture - the money will eventually co-opt someone who will ruin the entire concept and sell out in order to "refurbish(es) fancy, swank homes in Florida, travels the world and buys massive chunks of land." It's the so-called 'American Dream.' It's as addictive as crack and just as dangerous to the planet.

It's truly a wonder why anyone even tries to do any good in the marketplace anymore. It's not set up for our best intentions.

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who donate reams of money to the religious and political right. I wonder if they've been bought out, too?

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if the public knew how much water and energy it takes to pastuerize beverages and how the heat destroys any goodness therein, they'd see how wasteful/irresponsible and selfish this "Free of...." really is.

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what? Disappointment that the little guys sold out? There are still little guys making things and selling things that are good for you as well as the environment...you just won't find them in Whole Foods or other big box stores. Put down your Brie, put on your Birkenstocks and hike a bit to find them.

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But yeah, green washing ain't cool or funny. So maybe we're not going local enough?

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and work their way up .... always.

I think we have to be focus on what the real ambition of those who really want our food and the products we put on our bodies to be natural is. Because the existing systems of production and distribution failed to deliver these more natural products, they had to start as small, entrepreneurial companies selling to the "already aware." That was fun, cool, and gratifying to many.

As the whole premise of natural products began to permeate the larger society, demand has grown far outstripping the ability of small organizations to meet it. That is success, folks! Look around and you will see that the whole foods arguments are even reshaping school cafeteria menus.

It would be a huge mistake to not insist on strong regulatory oversight on claims of "natural" and labeling. It would be just as bad to assume that larger organizations cannot bring these natural products to a much broader consumer base. It might not be so "cool" but again, what is the real goal here?

Small, local, sustainable, and organic is another piece of the broader set of ideals we might like to see but if we have already driven mega-corporation to the recognition that consumers are increasingly aware and demanding regarding their food - more power to us!

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- Andrea, one question you have not addressed in your excellent article, which is worth a sequel, is whether the quality of the products you cite have been changed due to large-corporate ownership -- and also the quality of any formerly sustainable sourcing in manufacture.
- The quality of our financial markets is a second question and a second sequel. You have already pointed to the causal role of VC funding in the case of Burt's Bees. What a story!
- A lot of this kind of migration of small brands is driven by the kinds of financing that has been available to entrepreneurs in the past decade. Angel investment and venture capital typically requires an exit strategy of an IPO or sale in a few years as part of their initial term sheets for a deal.
- We need better financing models, and need to look at the business operations of VCs that practice ‘triple bottom line’ principles. See
www.nmccap.org.
- We need better models for startup funding so that successful businesses can grow to depend upon their own revenues. Old-think
funding limits the triple-bottom-line options from the start.

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stay out of supermarkets & whole foods/trader joes. anything labelled "organic" in a box, can or frozen is 90% likely to be manufactured by transnational corporate cartels.

check out:

www.cornucopia.org flow chart
WHO OWNS ORGANIC?

this diagrams the takeover of 90% of American national "organic" brands of food. there is another link to privately owned, family organic businesses in America - currently there are only about 12 of these companies left, Lundberg rice farm, Newman's Own, Amy's Organics, Annie's Organics, Turtle Island Foods, Eden Foods and a few others.

I'm 54 and started eating organic/natural around 15 yrs old - way back in 1969. I worked in the organic foods industry back in the 1970's and 1980's when it was 100% small, indie family owned farms and manufacturers. Around 1990 - 1992 when the USDA got involved and created national/federal organic certification standards is exactly when Monsanto, DuPont, the biotechnology corporations and huge corporate agribusiness firms started gobbling up small, indie organic farms and food manufacturers.

The USDA organic certification label is next to worthless - it was created by our govt for the sole purpose of enabling huge corporations to buy up the organic foods industry and move it into wal-mart, costco, target and safeway.

as consumers get pickier wear you buy your food. whole foods is a crappy anti-labor joke, so is trader joe's (owned by a huge german transnational corporate conglomerate cartel).

shop at local farmers markets and find the organic growers, join a food coop and start working a community garden plot. if you are an apt dweller w/no back yard - grow tomatoes, vine berries, herbs in container pots on your apt balcony or front porch - create a buying club by organizing 15 people to buy whole cases in bulk from wholesale distributors and eliminate your dependence on shopping at huge corporate chain stores like whole foods and trader joe's - elminate the middleman by changing your shopping habits. If you can't grow your own veggies - you can SPROUT stuff in a glass jar with a screen on top to rinse the sprouts - if you have a window for sunshine you can grow fresh greens year round.

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The Clorox story always amazed me. Chlorine is a highly toxic and caustic by-product of the manufacture of sodium. It was an astounding coup by the manufacturers to convince the public that their clothing wasn't white enough and thereby take care of their toxic waste disposal problem. What a story of American entrepreneurship!

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Not for Decades.
The Corp Whores on the Hill have allowed Corps to prey on small business- either driving them out of business by undercutting prices or just merely Devouring them outright.
This is why when the Repugs Cry 'Free market forces' they are full of shit. they have made it possible for Corps to dominate the Market place land scape. They have Killed Small Business by not enforcing antitrust laws. They have actually encouraged this predatory business model. Claiming it's 'Good for the Aemricna consumer'- Look at the influx of Chinese products being peddled by Walmart! Better of US that they cost less- except they also contain Txins and do not meet our product safety codes. Children being poisoned by Lead infested toys, Babies being snapped in half by defective Strollers. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!
Want to save money on that home construction- hire a non union contractor, using unskilled laborers- Great to have money in your pocket until the 2nd floor gives way on top of you.You knwo Why America has been the Econoic powerhouse of the World for nearly a century- because when we make something We make it Well!!We possess that Crazy thing Called Americna Pride. We are proud of the work we do,thus the Company we work for and our Country- all because we have proven to be the Best of the Best. That's why we cost a little more. as long as our Gov't or th eTop brass do not undercut US, we are the Greatest producers in the World. Had GM gone with the Electric Car in the '80's- Our Line would have built the Best. Even though an auto worker may work for Toyota, they got a 1966 Ford Mustang in the Garage just waiting for the next check to finish off that duel exhaust system. How many orginal models of these other foreign corps do you see flaunted on the roads come spring? How many times have you seen a revamped Model T? Or Studebaker...Far more.
Now the Repugs in congress have sold their souls, along with our country,it's workers and consumers to the Foreign Market. Importing more Shit products than allowing US to create or manufacture. This is the definition of 'UNAMERICAN"!!! They have killed the access to average citizens (Mom& Pops) to OUR Free Market. 'For the People and By the People' is not just a description of our Governing philosophy, but also our Free market ideology and handed it over to the Family Crest Corps and their Foreign Sponsors!!!
The REpugs Retain their Gang Color because it matches their RED COATS!!!!

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If you are not eating things from the outer edgesof the grocery,then you deserve what you get. If it was not just picked from where it grew, and brought to the store, then it is unfit to consume. If it was ground up, processed, and "manufactured" then it ain't food. If anything was added to it, then it is not food. If it is not a whole cut of meat, but ground up, then it is not food.
If you smear anything on your face, or your body, then you interfere with the function of your skin. Cosmetics are almost unregulated, based on a false assumption that skin is a complete barrier. Skin can be a worse place for contaminant chemicals than your stomach, because your digestion can process and eliminate many things. Skin cannot do this, but absorbs many things straight away.
Seems like the real "contamination" is the one between people's ears when they even need such an article. Right up there with "military intelligence" and "processed food" should be "trusted brands". If it has a label, then there is something to hide. If there is large print on the label, those are the lies. If there is print too small to read, then that is something close to the truth, that is legally required to be there.
If you can't buy your food from a local farm, then grow your own. Drop by that local farm often during the year. Surprise the farmer and see what he is up to, ask questions. If he/she seems evasive, then don't buy from them. In all cases . . . BUYER BEWARE . . . BUYER BEWARE . . . BUYER BEWARE ! ! !

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What if every product had a label that stated not just the name of the front company but the name of the company that owns the front company, and the one that own that one, all the way up to Clorox or whatever? How hard would the big companies fight that?

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Surprise

Much advertising as Amish.
Sorry folks. Manufactured in China.
Amish would not use such heaters.

Talk of misleading ads???

source-Washington Post
in mondays USA.

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Has been keeping track of the buyouts for several years. The site:

http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/

Has three charts, organic owned by big nasty companies, independent organic (the ones to support with all your might), and grocery store brand and other private label organics.

To me, the thing to notice is whether or not the buying or "parent" company messes with the product. When Dean foods bought Horizon Organic, they ruined it. They cut corners on the organic processes and cut down on the cows' access to pasture. They were sued and lost, but I'm just not interested in buying from a company that is badly controlled by a parent company who doesn't believe in the value of organic production.

Burt's Bees and Ben & Jerry's still have the product integrity that made them great in the first place, but the consumer must always be vigilant.

In the end, here are the companies you want, the companies that are bearing the cost of real organic production while industrial scale organics and faux organics undercut them:

http://www.cornucopia.org/graphics/OrganicIndJul07.pdf

Except for these few brave companies, the best thing is to use ingredients instead of products, like glycerin or olive oil for hand and body lotion, olive oil w/ lemon peel for furniture polish, like baking soda for toothpaste, etc. There are whole books about making your own vs. using store products.

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is that some Burt's Bees products, thanks to Clorox, are now complemented by nanotechnology, additives not yet regulated by the FDA, but as science reveals, potentially harmful for human use.

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There are clearly enough news outlets recycling the same political scandals and media manipulations. What is needed is investigative journalism like this that focuses on the real problem in this country, and the world, the privately owned tyrannies collectively called corporations.
Almost every major scandal that one can think of can be traced back to some kind of corporate malfeasance. Considering most of our media is owned by said Corps. how can we be clearly informed? Sites like Alternet have to report on what is not being said.
Advancing stories from the blogospere and the MSM is pointless. That has already been said. All the news fit to print begs the critique what is not fit to print? Cleary it was sale of small grassroots companies to multinationals.

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I purchased a small business just 3 months before the clorox acquisition of Burt's. Joshua Tree Products makes 'organic products for the active life style', and Burt's would be our largest competitor. For us, all of our products are still hand crafted in a small barn, using only 20 amps of electrical service, and no running water. I hope to be able to make a similar claim in 10 years.
This article touched on a very interesting point of capitalism. As Burt's Bees has become available at very large national chain stores, the small 'mom and pop' shops are desperately trying to dump their unsalable inventory, and find new unique companies (like us). Burt's trail of rapid growth has created a vacuum behind them, and there are plenty of small companies, that honestly represent our products and ownership, wiling and eager to fill that void!

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I've heard of dumb NeoCons who like to leave obnoxious bullshit on liberal sites, so they can come back later & use it to suggest that Liberals are chatting about disgusting things in a positive light.

I've also heard of the mildly under-educated who can't tell the difference between a FETUS & AFTERBIRTH.

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*sarcasm* Mmmm, sauteed with olive oil and some onions. That extra goodness only Jehovah can provide! */sarcasm* Silly melpol the troll. Dumber than a bag of hammers.

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melpol the troll?

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That's the exact plot of one of the episodes of Masters of Horror, the series made by great horror directors that aired on Showtime three or four years ago.

Take your disgusting filth out of here.

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The Kashi, Odwalla's certainly were suspicious when they started appearing on shelves next to the companies products that own them. Kudos to the writers of this article for making more aware and popping the bubble of being brand identified.

I use products from mid-sized companies that have been around for ages. Companies like Concord grape juice and Cabbot Cheese dairy. They run with the big boys and are only owned by themselves.

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That's right, folks. At this very moment, USDA regulations are being hashed out in Washington that will put a large swath of genuinely ecological and sustainable small farms out of business. If you like to shop at farmstands, farmer's markets or CSAs, get on the phone TODAY with your elected people in D.C. and tell them to vote no on NAIS regulations and H.B. 875. If these pass, huge numbers of small farmers, beekeepers, free-range chicken raisers, etc. will disappear in the name of "food safety." You can read the NAIS regulations at:

http://nonais.org/sampleflyers/NoNAISHandout.pdf

The website, nonais.org, has info about all of the other dangerous legislation now pending. This is about your right to choose what you eat and who you buy from: your local farmer or Archer-Daniels-Midland.

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I ran a family-owned manufacturing company that sold to hardware and garden supply retailers. That retail industry prior to Home Depot coming on the scene was made up of many small independent operators who valued the connections to their suppliers and the quality of the product. They also allowed you to get a fair price for your goods. When Home Depot came, everything changed. Independent retailers were decimated and the remaining saw their ability to choose products stripped as the co-ops they belonged to - such as Ace or True Value - demanded allegiance to their products of choice (which increasingly, like with Home Depot, came from China). The result was that as a little niche manufacturer the ability to either innovate and receive a salary became more difficult by the year. The beat-up margins also made it difficult to get operating loans from banks who cared little about your business or track record of payment. The only choice was to sell our company. The hardware industry, which used to have enormous innovation and diversity, has stagnated without the ability of a new idea to be tested, grown and sustained from a grassroots retail level.

The costs of gaining shelf space at a Whole Foods, Safeway, Wal Mart or other large retailer is no different than the hardware trade. Buyouts of competing brands, up front ad allowances (which sometimes are not even used to promote your product), end of year performance incentives (up to 5% of sales), terms where you ship and do not get paid for 6 months or more and spoilage allowances are among the many ways that the manufacturer gets chiseled down - all after being held up for the best price. These large mega chains also have a huge distaste for dealing with small firms - they see it as a financial liability - and tell you that to your face.

So in an industry that is consolidating or growing mainstream, the small manufacturer has little choice. Stay independent and become marginalized selling to a shrinking customer base. See the big guys knock off your product and run the category into the ground. Or raise the white flag and sell out.

It is not a fun choice, but such is the system of capitalism and competition that we have created.

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The best thing we can all do is keep buying the organic stuff from the corporations I think... unfortunately it may be the only way they will change... they are too big for competition to exist for very long apparently they can simply buy competition up...

... this whole thing is very frustrating to me- I have always tried to avoid the corporations...

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Currently, there's a bill being brought up by Ron Paul called the HEMP FARMING ACT OF 2009 that will pave the way for growing hemp and lead to producing healthier products and better versions of existing ones out there. If you want to bring Clorox to its knees, then it's time to stop looking at Cannabis as only "pot" and pay attention to its 26,000 industrial uses for a change.

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where big, American firms make a point of *removing all competition by eating it alive*

Should a non-American company begin notice a small firm is beginning to take up more than 4% of "their" markets: American firms will ensure that company DIES.

Until now, the 'eating' was primarily directed at non-American companies... but those days are over... the sharks are circling closer to home & becoming ever more frantically cannibalistic...

a small venture is doomed:

...either it gets beaten to death with underhanded activities
("would you like a deal with our MegaCorp? why, we aren't JUST selling X! sure, you could buy THAT better product from THEM ... OR! you can realize we SELL EVERYTHING: buy THIS from us & you can also get a preferred car deal, a better credit card rate & we'll so steeply undercut our competition & provide your FINANCING, you'll get 2 years of product almost free!!")

OR:

...that MegaCorp decides, well, we can throw some money on this & it will simply be ours. We can ride out, pretend its an 'ethical' competition, or destroy that product, depending entirely on the internal politics of our MegaCorp silo divisions!

"THERE SHALL BE NOTHING LEFT FOR ANYBODY ELSE TO EVER COMPETE WITH US: the marketplace is CORPORATIZED"

its a World where nobody wants to build a company & give it to their children. Its a World where nobody CAN.

The ÜberRiche exist by ensuring WE REMAIN SINGLE GENERATION SUCCESSES
by ensuring THERE IS NEVER ANY ROOM FOR ANYBODY ELSE.

Its rather like stands of massive oak trees who drop thousands, if not millions, of toxic, herbicidal leaves & block out the Sun: kill the competition at all costs.

in a more human term: its economic clearcutting where NOBODY will have opportunity to carve out a future for themselves against a marketplace where THE CORPORATION is the only competitor for every resource...

& you'll be punished for trying.

Remember the Electric Car?




perspective, people.


Perspective.

The Jeff Farias Show: streams FREE & LIVE Mon-Fri, 6-9pmEST

FREE podcast

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It's nothing more than bullshit excuses to keep the rotting status quo. Either get busy living for better or get busy dying ! HEMP HEMP HOORAY !! HEMP HEMP HOORAY !!

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That drive me away from reading Alternet's offerings. Yes, the products are being bought out. Yes, it's probably ruining their quality and integrity. Yes, the whole fucking world is falling apart and modern man is to blame. How about offering some solutions? How about poining out a product that hasn't been destroyed?

Talk is cheap. All you're doing is documenting the iceberg while standing on the deck. Being right about all the problems is meaningless unless that knowledge leads to constructive action.

And if you can't endorse good products without getting yourself into a legal bind, fuck you. Playing by rules when the right thing demands breaking them shows yourself to be complicit with those responsible for creating the problematic rules. The rules were made by men and only have power because men refuse to buck them. If enough people ignore a rule, it goes away.

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should have posted this before, great site with lots of info on personal care products:

http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/index.php

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We all need to be thinking carefully about what direction we want to take when the economy hits bottom - which is going to be much further down and involve much more desperation than most commentators seem to realize or are able to face. As we think about this we need to look squarely at some of the things that have been tried and how they turned out, and use this analysis to shed our illusions so that we don't follow the same paths blindly again.

This article is a contribution to that effort.

Millions of Americans believe in entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs have done amazing things. This is and must be one of the creative engines we harness to the task of reinventing our economy out of the wreckage of the old one. However, the model of the socially-conscious independent entrepreneur building alternative enterprises that will thrive and multiply in the shadow of the great corporations and eventually displace them hasn't worked and won't work, unless we profoundly change the rules of the game.

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Andrea,

Nice piece, and a lot of good research, but please note that the Danone yogurt pulled in Romania due to a dioxin scare was found NOT to contain any dioxin. Also, I'd like to reassure folks (as you did) that Stonyfield continues to keep its mission flags flying, and I ought to know: I hoist those suckers every day when I report to work at the Stonyfield Yogurt Works...We're all still working on behalf of healthy food, healthy people and a healthy planet.

Carmelle

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Pretty soon the whole world will be owned by one huge multi-national / international corporation!!

(~.~)

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I agree with Weathered:

"Act local, buy only essentials."

Sometimes I take online surveys and they'll have a long list of brand names and ask which ones I've purchased in the past six months. It feels good to be able to check the box for "none of the above."

The comment I found most informative was Colleen Whalen's "Shop @ Farmers Markets, Join A Coop & Community Garden Plot." I do "shop at local farmers markets," checked into but haven't been able to join a food coop or CSA, will "start working a community garden plot" soon, and as an apartment dweller, intend to "grow tomatoes, vine berries, herbs in...container pots on...(my little)...balcony."

I've reduced my shopping at Trader Joe's but still go there about once a month and will try to eliminate that completely. I've been buying butter and margarine there and I'm sure I'll find a workaround if I keep looking. I buy veggies at the farmers' market, steam them, and then smear them with butter or margarine because I'm lazy, I'm not much of a cook, and that's a quick and tasty way to eat. I just bought some hempseed oil and I'll try that and see if it works instead of butter or margarine.

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This article was as illuminating as it was overdue. Keep up the good work.

However, you may want to police your advertising contracts more closely, to avoid the following. Could it really have been your intent or even your tolerance to allow an ad for envirodisaster Fiji Water to show up alongside this article?

I'm frankly surprised that AlterNet would allow a Fiji ad at all; to see one next to an article about marketing megaliths was particularly jarring.

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To be frank, all of this is old news. Even the whole sordid Burt's Bees saga was told long ago in this or a similar forum. The fact that it is new news to the writer is not news at all.

What I would have liked to learn about is whether the contents, recipes and production methods of the newly bought brands changed and if so, to what extent. Nothing here about that, however.

In particular, I am a Tom's Toothpaste user-- not because it was eco-friendly but because it was awesome. Though Tom's is more widely available, I'm not sure it's the same Tom's. It doesn't seem to leave me as kissing sweet as it used to-- I ascribe this to a change in ingredients, which probably means less mint oil or whatever they use to mint-ify it. Has anyone else noticed this?

Other than a deterioration in quality or the use of eco-damaging processes in lieu of the original processes, I'm not sure why it matters that the companies are owned by soulless conglomerates. And if the products are changed for the worse, certainly it opens the market for another cottage innovator.

Not to say that Clorox and Coke and the rest aren't scum worthy of being tortured to death, but I'm not sure if buying Bert's Bees and Tom's Toothpaste is a particularly good justification.

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Unlike liberal activism, which calls for a tremendous amount of time and energy in the hopes of reforming people's sinful (apathetic) nature, and that brings very small and useless results in return, confronting the commodification of our daily lives is much more productive - a small amount of effort can cause enormous effects because everyone is caught in this trap, and it is miserable and people want out of it. The more resistant people are to confronting this, the more in love with their own role and status in the system they are. It is a relatively small number of people, but they dominate the Democratic party and liberalism.

It has to do with some messed-up middle class liberal-elite culture of messed-up white people striving and succeeding and living a messed-up so-called lifestyle and being self-indulgent jerks wasting all of our time.

It doesn't take years of study, or deep understanding, or special knowledge, or the right guru, or the right product.

Just look around everyday, all day, everywhere you go. And it doesn't take baby steps, we aren't on the path to anything, we aren't getting there, we aren't improving and all of the rest of that drama.

The hard, miserable work, the really difficult, soul-smashing thing to do, is to keep participating in this ongoing and omnipresent and insane discussion going on all the time by the upwardly mobile good people. It takes a huge amount of thought, time, and energy; it is immensely unpleasant and stressful, to play along and keep propping up an insane world view..... It only sounds weird, or difficult to fathom or grasp, because we are embedded in an ongoing insane set of social interactions.

Modern liberalism is occupying the space where the Left should be, confusing and misleading people, steering people away from accurate perceptions and clouding their minds, preventing them from asking the right questions because they think they already have the answers. That is dead wood that needs clearing. If we are willing to kick over the beehive of modern liberalism you will see the true face and the true nature of the ruling class war against the people with crystal clarity. As it is, we can't even see the enemy now. We are looking out the tent flap watching for the approach of those dreaded right wingers, and the enemy is behind us right in our own tent.

“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

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The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices (Paperback)
by PoliPointPress (Creator), Carol Pott (Editor)

Product Description
Using this pocket directory, consumers can be politically conscientious about something they do every day — shop. The Blue Pages lists companies’ political contributions to the Democratic and Republican parties and rates them by their partisanship. Each listing has a paragraph describing unique features of their business practices that may include charitable causes, social programs, labor practices, domestic partner and child care benefits, nondiscrimination policies, treatment of disabled employees, and environmental impact. Companies are organized alphabetically into 15 sectors, including: Clothing, Shoes, and Accessories, Health and Beauty, Finance, Real Estate and Insurance, and so on, making it easy to find a particular type of product or service. The A to Z index includes thousands of popular brand names and companies. Formatted like the highly successful Zagat Survey restaurant rating guides, The Blue Pages is slim and portable, perfect for backpack, glove compartment, or purse, and an ideal gift for the activist.

Paperback: 303 pages
Publisher: Polipoint Press (December 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0976062119

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If we try to buy only products made in the US as well as brands that are good and socially conscious....are they out there? Can anyone list them?

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Scrooge Mc Duck corners everything in the world, and is now the one and only bazookalillionaire. His food stores consist of hollowed-out caves in which generic white boxes labelled "food", "beer concentrate" "dessert", etc., etc., abound. One brand of automobile makes choices soooo much easier, mass media are unified under the Mc Duck banner, the housing market, fast food restaurants, bowling alleys, movie theatres,etc. are all standardized and consolidated to the point that it doesn't matter where you are in the world; it's all the same anyway. No need to make tough decisions about where to go for your vacation, since you wouldn't see any difference in the other place, anyway. At present, that's where things are headed, in my view. This can be stopped if the mice in our "government" can work up the courage to put a bell on the corporate cat in the form of a revitalized Sherman anti-trust Act freeing, the press from the corporate stranglehold, revoking the personhood of corporations, and informing our people under no uncertain terms that corporate types ARE NOT GOOD PEOPLE, in fact, they're the exact opposite. We've allowed cannibalistic capitalism to grow into an evil, monolithic monster which is robbing us blind. The sooner it's stopped, the better.

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"I am only left to wonder, is Trader Joe's, popularly known to showcase Tom's of Maine in its hygiene department, just as much in the dark about all of this as I have been? Or is Joe's simply another conduit for big corporate products?"

I almost stopped reading right there, in disgust.

Thankfully, I kept reading, & found that while the article contains a whole lot of non-shocking "old news" for someone in the industry, it should be required reading for anyone who thinks that the "natural" brands they buy really do anyone any "greater" good.

This is the reality: If you see it on shelves outside of a few small, local stores, it simply isn't what it implies itself to be. There is no way a small, independent company can do that. Not only due to the sheer scale of production, but because of the cutthroat netherworld of shelving fees, etc. Any delusions that Burt is somewhere putting all that beeswax into jars, just for you, needs to be erased.

Some of these national-scale "natural" products still do some good for the communities they are based in, & in the world of food many solve the scale problem by drawing from a pool of small family farms that grow to their specifications. So the argument could be made that this is an acceptable trade-off.

For those who really want to put their shopping dollar to the best possible use, follow the recommendations of numerous posters on this thread: Join a CSA, visit the farmer's markets (which are popping up everywhere, including the inner cities), or become a member of your local co-op grocery. Buy locally whenever possible, in preference to buying "organics".

You probably won't be able to completely escape the tentacles of these internationally conglomerated "natural" companies, but you'll feel better about your overall choices, as well as your increased knowledge.

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The film and book Road to Wellville talk about this process.

Two short overviews of real people who founded healthfood cereal companies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._W._Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg

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I've been involved in Natural products since I was younger, many decades ago, and there is still one body care company that is not part of a big corporation. Kiss My Face - kissmyface.com

The products are great, the people are great and I have barely aged:) I know that it is difficult for them to stay independent in an era of big companies and big profits, but I'm glad that they're trying!

I'm hopeful that there will always be room for independence.

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thank you, great article, well-written and very informative.

And good reinforcement for me to continue to make my own stuff and to buy local, local, local and unprocessed.

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I once called Hain Celestial Group as an experiment, to find out where their "natural, organic" products come from. I was hoping to learn more about the farms where I get my food and maybe visit a few of them. But unfortunately, as with any major corporation, I was only given general regions, sometimes states, and often just a country. It turns out that I am not allowed to know where my food comes from - organic & natural or not - for "proprietary reasons." Proprietary reasons? Really? I think I'll just stick to local farms from now on.

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I am really trying to purchase only locally made items that I know are independently owned. For me that is Badger Balm products instead of Burt's Bees and Vermont Organic Soap instead of Tom's of Maine and High Mowing Seeds instead of Seeds of Change (owned by M&M Mars)! I'll pay the extra buck or so in order to keep money out of the hands of the conglomerates!

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Great article. Not surprised. A great follow-up article would be to research how some of these "organic,natural, sustainable products" are actually produced.
For example - I would love to know how Dagoba chocolate is produced and if the ingredients are actually organic as stated on the label. Are Dagoba chocolate bars being produced on the same assembly line as Hershey's kisses? If Dagoba chocolate bars were analyzed in a lab, I wonder what the results would be? If pesticide/herbicide residues would be found? Or traces of heavy metals?
Go small - almost all personal hygiene products can be made at home with a couple simple ingredients. I make my own toothpaste, mouthwash, facial cleanser, toner and wrinkle cream. It doesn't take much time (I make mass quantities at a time) and it will save you $$.

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As someone who hunts this sort of hoohah down all the time as part of our family play activities, I'd like to know more about the brand anthropological methodology. I've often just used the internet and Google then another site I can't remember off the top of my head that draws links between the boards of directors of major corporations and metanats. I'm always looking for ways to improve on that research however.

My kids think of bran-anthro as a hobby... they love to track stuff down.

I never know what to make of the whole dilemma so I have to shrink it to my own family's scale: if it makes rich people richer, we're not having it. We're lower class and we're not betraying our interests so some rich asshole can get richer. I don't give a whit's shit if that rich asshole is helping them planet or not. Odds are if he's a rich asshole he ain't, period. Behind every rich person is a crime, all you gotta do is look.

Over the past few years, mostly because we have less and less money all the damned time, we've been downscaling and locavoring more and more. All our nut butters, jams and produce come from people within 50 miles of us and we know the people we buy them from. Cereal grains, same thing. We buy them in bulk off the back of the truck. We still have to use the stores on occasion and we do the best we can to favor smaller companies. Sometimes it's impossible, but surrendering a dime to the owning class is better than tendering a dollar to the bastards so... there it is.

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(in the middle of oklahoma) i knew the jig was up...and that "organic" and "natural" no longer meant what they once did...it's disheartening to realize that i will have to redouble my efforts to keep from spending what little money i have on corporate crap. how long until "fair trade", "shade grown" and other phrases are manipulated by the corporations to suit their branding efforts?

yes, this story deserves much follow-up...

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About 10 years ago, I got 2 new puppies and discovered they were infested with fleas. In spite of my aversion to insecticides, the fleas got so bad they were jumping on my legs when I sat on my bed, they were in all the furniture, and they were getting worse every day, so my husband and I tried a lot of bad stuff.

We couldn't use harsh flea medication because the puppies were too young, but we took them out of the house and set off insecticide bombs everywhere. We got the best flea medicine for the pups' age from the vet and bathed them along with our other dogs. There was no change in the number of fleas.

Fortunately, I had a friend who made her own soap, and I asked her for a recipe. I didn't make my own soap, and I admit to using a the cheapest shampoo I could find (but anyone who wants to do this can get a better option at a healthfood store or co-op), but it was a miracle. Here is the recipe:

8 oz of shampoo of any kind (baby shampoo or Dr. Bronner's is good)
2 drops each the following essential oils
lemon
citronella
cedar
lavender
peppermint

I got the essential oils in a local natural foods store. I bathed all the dogs using the shampoo with oils, and when I got done with each dog, the entire bottom of the tub was covered with dead fleas.

Then I made a spray using 16 oz of water with a couple drops of each of the essential oils. We used it on our carpets, bedding, and furniture every day for about 2 weeks and vacuumed the house nearly every day.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, that was 10 years ago. We have had virtually no flea problem since then. My friend who gave me the recipe said the same thing. In fact the other day, two of the dogs squeezed under my fence, ran off to the neighbor's field, and had a great time rolling in cow dung. They were in great need of a bath, and there was not one flea in the tub when I was done.

The water spray can be used for insect repellent, too. I keep the oils around just in case there's a problem again, for the insect repellent, and when I bath the dogs - although I never see fleas on them. The cost for the oils was about $30, but I shared them with a whole lot of other people.

Compared to fumigating, chemicals, and other solutions, this was fairly inexpensive, absolutely minimally time-consuming, and very, very effective.

I have friends who consistently make their own soap, insect repellents, and other items. It takes research and some time, but for anyone who wants to do it, there are alternatives to big corporation products.

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Anything you see in a chain market is so far past the locally grown and/or produced stage that it would make your head spin. The question isn't whether the bee stuff is owned by a large corporation or not, but is it still good, is it still made the way that attracted you to buy it in the first place. You don't buy something only because it is local but also because it is good. Burt's Bees stopped being a local company (although it was still owned by its founders) long before it sold out to clorox. Is clorox still making it good or have they filled it full of wierd stuff so they can make it cheaper and earned at bigger cut.

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I love Burt's Bees products, and until they were originally bought out, it was hard for me to find them. I am trusting that the product is still made to the same standards, but its hard to trust major multi-national corporations to maintain integrity. And, their track record for socially positive practices is very poor. However, until I learn differently, I'm not giving up my Burt's Bee's lipstick!

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destruction of small town America. Maybe this might not make sense to some but when I noticed the rural areas of MO depopulating while at the same time even more corporate buyouts of small mom-and-pop stores and businesses kept going unabated. Every time I have to travel through small town America upon visiting my folks, the places look more ghostly and even more depressing than the last time around. The big multinationals are buying out and privatizing both land and competition from small business and then they're conspiring with those Malthusian freaks to blame population for everything. I was disgusted the other day when Alternet posted a pro-Malthusian article when they should have known better. How long will society allow the corporate elites to crowd everyone into suburban sprawl and urban ghetto hell while at the same time greenwashing them? When we all try to solve this mess, we must keep both the economics and the environment in mind. Someone earlier pointed out hemp and I would add that algae for biocrude is another great idea. Unfortunately, like small business and a real growth of small towns, decentralization is the key and sadly, Washington is dead set against it. DECENTRALIZE DECENTRALIZE DECENTRALIZE !!

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I've never been more impressed by an article and its respective comments since I began reading the site daily since I can't remember. It makes me want to save the comments with the wealth of information or at least wish they were in a form easy to access like a webforum. That would be a great improvement to the discussion area.

Again, great article.

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Small company - family owned and opperated - product made in USA - OVER 60 YEARS in the business. Not to mention...it works!

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I like getting the Organic Consumers Newsletter to know more about the food regulations that are going down. Several years ago they posted this
chart at www.organicconsumers.org. Go to this link to see poster

linkedtext
We had the chart on our fridge and people were always surprised to see how the little companies have been sucked up by big ones.
I'd like to think that Nature's Path in Canada is still a good company to buy from--anyone know?
Amazing how many posts have appeared in one day! We all seem to care about this topic.

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I saw some Burt's Bees sunscreen at the grocery. It was labeled "Chemical Free". It seems if it was really chemical free that a tube would weigh a lot less than 8 ounces.

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completely erased in the last 10 years. Nowadays, about the only thing organic my husband and I can find are in the big grocery stores as the farmland is being run down so that more DOD government buildings and defense contractors can be installed. This is going to be very messy and devastating because this is exactly what happened to Fairfax County, VA and the sprawl and rot are spreading like wildfire. To add insult to the injury, we're being given fake "organic" crap all the while local small store owners and farmers are being kicked to the curb. Thank you Alternet for pointing out the ongoing greenwashing fraud.

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Back in the '80s, I used to hang out with an older, blind friend who shared my love for music. He would laugh and talk about bands he'd listened to "back in the day" and how they'd become popular enough to be played on the radio. Naturally, many of his other music-loving "I remember them when they couldn't draw a crowd" friends had many opinions about the now-popular bands. The most common opinion was that they had "sold out."

It's charming to expect hard working people to stay poor forever so our collective conscience can be soothed, but the fact is that most self-employed people would like to eventually get to bed at a decent hour and not cringe every time the mail brings a bill or a tax statement. Hell, I know I'd like to indulge in that thing called "health insurance." If I get a really good paying job with a big company, will that mean I've "sold out?"

There's a lot of bad that can be said about some of the mega corps that dominate our consumer realities -- but I'm kinda at a loss as to what those things are in the case of paying good money for good products that fit with my environmental morality. Who's the bad guy here? The big company for buying and maintaining an ethical brand -- or the original owners of that ethical brand for wanting to do something other than work themselves to death?

Maybe there doesn't have to be a bad guy?

I hear similar complaints in my line of work as a reviewer for adult videos and other products. People complain loudly about how there's nothing that satisfies their personal view of sexuality -- but they ignore or simply refuse to invest in products that do precisely that! Then the product either vanishes or "sells out."

Personally, I say put your money where your moral values are... and don't bitch so much when the little guy finally gets a chance to savor financial success.

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In my community, there is a chain supermarket, and two independent ones. One of the independents has lots of organic produce and sells local in season, plus their own baked goods, store-made prepared food, deli salads, store-cured meats, etc. The other is a hole-in-the-wall with unusual frozen things and gorgeous meat and fish, local milk and eggs (my egg man lives down the road, where, when the weather is warm enough, I can actually see "the girls", about twenty of them, running around as I pick up their eggs from a fridge in a trailer at the end of his driveway, self-serve, please return the carton. Paradise.)

Except for the egg man who charges only two bucks a dozen, everything at the independents is a little more expensive than at the chain, but the neighborhood buys there anyway, because we wouldn't want to live without them.

But here's the thing: The local pop-stand and driving range sold out a while ago, and we know that a Stop $ Shop is coming to the spot. It's been a long time coming, passed all it's permits, jumped through all the hoops, etc. But it's going to disrupt traffic, be a nuisance to the abutters--quiet one-family homes on small lots, and take business from the locally owned markets. WE DID NOT NEEEEEED A STOP $ SHOP!! AND MOST OF US DO NOT WANT ONE.

We've got lawn signs up saying Stop Stop $ Shop, and we harass our little town moderators and we scream and holler at the town meetings, but it's a done deal. They're going to build it this Spring. (Oooh! I just thought of something! We can lie in front of the bulldozers! I'M SERIOUS!!)

Back to business: This is the critical thing, and sooner or later a lot of us will have to face it. I've made a commitment to pay a little more so that my locals can continue to thrive. We who aren't in a critical money situation need to take the time and the trouble to go two or three places to complete our shopping and spend the extra money to keep the independents going.

It's vitally important that we do that, so when this situation comes to a street near you, start the rabble, picket the lot, do the best you can, and don't let the independents die.

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According to legend, he went around (circa early 19th century?) giving out apple seeds and encouraging settlers to plant them.

I have two apple trees in my very small back garden (approx 17' x 35') and four hens.

My generation was brought up upon stories such as Johnny Appleseed, Helen Keller and Balto the Wonderdog, not Paris Hilton. Lucky us!

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the agribusiness lobby was instrumental in stalling the Agriculture appropriations bill until it included a segment that allowed the use of synthetic substitute ingredients when the organic ingredients were not immediately available. There were 36 ingredients listed, and then even though the ingredients weren't organic, the labeling was, "organic". This shows the influence of the agribusiness machine.

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Coke says that it has achieved 10 percent of the total liquid intake of the world"

I first heard this figure from Maude Barlow in the excellent documentary, Blue Gold: World Water Wars.

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I kept hoping in the midst of the various takes on carnivorous corporations we would get a a little more of the Burt and Roxanne back story. Something in the time frame of when Burt the bee keeper turns good samaritan to the end of the "sticky" part.

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It seems a bit hypocritical for the US public to express moral outrage at the successful mega-corporations' profiteering. It doesn't take a genius to project the 'destruction' that a Walmart or a Target or some other 'super-discount' giant will exact on a local community. "HOWEVER," the all-too-typical retort runs, "at the 'giant' we can get 'more' for our buck, it offers more 'variety'" - despite the fact that it is probably only in labels - "it's more convenient, ...."
Generally, the US consumers' behaviour is virtually the same as the CEOs of the conglomerates.... It was this behaviour that put them there! Yes, it costs more at the 'Mom n' Pop,' but the money spent is not only a vehicle for feeding my children, but for sustaining the social, economic, ecological fabric that articulates the socio-political animal that Aristotle said we were - something that money CANNOT buy!! To NOT be conscious of such a banal, such a mundane, a garden fact is, nowadays, simply unconscionable....
If not as elementary a fact as the dangers of second-hand smoke, it is even more transparent a fact that "consumption" is a morally assessable activity!
Folks, wake up! Read labels, buy genuinely 'local'! Recognize your responsibility for the world's ills and begin to contribute therapy!!

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Arrowhead was once produced in San Bernardino California where seven stainless steel pipes would bring water down from seven springs in the San Bernardino mountians. It was then loaded into stainless stel tankers and shippied to Santa Ana and Los Angeles where it was bottled and distributed.

Arrowhead water is now owned by Nestle Corporation and the only thing you can be sure of is that it is bottled somewhere in the United States from some undisclosed source.

It may be better tp go back tp tap water and work on improving the delivery system so that the need for bottled water is obviated.

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You folksy folks are looking at the "glass half empty"! You might recognize that these once "small market" products have now introduced millions and millions of people to the ideas of "organics" and "sustainability" who would otherwise have never considered them at all! This could be a good thing. Don't let it get your organic cotton panties in a twist, as the end of the story is yet to be written.
Aloha

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It looks like voting with one's pocketbook has gotten rather complicated as capitalism once again incorporates a popular trend.

Usually this process sucks out the core of any independent movement. Look what it's done to "rock and roll," for instance, or "peace and love" in the '70s and currently. As we speak the peace sign is again becoming a hot commodity, and irrelevant, as it bleeds value and meaning.

I think we should buy less and also try to buy local. But I also think we should be cognizant of the relationship between activism and shopping. Too much emphasis has been on buying.

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This kind of thing has been going on for decades.

The elites carefully watch the trends and the entrepreneurs who cater to "early adopters". When it's time for the product to go mainstream, the elites get together with the entrepreneurs and cut a deal for the small business to be consolidated into the big business. This is considered "just the way it is" because Thatcher said "there are no alternatives", etc.

Since greed is good in the USA, USans settle for the bait: not to grow a business to serve the society, but to grow one to sell later for riches. This is a very important element of the USA's grave problem today because so many USans are driven by the entrepreneurial call, and poor conditions for workers are tolerated precisely because USans have this entrepreneurial opportunity as an option.

People can avoid contributing to this problem by patronizing only the authentic small businesses. Civic-minded people can build systems that help us train ourselves to recognize athentic small businesses, and also build systems that help small businesses compete.

If you look for example at the Japanese economy, some great majority, perhaps as high as 90%, of the domestic markets are served by small businesses. The Japanese godzilla corporations serve mostly export. The Japanese have long protected themselves, at least comparatively, from the social breakdown that comes with elite domination of markets and society.

But Japan is not the only society that puts a priority on protecting itself from elite greed. Many societies on the planet seem to recognize the importance of localism, despite US attempts to spread the globalism gospel.

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. . . to learn that large national brands are the property of large national (or international) corporations? What else would you expect? The fact that products are advertised as "organic" or "healthful" doesn't change the economics. Those words are just marketing tools (and obviously successful ones). The alternative would be to buy products that really are produced by small, local companies or individuals. Once a company becomes large enough to sell its products in stores all across the country, it becomes large enough to attract the interest of corporate giants who want to own everything and who usually get their way in the "free" market.

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As long as the product ingredients are good who cares? The Beatles were signed to Capitol records whose original founders actually did attempt to put a stop to rock and roll in the fifties...too much competition to Sinatra, Cole, Mercer etc..so what happpened? They eventually bought in with the Beach Boys, then the Beatles.

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With the highest unemployment rate at 10.1% -- the highest in 26 years and only the beginning -- the California Republican Assembly members under the leadership of Mike Villenes, defeated the bill to provide stimulus funds to extending unemployment benefits for 20 extra weeks.

As a resident of California, I can assure you that the picture is bleak. Business after business is either closing their doors, laying off workers or issuing hiring freezes. The cost of living is higher in most cities here than anywhere else in the U.S. except perhaps N.Y.C.

If you are a California resident, please take the time to call or write your state Assembly member and demand they do the right thing by the residents of California.

This could mean the difference between a family losing the roof over their head, a child eating a hot meal. We cannot allow the GOP to continue to create crises after crises while lining their pockets with corporate bribes and taxpayers funds.

Please, take a moment and share your thoughts with these people whom, quite simply, have no sense of humanity.

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None of this is astonishing, but it is definitely nauseating.... Muchn of the planet is run by huge corporations, who in turn control the "free" market.

Any resistance to these individual-less "corporations" is met by an accusation of "socialism" and has been for the past 150 years or so. The news media have conscientiously avoided touching the subject, big remains beautiful...

We all had read Brave New World, right? Did we understand it?

The only resistance lies in boycotting. That takes education and discipline. Which are sorely lacking in our society.

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Let me add a little story from Munich, Germany: Tapwater there is EXCELLENT. Thanks to a 19th-century engineer named Pettenkofer, the city's water comes from the mountains, from a river called the Mangfall.

The locval water utility ran a campaign a few years back pointing out that the water from Munich's taps was far better than the stuff people were buying from markets. The water bottlers banded together and forced the utility to stop running the ads.

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The second paragraph begins, "Before the eyesore invasion of '98, when Starbucks frothed its way into the neighborhood, leading to its ultimate demise, Westport was the kind of 'hood I still yearn for." Demise of Westport or Starbucks? The Starbucks is gone now. Starbucks was not able to drive the Broadway Cafe out of business & Broadway Cafe is still there.

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In the end, anyone who thinks they are going to be able to consistently get wholesome, ethical, natural, organic (pick your own cliche) at the end of a cross country or international supply chain is deluding themselves. You can't live in SOHO or the L.A. burbs and expect to find the good wholesome ethically produced stuff at down the street, at least not very often or for very long. The only way to do that is buy seasonally and direct from a local producer you know. Otherwise all we can do is shop carefully and except the trade offs.

Corporations are just meeting a demand. That's their job...

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I recently traveled to central Europe, including Switzerland. Of course I had to buy some Swiss chocolate to bring back. I made a hurried stop at a large local supermarket chain (Co-Op) on my way out of the country (to burn off Swiss Francs) and bought a selection of various kinds of chocolates by a local candy maker I had never heard of in the States - Cailler. Turned out to be the BEST chocolate I or any of the people I gave some to had ever had.

Not being sold retail in the U. S., I assumed that it was a strictly local Swiss product so I decided to search it out on the internet to see if I could mail-order some more. Well, you either guessed or know that Cailler is owned by Nestle, which I could have found out if I had bothered to look at the incredibly small print on one of the boxes. Being a true chocaholic, I still tried to see if I could import some of the varieties I had bought locally in Switzerland. Going through the Nestle and Cailler websites, it becomes clear that they tightly control which varieties they are even willing to sell by mail-order to the U. S. They say they choose to market by the tastes of the countries they are operating in. I guess that means Nestle sells the blander type chocolates here, and the real deal only over there. Just another way multi-nationals take away variety and choice. Callier has been owned by Nestle since 1929. Yes, I was somewhat chagrinned to learn that I really loved something made by them, but their cordial cherries (Eden Kirsch) are to die for!

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I don't believe the author's intent was to stop everyone from buying these products. That would be a little unrealistic, given that all of us would essentially have to stop brushing our teeth. I think what she was trying to do, was to simply raise awareness about what we, as the consumer, are actually dumping our money into. We have the right to know these facts that have been intentionally masked from us for obvious reasons. I've always been willing to spend extra money on a product if I knew that I was spending it in order to support the little guy. The 'big guys' would be moronic if they did massive changes to the original products and they are fully aware of that...they don't want us to know that their names are associated with these products, because they fear the 'gig’ would be up and people would view the product differently, losing its once original appeal beyond the ingredients. These massive corporations see our environment and our health as an 'image'. They consider this a trend they need to become a part of in order to make mad amounts of cash that the organic/natural/health food (product) industry is producing. The important thing to concentrate on is that they don't want to 'green' their other products. Clorox defended its’ massive takeover of Burt’s Bees saying they bought Burt’s in order to 'green their image', which baffles me, because I simply can't understand how my health or our environment was ever an issue of 'image'. That's all marketing strategy and in that sense, she is correct; we have been fooled.

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You bet tap water is of higher quality than bottled. I'm a cyclist, and when I used bottled water in my bicycle water bottles but forgot to empty them, in a day or two those bottles would stink like hell! However, when I used good ol' tap water, no smell after even four days.

Sure, there's more chlorine in tap water, and it doesn't always taste as good (although there's a "mountain spring water" company local to here whose water tastes EXACTLY like tap water!); but at least I won't get "the trots" from drinking tap water. And I save two bucks to boot!

The answer to tap water taste? One word: Brita.

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Smuckers bought Knudsen over 20 years ago. Smuckers left the company in Chico, Ca and allowed management (the Knudsen family) to remain in place. More importantly Smuckers didn't force Knudsen to change their good ingredient or organic standards. Sure they tried to make a go of a Knudsen jam but nothing was heavy handed. Smuckers even allowed Knudsen to buy their local rivals - the Heinke company - instead of just running their neighbors into the ground like they could have and just stealing their market share

Muir Glen is an example of corporate criminality. After the company was absorbed into the belly of the beast the new parent shuttered the small high quality canning facility and substituted lower quality (but certified organic) tomato products. Not content with that dilution they added sugar aka "evaporated cane juice" to all the tomato sauce products and had the balls to come out with a line of sugar laced canned soups.

Hain (and they own dozens of brands) is nothing but a marketing company with no concern for anything but profits. It is a shame so many companies built by idealistic entrapeneurs have ended up in their dead hands.

I would like to see a label requirement disclosing the ultimate owner of a brand.

There are still good independent companies on the shelves - Eden foods, Natures path, Traditional Medicinals plus lots of quirky new start ups.

Don't give up and vote with your dollars.

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By this logic, writer Andrea Whitfill will never allow her work to be published by HarperCollins because that highly independent imprint is really owned by the evil Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. Look, don't we want big corporations that sell dangerous products to switch to selling sustainable, non-toxic, organic products? Of course we do! So when that corporate monster buys an organic brand -- let yourself feel good about it. If they change the ingredients or otherwise reduce the quality, that's a different story. But writer Whitfill doesn't accuse them of doing that. All the more reason she should stop complaining.

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You must have just skimmed the article, Mr. Schnitzer, or you couldn't have come to the conclusion that Ms. Whitfill was complaining. What I heard her say was that there was an ethical responsibility to inform the public. In today's economic and political environment, the term "transparency" has become a buzzword... but I'll use it anyway. There appears to be no transparency in the various corporate giants' business dealings which are the subject of Ms. Whitfill's article.

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This is a good article on a disturbing trend in ownership of natural food and product sources. However, she hardly demonstrates the main concern that these companies might be messing with the standards and purity of the product lines they have bought. There have been instances of that, Horizon Milk for one, but she only mentions one directly. It's more guilt by association. In the short term tampering would devalue their investment. On the other hand corporate history shows that over time there may be pressure to do just that. Kelloggs, for example, was originally a very healthy cereal, but an ownership split took it down the road to mediocrity and near junk food status; until popular awareness forced them to get some of the sugar out.
What she needs to show is that x product actually uses inferior ingredients now they have been bought out. On the other hand many bought out companies maintain their former values as long as they keep the money profits flowing-but they are vulnerable.
Consolidation does result in workforce shrinkage. Odwalla is an example, when it bought a small local juice company in Bellingham, WA. it closed down the local juice plant used it as a warehouse and laid off most of the staff. By the way contracts with Odwalla were banned by the Pentagon for sanitary inadequacies, and it never was organic just a cutsy label. All this happened before Odwalla itself was gobbled up; small players can play badly too.

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Corporatization is going on not just in the prepared foods and personal products businesses, but to our great dismay and alarm it is going on in the garden seed business as well.

Barbara Kingsolver recounts in her non-fiction book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" that many of our favorite seed catalogs are supplied by Monsanto, that purveyor of gentically-modified "Roundup Ready" seeds. She says,

". . . Home gardeners . . rarely suspect when placing seed orders from Johnny's, Territorial, Nichols, Stokes, and dozens of other catalogs that they're likely buying from Monsanto. In its 2005 annual report, Monsanto describes its creation of American Seeds Inc. as a licensing channel that "allows us to marry our technology with the high-touch, local face of regional seed companies." (p. 32)

Folks who buy heirloom variety seeds and grow organically are not likely to welcome either corporate control or Monsanto's "technology" - genetic modifications that are often calculated to extend Monsanto's power over the supply and characteristics of seeds.

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So, does one have to be driven by a higher power, or just totally ..., to resist the temptation to sell out?

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Great article, thank you Andrea.

If you're from the central PA region, I've written a book called going LOCAL! it's about locally owned eateries, pubs and cafes. However, I'm working on a new book now to debut this fall about how to support local farms, farmers and food producers while eating at home and enjoying a healthy meal alone, with friends, or family. The title will be growing LOCAL! An Adventurer’s Guide for the Modern Hunter Gatherer; Farmers’ Markets, Family Farms and Eating Fresh in Central PA. I'll be exploring and researching for it all spring and summer, and am excited to publish it and share my findings. If you're interested in supporting my efforts, please go to my website and click "contact" or email me direct at ken@kenhull.com to be put on my email list in order for me to keep you posted.

Thank You!
Ken

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It's curious that the reasons you give for choosing the products you favored revolve almost entirely around their producers' relative sizes and origin narratives. You mention next to nothing about the contents of the products or the processes by which they're produced and distributed, either before or after the buyouts. Forgive me, but are you not simply buying into a different and more self-flattering branding campaign? Your point about the size of businesses and support of local entrepeneurship -- this isn't exactly what you call it, but I take it it's what you mean -- is certainly valid, but unless you want to drive to Maine to get your toothpaste and your lip balm there are going to be some ethically gray maneuverings in your shopping. (Come to think of it, it'd be a little ethically gray to drive to Maine for your toothpaste and lip balm, unless of course you live in Vermont or New Hampshire.)

The meat of the matter is what goes into the products, how and by whom they're produced, how and by whom they're brought to market. You haven't given us any information to judge whether those factors have changed for better or for worse (or not at all, though that seems unlikely) in these cases. Until you do, it's sophomoric to pass judgment. If Tom's toothpaste contains well chosen and well sourced ingredients and the new ownership allows such a superior product to get into the hands of greater numbers of toothbrushers, might that not be, on balance, a good thing? Might it not help develop a sorely needed market for such products, and encourage other entrepeneurs with the prospect of scale and success?

I don't mean to suggest that it's an uncomplicated issue -- quite the opposite, in fact. A more thorough examination seems worthwhile.

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The following is an excerpt from a story written for Salt Lake City Weekly in December of 2006, called The Organic Sham. Is this an uncanny coincidence, or convenient intellectual theft on the part of Andrea Whitfill?

WAITER, THERE'S A CORPORATION IN MY GRANOLA

"The organics movement flew under the radar of mega-food producers for years. As far as big business was concerned, this faction was no more than a few hippies raising limp, bug-ridden vegetables on the tiniest parcels of land. These scrappy idealists were hardly competition.

Over time, however, and as the popularity and purported benefits of organic foods crested to new sales figure heights, big business woke up. Today, the organics movement has become a victim of its own success, with corporate dogs tearing at each other for profits.

Cascadian Farms is a popular natural and organic foods brand, one that has been around for a long time fighting the good fight. It says so, right there on the box. The cereal is healthful and tasty. The copy and graphics on the box are warm and comforting. Together, they assure you of your wise investment in the product. Chewing your breakfast, you're satisfied that you've spent twice what you could have on another brand because the story on the back of the box reads like a hearty pat on the back.

Since 1972, the story goes, Cascadian Farms has been producing small batches of all-natural goodness you can be proud of. It goes on to pledge that, even today, its goal is to provide you with natural foodstuffs you can believe in because, well, these guys are a small, grass-roots sort of people. And you know whatever they do with the money you spent their way, it'll be a good thing.

What you might not know is that this company no longer exists in its original form - it was bought out by Small Planet Foods, whose principal stockholder is General Mills, which in turn is owned primarily by such companies as Chevron, Disney, DuPont, ExxonMobile, General Electric, McDonald's, Monsanto, Nike, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Phillip Morris, Starbucks, Target and Texas Instruments.

Why didn't Cascadian Farms mention that on the back of its cereal box? And are these companies, some of which manufacture pesticides, cigarettes and weapons, ones you would trust to help propagate quality standards within the organic and natural foods industry?

Take a look at a few more products that a shopper of organic and natural foods might recognize: Garden of Eatin', Health Valley, Terra Chips, Westbrae, Celestial Seasonings and more are all owned by Hain Food Group, whose principal stockholders include Bank of America, Entergy Nuclear, ExxonMobile, H.J. Heinz, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Monsanto, Pfizer, Phillip Morris, Citigroup and Wal-Mart. Balance Bar and Boca Burger are both owned by Kraft Foods, whose principal stockholder is Phillip Morris, home of the Marlboro Man.

Horizon Dairy and Silk Soy Milk are owned by Dean Foods, whose stockholders include Home Depot, Exxon Mobile, General Electric, Microsoft, Phillip Morris and Wal-Mart.

Kashi is owned by Kellogg's. Knudsen is owned by Smucker's. Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola. Seeds of Change is owned by M&M Mars. Ben & Jerry's is owned by Unilever. The "small is beautiful" ethos behind the organic movement is almost a relic of its past.

The list goes on and, though the small company names change from box to box as you peruse the aisles, one thing remains constant: incestuous corporate parenthood.

Some would argue that the interest of large corporations in the organics industry is a move in the right direction, that more money and power available is a means to not only sustain, but expand the market. Yet there's evidence of political maneuvering perpetrated by lobbyists and other interest groups who either work for or are affiliated..."

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Just wondering whether anyone has compiled a list of companies in the natural food industry who haven't sold out. I'd very much like to become even more conscious in my shopping habits and avoid sellouts altogether.

Thanks
Lori

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I think the Cornucopia comment has it right; do your due diligence when it comes to "organic" products (or anything else involving money) and you'll be a lot happier. With the internet at your fingertips, there is no excuse for "not knowing" anything about products or services important to you. Keep your bullshit detector turned to "10" and pay attention. And just the fact a company buys out your local beekeeper doesn't mean the end of the world. All this whining about "greedy" corporations is naive. There is only one reason to form a company and start selling your honey, avocado facial or whatever; it's to make money. That's what companies are for, after all. It's the people in the companies who do all that intangible stuff that makes them "good" or "bad". You don't have to become an organic farmer with a generating windmill to keep yourself "pure". Just make sure you stay in touch with your political representatives, cultivate good media skills and, once again, keep your bullshit detector turned to "10".
One last remark about guys like Burt of "Burt's Bees". Their not greedy or lazy; they're outgunned. If they want to stay in business and keep selling honey, they can. But if they want to grow into a regional firm with annual sales of 10-15 million and maybe even go public, then you're going to start smelling pretty good to one of those money machine corporations out there trolling for profit centers. Those guys can bump you into the corners so hard and so often, you'll want to give up. You have to choose; run with the big dogs or stay on the porch. Burt likes it on the porch but his girlfriend likes to run with the big ones. So who's "good" and who's "bad" in this scenario?

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Andrea says that Odwalla isn't fresh squeezed. I did a little research by looking on the gallon jug of Odwalla that I just bought at Costco, and it says it is "100% pure squeezed". Odwalla's main squeeze used to be that it was NOT pasteurized, and tasted truly fresh. It was my impression that Coke bought Odwalla after Odwalla's reputation was badly besmirched by an E coli o157 outbreak arising from some Odwalla product. The Founder had always insisted that the low pH of orange juice made pasteurization unnecessary. He was wrong, and now when you walk up to an Odwalla outpost -- e.g. the Odwalla distribution point at Fifth and Harrison Streets in Berkeley, CA -- and ask a random sample of employees who the Founder of Odwalla was, or is, they have NO idea. Coke should get a little credit, even, maybe, for rescuing that brand. Well, maybe that's going a little far, but it's always been pretty good juice. Makes me wonder about Trader Joe's, selling unpasteurized OJ, albeit right next to their pasteurized Oj.

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