I wrote a brief note to Back to Nature (now owned by Kraft) to ask them a simple question about the derivation of the “natural flavors” in their products:

Is your Cherry Vanilla granola vegan? Everything on there looks to be except for the always-questionable “natural flavors.” Are any of these natural flavors animal-derived (including dairy, eggs, or honey)?

Their response:

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for visiting http://www.backtonaturefoods.com.

At this time, we don’t claim any BACK TO NATURE Brand products as “vegan”.

However, in the future, as we re-evaluate the labeling of our products, we may choose to list a vegan status should any of our brands qualify to carry that label.

Thanks for your inquiry about our ingredient lines.

If you haven’t done so already, please add our site to your favorites and visit us again soon!

Kim McMiller
Associate Director, Consumer Relations

For some reason, I think if Back to Nature were still a small company, the response would have been a little bit more informative.

From the WTF?!!! Files:

This week I picked up some O’Soy yogurt, as I occasionally do. But I was stunned when my wife pointed this out on the label:

It reads: “Contains milk (our active live cultures are milk-based).”

Perhaps it was naive of me to assume that soy yogurt would be, you know, non-dairy. But I guess you can’t trust a company who makes the bulk of their money from selling milk. Needless to say, there’s no way I’ll be buying any of their products going forward and they’ll definitely be receiving a call at 1-800-PRO-COWS (happy milk!) tomorrow. Might I encourage you to do the same to register your displeasure? And spread the word?

This is either a new thing or something they just decided to start divulging, as I definitely don’t recall seeing this on the label before.

I’m getting to the point where I feel like I can only trust vegan companies. Maybe Chicago Soy Dairy will start making yogurt?

I was watching TV the other night when an ad for Honey Nut Cheerios came on. It took place at a baseball game and showed a guy sitting in the stands eating cereal with milk pumped into his bowl via a beer-helmet-like device. Notice anything strange about this screenshot?:

The milk cartons are labeled “Dairy Milk.” Why? Do cow’s milk containers in the store ever read explicitly “dairy milk”? My guess is that the dairy industry is still angry that soy, nut, and rice beverages are allowed to be sold as “milk” and they somehow worked out a deal to get the generic cartons in this ad to specify “dairy milk” lest anyone think this guy would–*gasp*–be drinking soy milk.

Am I alone in my conspiracy theory here? I’d love to track down the firm behind this ad and ask them about it.

I suspect everyone with a veg-themed blog will be thwacking this terrible NY Times op-ed piece.  I know Erik has, though I haven’t had a chance to listen yet and Isa took a good shot that I read earlier this morning.  Here’s what I’ve got to add, with apologies for repeating any arguments you may have read elsewhere.

Nina Planck is the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and Why.”

I wanted to start with the byline.  Please note that this was written by somebody with something to sell.  She has no formal training in nutrition (note: neither do I, but I’m not writing books about the subject).  Just saying.

I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

This is purely anecdotal evidence, but everyone I’ve ever met who was “once a vegan” either a.) really wasn’t a vegan or b.) did it for a couple weeks for health purposes (never mind that veganism is an ethical way of life and not just a diet).  I’d like to hear a little bit more about her stint as a vegan.  I’m really curious because she must have been doing something pretty wrong in her own diet to conclude that it was “irresponsible” to be a pregnant vegan.

There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.

Source please?  I suspect it’s less a reason of a vegan diet’s adequacy and more a reason of availability, control of food production, or reliance on historical/cultural precedent.  Our current world is much different than it was even 100 years ago.

Besides, if she says a vegan diet’s not adequate in the long run, she might want to read up on Donald Watson.  I’d say mid-90s classifies as the “long run.”  And what’s interesting is that I’m still trying to find these vegans with deficiencies.  It’s a lot easier to find omnis suffering from excesses.

Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.

I believe that this idea of “first class” and “second class” proteins goes along with the outdated notion of protein combining en vogue in the 1970s.  As long as you’re eating a varied diet of primarily whole foods, protein’s not an issue.  Back in 1982, Francis Lappe updated her classic Diet for a Small Planet to note that “In all other diets [other than fruit-based, tuber-based, or junk food-based], if people are getting enough calories, they are virtually certain of getting enough protein.”

A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods;

A lot of this is due to the pesticides we use when growing vegetables, which makes them unsafe to eat unless they’re thoroughly cleaned.  However, a simple supplement takes care of this without much problem.

usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.

Vitamins A and D as well as calcium and zinc are easy to get in a vegan diet.

Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development.

Most people can properly convert the Omega-3s in flax seed into EPA and DHA, but even for those that can’t, there are a number of vegan sources.

A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though — perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)

Again, I’d like to see a source quoted here, but I’m willing to bet it’s somehow tied to the dairy industry (as most anti-soy studies so far have been).  John Robbins has some useful info about mineral absorption and soy:

It is true that soybeans are high in phytates, as are many plant foods such as other beans, grains, nuts and seeds, and it is true that phytates can block the uptake of essential minerals, and particularly zinc. This would be a problem if a person consumed large amounts of phytates; for example, if they ate nothing but soybeans or wheat bran. But the phytic acid levels found in a plant-based diet including a serving or two of soy a day are not high enough to cause mineral absorption problems for most people eating varied diets. Furthermore, when soy products are fermented - as they are in tempeh, miso, and many other soyfoods - phytate levels are reduced to about a third their initial level. Other methods of soy preparation such as soaking, roasting and sprouting also significantly reduce phytate content.

While phytates can compromise mineral absorption to some degree, there is absolutely no reliable evidence that vegetarians who eat soyfoods “risk severe mineral deficiencies.” The complete adequacy of vegetarian diets is now so thoroughly proven and documented that even the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has acknowledged the legitimacy of meatless diets. In an official statement, these representatives of the beef industry declared, “Well planned vegetarian diets can meet dietary recommendations for essential nutrients.”

Back to Ms. Planck:

Historically, diet honored tradition: we ate the foods that our mothers, and their mothers, ate. Now, your neighbor or sibling may be a meat-eater or vegetarian, may ferment his foods or eat them raw. This fragmentation of the American menu reflects admirable diversity and tolerance, but food is more important than fashion. Though it’s not politically correct to say so, all diets are not created equal.

‘Tis true, but take a look at a whole foods vegan diet versus any of the fad diets and you’ll see one major difference: a vegan diet is sustainable for a lifetime while most others aren’t.

An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.

I think someone needs to make a t-shirt based on the quote “Babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil.”

Pieces like this one by Nina Planck seem to exist not to foster any sort of serious discussion about nutrition and diet, but for other purposes (selling books, selling papers).  Without citing any sources, it’s hard to take any claims that Planck makes seriously.  If you go out there and do the research, you’ll find that a well-planned vegan diet can be every bit as healthy as a well-planned omni diet.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

We all need to look at what we eat.  It’s not a “vegan thing.”  If you shovel food down your gullet and don’t have any concept about what’s good for you, it doesn’t matter if you’re omnivore, vegan, or breatharian — you’re going to have problems.

I’d challenge Ms. Planck or anyone else looking to cash in on the latest “VEGAN PARENTZ KILL BABY, OMG~!!” headline to debate with a dietician like Vesanto Melina or a vegan nutritionist so people can make up their minds based on facts rather than a piece of marketing fluff masquerading as an op-ed piece.

Now we all know about the farce that is non-dairy creamer, right?  For whatever reason, non-dairy creamer is allowed to contain, um, dairy.  Makes total sense.  Something silly about removing the fat and then, voila, it’s no longer dairy.  Uh-huh.

Well, The Consumerist has uncovered the ingredients that are part of Jamba Juice’s proprietary “non-dairy” formula:

Water, Grade A Nonfat Dried Milk, Grade A Whey, Grade A Whey Protein Concentrate, Splenda, Sodium Alginate, Maltodextrin, Pectin, Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Natural Flavor, Annatto.

Feel free to contact Jamba Juice and let them know that this ain’t cool.

There are a lot of great companies out there, large and small, that are making products with sustainability and ethics in mind. A lot of them started small and got acquired by larger companies, which causes some justified concern about the integrity, ongoing direction, and ultimate intentions of the company going forward, but we’ll leave that aside for now.

My New Year’s wish is directed at those companies, big and small, that are “nearly vegan”… companies that have always made products without meat, that market themselves to vegetarians, and make it very clear which of their products are vegan. There are a lot of these types of companies, but for no reason other than their visibility, I’ll single out two: Amy’s Kitchen and Endangered Species Chocolate. Both companies are well aware of vegans and make it clear which of their products are vegan-safe, which is great. But here’s the question: why not go all the way?

While Amy’s doesn’t come right out and mention ethics or animal rights in their mission statement, but they hint at it. Endangered Species, though, uses animals as their primary focus. They donate a percentage of their profits to animal-related charities and they use only “ethically traded” cocoa. Shoot, their mission statement even starts off: “Here, our core value is Reverence for Life…”

Why, then, do both companies use dairy-based ingredients in their products? It’s been well-argued by Erik Marcus and others^* that dairy is an even worse ethical choice than beef, so it’s not ethically consistent for pro-animal companies to involve themselves in any sort of animal exploitation, let alone something as egregiously exploitative as dairy.

Amy’s: you already leave out eggs. Your recent deal with Follow Your Heart means you can ditch the dairy and non-vegan soy cheese. Your spinach and soy cheese pizza on rice crust is incredible. So, c’mon, just do it! And Endangered Species: everyone knows that milk chocolate is inferior to dark chocolate. Why not go all the way and offer strictly dark chocolate, sans dairy?

^* Beware the second-to-last paragraph in that linked article–it’s garbage.

Hello.

I’ve been a customer of the Dulles, VA Wegmans store for several years now. I enjoy the selection of foods that you offer, particularly with regards to produce and specialty convenience foods. I’ve spread the word about Wegmans and have turned a number of people onto the store and they’ve become loyal customers as well.

However, last year, when Compassionate Consumers released their video shot inside your egg farm, I was disheartened. I wasn’t necessarily surprised at what I saw, since these types of atrocities happen every day at factory farms around the world. Rather, I was disheartened and embarrassed by your public response to the footage. Rather than acknowledge there was a problem, you used crafty language to insinuate (with absolutely no evidence) that some of the footage wasn’t shot at your facility. Then you mentioned the concern about the health risk when it’s been shown that factory farmed chicken and eggs are the reason that avian flu has spread so quickly in the first place.

That said, I continued to shop at your store, thinking that you’d come around and would work to make changes like Trader Joe’s and other similar companies. (You may say that you’re “full-service supermarket, not a specialty food store,” but come on… regular supermarkets don’t develop cult followings.)

But with the most recent news of Adam Durand’s sentencing, I can no longer spend money at your store in good conscience. Adam admitted to the misdemeanor he was charged with, but despite the fact he had no previous record, the judge saw fit to comply with your request for a jail sentence. A jail sentence. For a guy who helped sick and dying birds that your egg farm wouldn’t.

I spent a couple hundred dollars a month at Wegmans purchasing produce, vegan convenience foods, and pet supplies. Because of your reaction to the Compassionate Consumers’ movie and your pushing for a jail sentence of Adam Durand, I’m hereby boycotting your store. The money I would have spent at your store will instead go to smaller, local health food stores and to Adam Durand’s defense fund. I’ve also taken time to spread the word on vegblog.org and will be posting a copy of this letter there, as well.

I hope that you reconsider your stance and work to make a change. You have it within your power to do so. You’re recognized as a great place to work for your human employees. Why not try and make it a little less painful for your non-human employees as well?

… Ryan A. MacMichael
Virginia

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (best known as “those guys that fought to get trans fat listed on nutritional labels”) publish a newsletter called Nutrition Action. It’s a good read with solid scientific information about diet and health, often debunking or questioning claims behind supplements. It’s far from vegan, as they are often recommending dairy and meat, but that sort of makes sense since they’re focused solely on health. They never speak against a vegan diet, but I suppose they know their readership is primarily non-vegetarian.

However, in May 2006 I was very surprised to see a full-page ad for their campaign against palm oil. Palm oil is very prevalent in processed foods and isn’t exactly healthy, so it’s not unusual that they’re speaking out against it, but what surprised me is the angle they’re taking. Their main ad reads “DYING FOR A COOKIE?” and underneath says, “Palm oil production is killing orangutans and other endangered wildlife.” Their full report talks about palm oil’s detrimental effect on health, the environment, and wildlife. This is the first time that I can remember that the CSPI has made note of the animal suffering associated with any food product.

One danger they note is that with the new trans fat designation on nutrition labels, many companies are looking to switch away from partially hydrogenated oils. The danger is that they might move to palm oil.

If companies replaced the 2.5 billion pounds of partially hydrogenated oil used annually in foods needing a solid fat with palm oil, U.S. palm oil imports would triple over the 2003 level. Such an increase would require about 1,240 square miles of new oil palm plantations—an area that represents rainforest habitat for up to 65 Sumatran rhinos, 54 elephant families, 65 Sumatran tigers, and 2,500 orangutans.

Good job, CSPI. Let’s see more of it in the future and it wouldn’t kill you to start mentioning vegetarian diets a bit more, would it?

The current Vegan Freak podcast talks about two stories in the news recently that have really gotten my blood boiling. The first is about Tony Blair’s vocal support for animal testing and his classification of animal rights activists as “terrorists.” Blair was crafty in his use of implying a (non-existent) connection between a letter-writing campaign targeted at shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline and an isolated incident of a weirdo exhuming a someone’s corpse. We have to be very careful when things like this hit the press to remind friends and family that a.) only a select few animals rights activists (like any other group) are wacky, and b.) a significant portion of animal experimentation has nothing to do with finding life-saving answers to diseases but rather with developing drugs for things like erectile dysfunction.

A related story worth mentioning is one from Germany where researchers say that stem-cell testing can be used to replace hundreds of thousands of experiments on animals. That’s outstanding news, but may not matter much here in the United States until we (and by “we” I mean he) wisen up with regards to the use of stem cells.

The second story that raised my ire is about how animal rights activist Adam Durand was sentenced to six months in jail for a misdemeanor. The misdemeanor? Trespassing in Wegmans’ egg facility to gather the footage for Wegmans Cruelty. This is the maximum sentence Durand could have received and no one was actually expecting any jail time for him. It’s an absurd judgement and I won’t speak any more on it at this point, but I will redirect you to what I wrote about Wegmans a month or so ago. If you’d like to help Adam out or just write him to show your support, Compassionate Consumers has the information.

It’s getting more than a little scary with the government declaring animal rights’ activists “terrorists,” legal action being taken against those that do open rescues, and rights for food animals being stripped more and more. But as scary as it is, these actions wouldn’t be taken if an impact weren’t being made. The average consumer is becoming much more aware of what’s happening to make their food and that scares the industry to death. And, really, it’s not privacy matters or even property destruction the industry is most worried about… they’re worried about industry practices becoming common knowledge which can only serve to hurt them in a big way financially.

We really didn’t need another example of why many many celebrities can’t be trusted with the animal liberation message, but we’ve got one. You know all the stuff out there about Olympian Carl Lewis and his veganism? Yeah, well…

This morning I saw an ad for McDonald’s that featured a bunch of different workers, ranging from entertainers to firefighters, talking about how their first job was flipping burgers at Mickey D’s. In other words, “Look! You can have a crap job and still turn out OK!” In any event, one of the people featured was Carl Lewis. I’d have to say that this one ranks right up there with recording a music video in terms of bad decisions Mr. Lewis has made.

Ask any parent: it’s nearly impossible to shield kids from the onslaught of advertising for toys and fast food. But, us adults are hit just as hard. During a random one hour of prime time television that I watched Thursday evening, there were 35 commercials. That’s an awful lot of advertising.

Though there were less food ads during that time period than I expected, there’s one thing I was right about: every single food ad featured meat. A (really annoying) Wendy’s ad that ran twice showed three salads, which is about as close to vegetarian food as a lot of people get. However, one of these three salads featured beef and the other two had chicken. There was also a Taco Bell commercial featuring a meat-heavy wrap of some sort, a Campbell’s Tomato Soup commercial that showed the soup paired with chunks of ham and layers of cheese, and a Domino’s commercial featuring a pizza 30% larger than an extra large. The pizza was, of course, topped with pepperoni and marketed towards men.

There also were a few ads for likely animal-unfriendly items like hair care and cosmetics.

The most subtle form that shows exactly how ingrained the use of animals is in our culture came during a commercial for Ask.com. In the commercial, a pair of scientists in lab coats, one holding a talking monkey, search online for a pot pie recipe. All of the results, of course, show chicken pot pie.

While I didn’t spot any ads explicitly from the meat or dairy industries, I can’t even remember the last time I saw an ad for Silk.

One of the most astounding pieces of information I’ve seen over the last few years compares the amount spent annually to promote fruits and vegetables versus the amounts spent on heavily processed junk foods, fast foods, and meat. In a report called “Out of Balance,” Consumers Union (the publisher of Consumer Reports) found that:

The $11.26 billion spent on advertising by the food, beverage, and restaurant industries in 2004 dwarfed the mere $9.55 million spent on communications for the federal and California “5 A Day” programs to encourage eating 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables each day. Industry expenditures for food, beverage and fast food advertising, thus, are 1,178 times greater than the budgets for the California and federal 5 A Day campaigns. In this context, it is no wonder that healthful dietary messages from government, parents and others are barely audible.

(Emphasis mine.)

This is another one of those situations where it’s difficult to work with the enemy because there’s just no money in marketing vegetables. The Carrot Industry (you know, the people that go to the International Carrot Conference) doesn’t have the money to spend to get their information in front of kids and their parents the way the National Cattlemen’s Association does. The best that we can hope for on any large scale is when a company like Silk gets absorbed by a larger corporation and gets enough of a boost to be able to get a couple of ads on morning TV.

I used to think that advertising was a waste of resources for groups like Compassion Over Killing. Shouldn’t they be using that money to gather more undercover footage or something? But the fact is, mainstream America never sees that footage, no matter how readily accessible it is. And while it’s vitally important that we continue on with these types of activism, things like advertising on MTV and in magazines may be just as important when it comes to helping raise awareness about vegetarian diets and animal exploitation. While the Superbowl consistently denies PETA’s ads, even advertising on a smaller scale can cause a difference and plant a seed in the head of someone who wouldn’t take it upon themselves to search out the same information on their own.

It’s funny how animal rights people are always being accused of “pushing their agenda,” but it doesn’t take a genius to see that the food industries are spending a whole lot more time and money pushing their agendas each and every day.

How could anyone ever be against a group named the Center for Consumer Freedom, right? Consumer Freedom is good! And a Center that promotes, therefore, has to be good!

Of course, the Center for Consumer Freedom has very little with giving people the right to choose and everything with lobbying against animal rights groups and giving more power to the groups that back the CCF. Groups like Monsanto, Tyson’s Foods, and Outback Steakhouse… not exactly groups that are known for their corporate responsibility.

In fact, the CCF was founded by Berman & Co, a public affairs organization owned by Rick Berman, a lobbyist who has represented the tobacco industry as well as many in the food industry. The CCF has attacked everyone from the American Medical Association to the National Association of High School Principals, pretty much anyone that says anything that might work against a company in an industry that funds them. And boy oh boy do they love the terms “food police” and “lunatics.”

Much of their vitriol comes out against animal rights and vegetarian groups. Indeed, a quick look at the current content on their web site shows of the 18 stories and deep links on their front page, 10 of them are directly related to animal rights groups like PETA and the HSUS. Did you know that PETA is a threat to your children? Apparently so!

Interestingly, some of their content sounds like things I’ve said around here. Two of their three most recent headlines are about celebrities PETA has claimed are vegetarian but really aren’t (remember what I said) and other links on their site talk about the attack on obesity (I don’t like veg marketing that attacks fat people — it amounts to an unnecessary personal attack on someone’s value as a human while just assuming that fat = eating nothing but huge slabs of steak). However, my concern stems from my desire to see a compassionate animal rights philosophy spread without being overshadowed by sensational things like celebrity or “obesity epidemics” whereas the CCF is more likely interested in promoting the agendas of the fast food industry and attacking PETA for what I like to call “minor infractions of stupidity.”

So what can we do to find common ground with the CCF? I don’t think there’s anything. The industry’s influence runs deep.

But, it’s essential that we make people aware who’s behind the CCF. Every time they’re quoted in the newspaper (and they’re quoted often), we should write a letter to the editor or tell a friend that’s reading the article that the CCF isn’t the group it appears to be. Point them towards any of the numerous groups exposing the truth.

(This is the first entry of five in a week-long series I’m calling “Know Thy Enemy Week,” which will feature quotes and perspectives of those that don’t have the interests of animals in mind. By paying close attention to how corporations and anti-AR folks think, perhaps we can learn a little better how to deal with these attitudes and turn the “enemies” into allies.)

For our first entry, I figured I’d feature the hot story that just won’t go away. I’m sure most Veg Blog readers have seen the excellent footage gathered by Compassionate Consumers in 2004 inside a Wegmans egg farm. It’s horrifying, as is pretty much all footage shot inside factory farm operations: hens living atop rotting corpses of their cagemates, many of them getting their beaks or legs caught in the cage’s wire, and others dying a slow, painful death in the manure pit. Erik Marcus often says that every egg has 30 hours of cruelty attached to it, and when you see how millions of egg-laying hens live their lives before being shipped off for slaughter, it’s clear that “cruelty” is too light of a word.

The thing is, the footage inside the Wegmans egg farm isn’t anything more shocking than other similar expose footage. But you have to look at the company behind the farm. Wegmans is often pointed to as one of the Best Places to Work because of how well they treat their (human) employees. They offer gourmet foods, many “natural” foods, organic produce, and many vegan/vegetarian convenience foods at competitive prices. They’re like a Whole Foods combined with a Safeway combined with a bakery combined with a cafe combined with a Target. Clearly, their target audience isn’t the standard consumer.

Because of this, I would expect more from Wegmans. I’d expect them to follow Trader Joe’s lead and not sell eggs from caged birds under their store brand. But because of these same factors, I see why Compassionate Consumers targeted them specifically: a company like Wegmans should be more likely to make changes in animal welfare to maintain their reputation.

Unfortunately, that didn’t prove to be the case. Instead, Wegmans released this despicable press release last November (updated a few days ago) claiming not only that they treat their hens well but that the footage in the video may not have been shot at the Wegmans egg farm. Of course, they’ve offered no evidence that this is the case and are simply using that deceptive language to plant a seed of doubt in their customers’ heads. In fact, Wegmans makes a lot of questionable claims shrouded by clever use of language:

In November of 2005, our farm participated in its annual audit of the United Egg Producers (UEP) Certified program, which outlines a set of science-based standards for cage space, air and water quality, nutritious food, and other animal care practices. The USDA conducted this audit, and we received a perfect score - 200 out of 200. (Our score in 2004 was in the high 190’s.)

The UEP Certified program is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless. The UEP is an industry group that creates their own rules, rules that allow for painful debeaking of hens and extremely tight confinement (allowing each bird a mere 67-86 square inches - less than a sheet of 8 1/2″x11″ paper and over 200 square inches less than a hen needs to be able to flap her wings). In fact, “UEP Certified” is the term the industry has been forced to use after Compassion Over Killing showed that their previous label, “Animal Care Certified,” was misleading. I encourage you to read the industry’s own guidelines (PDF) for yourself.

In the end, it was determined there was no evidence of animal abuse. The New York State Police and the Wayne County District Attorney’s office jointly conducted the investigation, and Wegmans fully cooperated.

I’m guessing this is because most states exempt chickens from anti-cruelty laws and as long as it’s “standard industry practice” (set, of course, by the industry), then it’s OK.

Food safety and food security are non-negotiable for us. We welcome customer debate on any topic, but we cannot tolerate illegal entry into our laying houses because of the obvious risk that a disease, like avian flu, could be tracked in.

It’s interesting that they bring this up, considering many believe the reason that avian flu has spread like it has is specifically because of factory farm confinement operations.

Eggs produced by cage-free hens are available at Wegmans. These eggs cost more to produce, so the retail price is much higher than Wegmans eggs. Three nationally-known specialty food stores are often lauded for switching to cage-free eggs only. Wegmans is a full-service supermarket, not a specialty food store. (Emphasis mine.)

They’re not a speciality food store? Baloney. Compare Wegmans to your local Safeway and you’ll see they’re not a mere “full-service supermarket.” Regular old supermarkets don’t develop scary cult followings. Specialty food stores do.

The final statement of the press release is the most telling:

We don’t believe we should force all of our customers to pay more than double the price for a dozen eggs just because a few people think we should.

It’s all about keeping prices down, which inevitably means that the birds suffer as a result. And if it were really just a “few people” would similar campaigns have worked with Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Wild Oats? How about the 80 universities and colleges that will no longer use caged birds’ eggs in their dining halls? It’s a legitimate concern of many, many consumers and Wegmans is failing to acknowledge that.

Compassionate Consumers takes on this same statement from Wegmans. Take a look, it’s a great read.

So, know thy enemy. One would think that a seemingly progressive-thinking company like Wegmans would consider animal welfare as an important issue, but it’s become clear that they’re acting no different from any other factory farm operation that works under the “UEP Certified” label. How can we work with Wegmans to change their policy? Support groups like Compassionate Consumers. Write to Wegmans to express your disgust with not only their farms but with their public response. I firmly believe that they will change their ways, but it’s going to take time and determination.

Also, keep an eye out on April 14th. ABC’s Primetime is slated to cover the Wegmans egg farm investigation. Should be interesting to see how evenly the story is covered.

2006 Food Forecast

The good news:

More allergy information will be included on labels, which is not only good for people with severe food allergies, but for vegans since dairy and eggs are common allergens. The best parts:

• “If there are any egg, peanut, nut, fish, shellfish, wheat or soy in a product, the label will have to say so.”
• ” Goodbye to non-descriptive words such as “artificial” or “natural” flavors, colors or additives. Labels with those ingredients also will have to specify which allergens they contain.” Whether this means that any animal-derived products in the natural flavoring will need to be labeled is not clear.
• “If “casein” is included, “milk” would be listed after it.”

Also good: trans-fat will appear on labels. As a result of having to add this to the label, many food companies have cut back significantly or eliminated trans-fat from their products.

The bad news:

There’s still no universally accepted “Vegan” symbol on food packages. This may actually be a good thing, because really there hasn’t been enough discussion on the issue. For instance, if something is produced on equipment that is also used for dairy, should it be labeled vegan? If a product is made by a company that also makes meat products, is that product vegan? There are some tricky issues.

Also bad/stupid: well, I’ll let the article do the talking:

[F]ood forecasters are predicting some provocative trends, including such possibilities as Christian-raised chicken…

Trend expert Faith Popcorn, keynote speaker at the Future of Food conference last month in Washington, and the person who predicted the “cocooning” craze of the 1990s, sees faith-friendly food showing up in the marketplace, an outgrowth of what her company calls “clanning,” or the desire to belong to groups with common ideas.

Tyson Foods, which makes chicken, beef and pork products, already has begun offering free downloadable prayer booklets on its Web site. The booklets provide mealtime prayers in a variety of faiths.

Before I comment, I love the fact that the food trend expert’s name is “Faith Popcorn.” I would have killed to be born with that name.

I hadn’t heard of the idea of “Christian-raised chicken” before, and predictably, it strikes me as pretty stupid. If you’re that concerned about how your religious beliefs coincide with how your food is raised, shouldn’t you consider just, you know, not eating meat? I suspect that this kind of falls into the same category as halal meats, but without the long-standing tradition.

And does anyone else find it hilarious — and at the same time, deeply troubling — that Tyson Foods is producing prayer booklets?

Feel free to suggest prayers in the comments that Tyson could include on their web site.

Via Paul comes one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen:

Slammers: wow in a bottle.

That’s not “WOW” as in the Olestra-filled chips, but “wow” as in :”Wow, I can’t believe they’re actually marketing this crap.

What crap? Oh, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and Starburst milk. Did you hear me wretch as I typed that? That’s nothing… check this out:

Moon Pie milk. Now, back in the day, I liked a Moon Pie as much as the next guy, but the idea of Moon Pies in liquid form is beyond disgusting… it’s reprehensible. Especially when they’re marketing it as being healthy (”Excellent source of calcium and protein!”). You’ll be happy to know that Moon Pie milk also “delivers Moon Pie® awareness and brand loyalty” and is available in chocolate and banana flavors.

If you haven’t had enough of the insanity, read the about page where the marketing speak spews like a giant fountain of disgusting crossbranded milk products (emphasis mine):

“Bravo! Foods International Corp. has become a leading brand development company by bringing to market products that are a surprising, nourishing experience.

“Future opportunities are leading Bravo! into additional market segments with innovative branded products. The Bravo! success story is built upon a shared creative vision to focus fiercely on delivering highly competitive products to markets that deliver retail excitement, inspire brand loyalty and deliver an enviable return on shareholder investment.”

I’ve got to quote the entire “Our Slammers Brand” section because it provides more marketing speak-per-breath than anything I’ve ever read. I’m not making any of this up, just adding some more emphasis to the especially amusing phrases:

Slammers® is milk with an attitude. It combines all the goodness of Mother Nature’s perfect food marketed with a unique, fun and edgy brand personality. By segmenting the market demographically and psychographically, Slammers® is the first milk product positioned as a beverage rather than a commodity.

Just as they love Super Hero^TM comic books, TV shows and movies, kids love the Marvel® Super Heroes^TM that represent Ultimate Slammers®. They discover that each flavor is fortified to match the super power of the hero on its bottle, making the product even more fun to drink.

Teens and Tweens are drawn to the extreme athletes who represent Pro Slammers^TM. Whether they like skateboarding, in-line skating, BMX biking or the attitude these sports embody, Pro Slammers^TM is their badge of belonging, and the double slam of protein helps keep them energized and ready-to-go.

Teens go for the edgy attitude of Slammers® Starburst® fruit & crème smoothies and their four juicy fruit flavors just like Starburst® fruit chews. 3 Musketeers® Slammers® low fat chocolate milk gives young women a light and fluffy refresher while Milky Way® Slammers® reduced fat chocolate milk is a great taste all can agree upon.

Finally, banana and chocolate Moon Pie® Slammers® complete the brand family with its loyal Moon Pie® following that has been a United States phenomenon for generations.

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Dairy Foods Magazine (oh my God, it’s a real magazine!) says, “For all its innovative efforts in the single-serve flavored milk arena, Dairy Foods says ‘hats off’ to Bravo! Foods.” (Do read this article on soy milk production within dairy plants if you get a chance.)

And, lastly, “Bravo!” is the name of the company that makes this crap? That’s almost as stupid of a name as “Yum!“

Clone-Generated Milk, Meat May Be Approved: Favorable FDA Ruling Seen as Imminent

Yikes. I’m happier than ever to be a vegan.

Let’s take a look at this article:

Many in agriculture believe such genetic copies are the next logical step in improving the nation’s livestock.

Notice how they mention improving the livestock itself and not the conditions the livestock live in? As Erik Marcus says, animals are units.

Consumer groups counter that many Americans are likely to be revolted by the idea of serving clone milk to their children or tossing meat from the progeny of clones onto the backyard grill. This “yuck factor,” as it’s often called, has come to light repeatedly in public opinion surveys. Asked earlier this year in a poll by the International Food Information Council whether they would willingly buy meat, milk and eggs that come from clones if the FDA declared them to be safe, 63 percent of consumers said no.

Hearing things like this makes me think that Erik’s hopes for vat-grown meat as a way to reduce the amount of suffering may have trouble getting off the ground in the consumer market. Of course, to me, the “yuck factor” associated with cloned meat is on part with the “yuck factor” regular ol’, factory farmed meat.

The article also mentions how cloned animals’ milk will hit the shelves soon, but probably not the meat from the cloned animals themselves because the clones are so expensive to create. For a second I thought, “Well, at least there are no dairy cow offspring that will become veal this way, right? Maybe it’s an ever-so-slightly more compassionate glass of milk.” Turns out, not really:

[Clones would] be used as breeding stock, so the real question is whether their sexually produced offspring would be safe.

The animals don’t get cut any break here. They may be able to clone a cow, but that can’t cut out the sentience gene.

He’s a merchant of boar semen, keeping about 80 valuable animals. Rural students, usually members of 4-H clubs or the Future Farmers of America, order semen from these champion animals at $50 to $150 a vial and use it to inseminate local sows in hopes of creating a winning pig.

I really have no intelligent comment about this paragraph. I just wanted to quote “He’s a merchant of boar semen.” Wasn’t that a Shakespearean comedy, The Merchant of Boar Semen?

One recent morning, two cloned calves pranced around a field outside Austin. Their progenitors were not living animals, but rather cattle that had already been butchered and hung on a hook in a slaughterhouse. The calves were selected for cloning after receiving high grades for meat quality and yield, judgments that couldn’t have been made while the originals were still alive.

Priscilla, born in April, and Elvis, born in June, were created by ViaGen. They’re destined to be bred together in an effort to create prime stock. If it works, ViaGen will clone a large population of once-dead cattle, aiming to sell them or their offspring for breeding.

This is kind of sad. Sure, they’re “pranc[ing] around a field,” which most calves don’t get to do, but the whole idea of creating “prime stock” for breeding purposes from “once-dead” cattle comes off as a some sort of crazy zombie-cow experiment. And the cloned cows and their offspring are the only ones who suffer if something goes wrong. This doesn’t really matter to those benefitting financially, as the following quote shows:

Published research shows risks to the health of clones at all stages of their lives. But the genetic problems aren’t likely to alter the food value of clones…

“Food value.” There’s another one of those “animals are units” phrases.

As long as the industry is looking for ways to produce milk, eggs, and meat at an even cheaper cost-per-”unit,” we’ll continue to see things like this. Unfortunately, there’s no going back to family farming and the idea that we may be paying too little for our food is foreign to most people.

I have no doubt that the industry and science will continue to find ways to lower the cost of meat production. They always have. The problem is that it’s always at the expense of animal welfare. Whether it’s by cramming more hens into a cage to produce cheaper eggs or by cloning dairy cows, the animals come up on the losing end of the stick, again.

Compassionate Consumers has a new video available on DVD and for download titled Wegmans Cruelty. It focuses on the conditions at Wegmans’ egg plants and the treatment that the hens there receive. Wegmans makes use of the Animal Care Certified label, which, of course, is an industry-developed set of rules that mean absolutely nothing. Birds are still allowed to be crammed into battery cages, their beaks are still permitted to be burned off without painkiller, and they can be starved to force a new egg-laying cycle.

The video is very well-produced and while those of us that have seen all the standard factory farming videos won’t be surprised by what’s shown, it feels good to see members of Compassionate Consumers during the open rescue. They take care of some of the most neglected hens and do the job that Wegmans themselves won’t do: remove carcasses that had clearly been there for weeks from the cages.

The most powerful point in the video comes during a recorded phone conversation with a Wegmans representative that insists the company meets-and-exceeds animal care standards and that having sick or dead birds isn’t in their best financial interest. This conversation is the audio backdrop for video footage that shows exactly the opposite of everything the representative says.

So why did they target Wegmans? I imagine it’s because Wegmans is one of the companies that, when approached with this information and footage, may actually do something. They’ve been named the best place to work by Fortune and are generally considered to be good to both their employees and customers. They feature a nice selection of organic fruits and vegetables as well as fairly priced health and natural foods. Let’s just hope that they can extend their compassion and sense of fairness to their animals as well.

Knowmore.org - remember the name, as I suspect it’ll be the “MoveOn.org” of 2005.

Knowmore.org is the “corporation watch search engine,” a MediaWiki (think Wikipedia) run by a “grassroots, web-based community dedicated to chronicling and resisting corporate attacks on democracy, worker’s and human rights, fair trade, business ethics and the environment.” According to this MetaFilter thread, it is almost entirely bankrolled by Sage Francis. Good looking out!

Also of note, on the front page, our pals over at Vegan Essentials are listed, and it should be no surprise that they’re very highly rated. Now go enter the contest.

As I mentioned yesterday, independent pet supply stores are getting really hard to find. PetSmart and Petco are never far away, though, and as we’ve seen with independent book stores, small coffee shops, and mom-and-pop hardware stores, it’s hard for the independently-owned store to survive with a superstore nearby.

It’s gotten almost passe to complain about the Wal-Martization of America or the increased building of McMansions. But just because everyone whines about it, doesn’t mean that it’s any closer to going away. This became quite clear recently when local pet shop Pets Etc. closed down. That’s where we bought our betta fish Moe (RIP) last year and where we went often to stock up on supplies for him. They’d been around since 1989 and were considered to be progressive with regards to animal welfare. Unfortunately, last month, they closed.

The owners of the Plaza Center in Leesburg (according to the sign, Federal Realty Investment Trust, perhaps the most generically named company ever) reportedly would not renew Pets Etc.’s lease this year because of the giantbigandnew PetSmart being built next door, where a K-Mart used to stand. I can tell you: this town needs another pet superstore like we need another grocery store: we’ve already got a Petco a mile away from where the Petsmart is being built (and there are five supermarkets in a two mile radius from my house).

Needless to say, I won’t be spending my money at the PetSmart, and I’ve written to FRIT to let them know this. Will it make a difference? Probably not. But I think that the former proprietors of Pets Etc. would appreciate it.

You’ve probably seen a lot of anti-Petco material courtesy of PETA, who was pushing Petco to make some signficant changes in how they do business. Thankfully, the two have reached an agreement and the winners are the animals. (In case you wonder about the good, positive work that PETA does that doesn’t usually get recognition in the press, this is a great example.)

The major change is that Petco will no longer sell large birds, a smart move because people buying their large birds from Petco probably don’t really know what they’re getting themselves into. Besides, should large birds really be family pets?

Smaller, but still significant, changes include separating rats and mice by gender, to avoid breeding.

My wife and I are looking to adopt a dog in the coming months and because of that, I’ve been thinking more and more about companion animals and how we look at them. A lot of my views have changed… for instance, several years ago I would have thought it was just fine to buy a purebred dog from a breeder. Today, though, I look at all the animals that wind up in shelters or rescues and can’t think of any reason that I’d go to a breeder (or, *shudder*, a mall pet store) when looking to adopt. I think there are just too many great animals that need homes for breeders or puppy mills to be adding to the pet population.

Something else I’ve noticed: small, independent pet stores are getting as hard to find as independent book stores. There just aren’t many around and I fear that I won’t have any choice but to visit the local Petco when we adopt our dog. But, that’s another post I’ve been saving up…

If there was ever any doubt that the mass production of animals for food is just out of hand, witness the Bright Coop E-Z Catch Chicken Harvester, a scary ass looking machine that scoops up groups of birds with its foot-long rubber fingers (insert joke here) and sends them flying into cages in the back of a truck.

Be sure to watch the video.

It’s probably more humane than workers grabbing the chickens by their necks and throwing them, but look at those birds, man, they’re freaking out. Sadly, with the number of chickens required for food (meat or eggs), there’s no other way to deal with that many chickens than automating the process with scary rubber fingers.

In their lifetime, the average American eats (or eats the eggs of) 2,700 chickens (versus 10 cows or calves). Perhaps we should cut back on the chicken and egg consumption a bit?

(via)

Nell On Earth: An interview with Nell Newman, creator of Newman’s Own Organics

An enlightening interview on Grist.com about the business of organics, but what’s up with her answer to “are you vegetarian?”:

I was a vegetarian for three years as a kid. Now I am a “flexitarian.” My friends say it’s a PC name for hypocrite. I eat a little bit of everything. Ninety percent of what I eat is organic, and any meat I buy is organic, but when I go out to dinner, I don’t always investigate the ingredients. I don’t say no when I go to a friend’s for dinner and they’ve prepared a non-organic meal.

Isn’t she answering two totally separate questions there?

That aside, Nell’s got some interesting things to say about big business/mainstream organics:

Oh, it’s good that someone’s mainstreaming this industry. Adopting big-business practices is one thing, and adopting agribusiness practices that would dilute the meaning of organic is another. On the whole, I think we’re doing a pretty good job of preserving the integrity of organic foods.

As for business practices, you have to be realistic. Even running a small organics company, I’ve got constraints. I would love to not have to ship anything and use nasty packaging, but you know what, that’s not a reality. You want to do everything regionally, and just support local small farmers regionally, and then you find out there are no good pretzel manufacturers anywhere on the West Coast, so you have to make your pretzels on the East Coast and ship them. So you do as best you can, but most of the time, it’s difficult to have those high ideals and stick to them, in terms of how you produce stuff. People would love us to put our pretzels in wax paper, but would they really like it when they bought a stale pretzel? It’s a very difficult balance.

I’ve been gone for a bit, but to make it up to you, let me pass along a link that will provide you with hours and hours of great reading: MeatNews.com: “Meat Processing News Online.” The site is brought to you by Meat Processing Magazine, which, I understand, is second only to Playboy in newsstand popularity. I know, I know, I’m too good to you. You can thank me later.

All kidding aside, it provides an interesting look at the meat industry and the types of issues they’re addressing. They don’t avoid mentioning deaths of meat packers and discuss moves to keep “animals in transit” less stressed. It never hurts to know what “the other side” is doing and saying, as it can help you form better opinions and arguments of your own.

(via Research Buzz… thanks Tara!)

April 19, 2004: McDonald’s CEO, Jim Cantalupo, dies of a heart attack

April 21, 2004: McDonald’s Japan CEO and founder, Den Fujita, dies of a heart attack

I’m sensing a pattern.

Modern Meat

This is a companion site to PBS’ Frontline of the same title, which looks at how the meat industry has changed and how it affects consumers.

Frontline examines a lawsuit filed by a Texas meat-grinding company, Supreme Beef, against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When the USDA effectively shut down the company after it failed bacterial contamination tests three times — once after nearly 50 percent of its meat was found to be contaminated with salmonella — the company sued. Supported in its lawsuit by the National Meat Association, Supreme Beef charged that the government didn’t have the right to shut down its operations simply because it failed to meet the USDA salmonella standards. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the company. (More here)

(via the Librarian’s Index)

Jeez, I go away for a few days and mad cow is discovered in the United States.

To get up-to-date, I suggest visiting VegSource.com and Vegan.com, both of whom have kept track of recent events on their front pages. In addition, I’ve added a temporary “mad cow” feed to the news feeds page.

Hope you all had a happy holiday. I was working my way through a nasty cold, so my Christmas dinner was a bowl of miso soup and some tasty sides from my family’s main meal.

There are reports that Gardenburger is having some financial trouble. This is a quite a shame, as their products seem to be getting significantly better (have you tried their vegan ribs? man oh man.) and I absolutely love their new box design. It’s cool in that retro-way without feeling cheesy.

Gardenburger has struggled, despite becoming a product sold in 24,000 stores nationwide. The company’s sales soared in the mid-1990s during the nation’s health-food craze, peaking at $100 million in its fiscal 1998 … Gardenburger sales had plummeted to $51 million by fiscal 2001.

Here’s to hoping that Gardenburger, founded in 1985, hangs in there and can work through these troublesome times. As one of the few veggie-friendly companies that hasn’t been swallowed by a multi-national, their success is even more dependent on sales and support of the vegetarian community.

Rebecca Blood links up to “Neighbors of Vast Hog Farms Say Foul Air Endangers Their Health” in The New York Times. If the phrase “cesspools the size of football fields belonging to the industrial hog farm” whet your appetite for a little anti-factory farm reading, dig in…

Business 2.0 is currently running their The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business feature for 2002. Included in the top 15 are Southwest Airlines’ insensitive “If you consume more than one seat, you will be charged for more than one seat” quote (#12) and Microsoft’s botched attempt at imitating the Apple “Switch” ads (#11). Of course, the Veg Blog “favorite” is #9:

Because nobody understands 12-year-old girls quite like a cattle rancher.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn. launches www.cool-2b-real.com, a site designed to “steer” young girls away from vegetarianism. Featuring enlightening articles and insightful quizzes (”What type of beef do you most like to eat with your friends?”), the tweener-empowerment site also has recipes for snacks like Easy Beef Chili, Nacho Beef Dip, and Beef on Bamboo.

The Morning News comes through again, as they take the time to imagine the discussions that go on behind closed doors during the evolution of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s hilarious Cool 2B Real site.

NCBA Rep: So I ordered some surveys. We found that well above one percent of pre-teen girls, are questioning a lifestyle rich in beef. To the point that they don’t eat meat at all.

Salesperson: That’s vegetaria…

NCBA Rep: We don’t use that word. We use “terrorism.” This is cattle country.

The California Milk Processor Board wrote to the mayor of Biggs, California suggesting that he change the name of the town to “Got Milk?” Turns out the idea was proposed to about 20 small towns overall.

A celebration of the 10-year long campaign? Maybe, but it sounds like desperate straw-grabbing to me.

Marla Rose from Vegan Street wrote in to mention a page she has up on her site detailing the corporate buyout of vegetarian companies. Among the more disturbing (aside from the previously mentioned LightLife buyout by ConAgra): Boca is owned by Kraft (which is owned by Phillip Morris). I had no idea.

Not listed on the page, but mentioned the e-mail I received: a personal favorite, Seeds of Change is owned by M&M/Mars.

Being a conscientious consumer is getting harder and harder…

Somehow, this bothersome piece of news slipped under my radar: ConAgra acquires vegeterian foods maker Lightlife Foods.

Lightlife is the makers of veggie favorites Gimmie Lean and Smart Dogs. ConAgra, on the other hand, is the company that recalled 19 million pounds of ground beef after several weeks and almost all of the infected meat had been consumed.

While a few may see this as a giant beef processors “seeing the light,” I see it as a frightening sell out by a company who has provided a quality line of meat substitutes. I can only hope that other small manufacturers of vegetarian products don’t follow Lightlife’s lead.

Oh well… just another company for me to avoid supporting.

(thanks to Nava Atlas for passing this news along…)

Big up to Jes at FuckCorporateGroceries.Net for linking up to the Veg Blog over the past few weeks. I really enjoy her site and encourage you to check it out. As you can probably tell from her domain name, she’s shunning large, corporate grocery stores in favor of local, neighborhood stores… clearly, a worthwhile and admirable endeavor. She used to be vegan and has some vegan recipes as well a bunch of other, mostly vegetarian, recipes.

Chewing Out the Food Industry

“Altoids has a $10-million-a-year advertising budget. That’s five times what the National Cancer Institute and the Produce for Better Health Foundation spend to encourage consumers to eat five fruits and vegetables a day.”

A must-read. (via Ev)

I’ve been reading through the archives over at Droningon.com, which include a lot of opinion pieces based on the over-consumption and over-commercialization in our modern world. One sentence really stood out from all the others, though:

“Nothing wrecks the joy of consuming like nagging guilt.”

I encourage you to read the piece, which focuses on sweatshops and how we, as consumers, rarely think about where the products we consume or purchase come from. This very thing is one of the reasons that I became vegetarian.

The “nagging guilt” got to me.

IBP cuts beef production at four plants

Due to poor beef sales, with the economy being blamed for less Americans eating out, IBP/Tyson is reducing production at 4 out of 10 of its US beef plants. Excel Corp., the nations third largest beef and pork producer, has also slightly reduced its production. It’s comforting to see that the formula of “people eating less beef = less beef being produced” holds true.

Reports also show that the Veg Blog has been responsible for 75% of the production decrease. OK, maybe I made that part up… (via FoodHeadlines.com)

High School Student Forced to Apologize After Protesting a Mandatory Assembly for McDonald’s

Sounds like we have a young activist on our hands. During a mandatory assembly, which turned out to be a love-in for McDonald’s, he openly challenged the McDonald’s representative and criticized the company. In return, he was made to apologize and was threatened with a ten day suspension. Be sure to listen to the interview (Real Audio).

The interview is followed a McDonald’s french fries update.