Corporate Control

[Simcha]

I'm an AR activist and pretty politically minded, so I was looking for any previous postings about the corporate evil that pervades the world. The thread I found was closed so I'm starting this new one.

Not sure exactly how to start - I guess I'll just mention this lovely bit of information. A huge amount of the processed vegan foods (and some non-processed) that we eat are actually owned by multinational corporations that benefit financially from vegans and turn around to exploit animals, the environment and humans.

My "favorites": ConAgra, which owns all Lightlife non-meats. ConAgra makes frozen dinners and fairly recently sold off its factory farm operations, but I think it still grows grain for "livestock" and also has been responsible for some human rights issues with farmers in India.

Silk and White Wave: available everywhere thanks to Dean Foods, the US's largest dairy company that also owns Horizon Organics. Buy Silk, support factory farming. Also, responsible for clearcutting rainforest to grow soybeans for its products. No US-grown soybeans for Dean Foods.

Well, there's more but I wanted to get a little discussion going.

Oh, let me give you a couple of things you can still eat*: Tofurky, SoyBoy, Amy's (not all vegan, though).

*in the USA; also, it's been a year to a year and a half since I've double checked these companies. Unfortunately, buyouts and sellouts are far too common in the food industry.

[animaladvocate]

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=312

[Kevin2]

It's hard for me to distinguish between the corporations/countries I won't knowingly buy anything from and those I will. There are very few actual innocents, but I do place them into the two categories anyway.

My favorite is Chiquita who just recently was ordered to pay a settlement to the US govt. in due to the company's funding of right wing militias that are designated to be terrorist groups by the US govt. There is also the matter that in the 50s (then under the name of United Fruit) the company successfully lobbied the US govt to support a coup that ousted a leftist Guatamalan leader who intended to enact a land reform program detrimental to the interests of United Fruit. Well anyway, there's more... I love bananas, but if it's only Chiquita on sale I opt for kiwifruit.

Others I won't knowingly financially support: Exxon (global warmings #1 cheerleader), Shell (ken waro-siwa), Burma (monks/Suu Kyi), China (so many reasons, with the most galling to me being that it killed 50000 dogs as a response to an outbreak of rabies), Japan (slaughtering whales), Canada (seal clubbing) Palm oil products (orangutans/deforestation).

But it's virtually impossible to both live in society and boycott all products that come from China - or contain perhaps one component that was mae in China.

[Heartsease]

Others I won't knowingly financially support: Exxon (global warmings #1 cheerleader), Shell (ken waro-siwa), Burma (monks/Suu Kyi), China (so many reasons, with the most galling to me being that it killed 50000 dogs as a response to an outbreak of rabies), Japan (slaughtering whales), Canada (seal clubbing) Palm oil products (orangutans/deforestation).

I'm not sure I think whale slaughter is worse than cow slaughter ...and the US is responsible for a HUGE amount of that. I think the US has maybe more to answer for on that score than the Japanese do with regards to their whaling (or Canadian seal clubbing...)....by sheer numbers alone...and the fact that none of these killings are proven to be necessary.

China seems to have a bad reputation right across the board (human rights, corruption, etc.) but I tend to boycott companies rather than countries. Nestle is a big no-no for me.

(Nestlé is the target of a boycott because it contributes to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants around the world by aggressively marketing baby foods in breach of international marketing standards. According to the World Health Organisation, 1.5 million infants die every year because they are not breastfed.)

http://www.babymilkaction.org

[Kevin2]

I'm not sure I think whale slaughter is worse than cow slaughter ...and the US is responsible for a HUGE amount of that. I think the US has maybe more to answer for on that score than the Japanese do with regards to their whaling (or Canadian seal clubbing...)....by sheer numbers alone...and the fact that none of these killings are proven to be necessary.

For me it's not a matter of which is worse but rather it's what upsets me enough to have nothing to do with the corporation or country in question that is being measured.

Japan uses deceit to slaughter endangered whales, and does so in an effort to nullify an international ban on it. This upsets me more than does the US slaughtering cows, which is something every other nation does, including Japan and Canada.

[eve]

In these days of globalisation it is impossible to restrict oneself to companies that are 'pure', because corporate takeovers never stop. As a long-term vegan I really don't care that my supplier of soymilk that is made from organic whole Australian soybeans, also supplies cows milk to other people!

As to what upsets us the most, when baby seal clubbing is in the news, people are upset. When there's an outbreak of foot and mouth disease with thousands of lambs being burnt alive, people are upset, when chooks with avian flu or in contact with avian flu are burnt, people are upset. However, none of this amounts to a dent in the sales of lamb or chicken nuggets! The slaughter of endangered whales upsets people.

What about the constant slaughter of BILLIONS of chickens, fish, lambs, cattle, and all the other innocent creatures? What about the MILLIONS of animals who are tortured and slaughtered in laboratories? Don't we bother with those?

[cedarblue]

What about the constant slaughter of BILLIONS of chickens, fish, lambs, cattle, and all the other innocent creatures? What about the MILLIONS of animals who are tortured and slaughtered in laboratories? Don't we bother with those?

well i think we on here do thankfully - but generally, no i don't think so as they are seen to be providing a service and a necessity. i think it has a lot to do with the dissassociation of humans and their food, medicines etc, where it comes from, how we get it etc. the large corporates encourage this ignorance and foster their own ideas onto us.

[huachita]

I think that a possible alternative to corporate control is grassroots movements and individual responsibility (which I imagine most vegans are quite strong at since it takes willpower to be vegan in a carnivore's world).

My new tactic is to incorporate more foods into my diet which are locally grown. (I live in Chile and for example I just bought a 50 lb bag of quinoa, a Chilean grain. I think it is autochthonous to the area.) This should have several good effects:

1) less gas needed for transportation
2) I imagine it could have a community-building effect
3) you know where your food comes from and have easier access to see the production in action
4) this is a sort of hipothesis of mine, that I think I´ve read about somewhere: I imagine a good benefit on health because I think foods that grow in a certain place have certain health benefits for people who live there, providing nutrients that they might otherwise be lacking due to weather conditions and other factors.

I like to grow my own spices and have a small garden (something I can´t do at the moment since I´m living in the center of Santiago where the smog is so bad my plants are coated with smog fallout). In the future I hope to find a local organic farm that can provide me with some of my food.

I agree with eve that it would be quite difficult to limit purchases to "pure" companies. I think the answer, for me anyway, is returning to the origin as much as possible, that is, having my own garden (when I move somewhere else), and trying to form connections with other people with the same ideas and with small local organic farmers. I also, try to eat less processed food because I don´t trust the corporations, because they exist to make money not to make a better world (at least that's my experience of them). So basically my strategy is avoidance of buying from corporate companies to the point that I can (like a negativist strategy), and finding another source of locally grown food (a positivist strategy).

[Hemlock]

I have to say that we try very hard to buy locally grown produce and use very little processed food - we make most of it from scratch. There is always room for improvement I guess - give up drinking coffee and the like but it's tough.

[Kevin2]

What about the constant slaughter of BILLIONS of chickens, fish, lambs, cattle, and all the other innocent creatures? What about the MILLIONS of animals who are tortured and slaughtered in laboratories? Don't we bother with those?

Who do you intend the "we" to reference? I doubt anyone at this forum fails to care about these animals.

[huachita]

Hey everyone,
I found a link to Community Supported Agriculture where you can buy foods grown at small farms, which may be against vegan beliefs because farms are like artificially created ecosystems (and I believe some of these farms sell meat and animal products), but compared to corporate America, which has huge farms and where food is altered in labratories, I think the local farms are actually better.
http://www.localharvest.org/

[Akala]

Not sure where to post this, but I saw on the news last week that the former chief executive of Aviva has taken "a gap year" to work for charity. On the face of it, looks very commendable. If only more of the high ranking powerful business leaders did something similar. They could make a huge difference. Let's hope he sets a trend.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7156523.stm

[emzy1985]

Isn't he in Africa? When I watched something on it he had a big old villa while the people he was helping lived in mud huts. Also he was encouraging the use of goats which as we all know is detrimental to sustainabilty! Better than most though!