Mark Kastel and the Cornucopia Institute are at it again, standing up for the organic food label and going after corporations who play loose with it. The organization co-founded by Kastel, who was recently named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” just fired a volley at Target, accusing the megaretailer of deceiving customers about soymilk.

In a press release, Cornucopia says Target advertised Silk soymilk as organic in newspaper ads by showing the carton with “organic” on its label, even though the soymilk was not organic. Cornucopia has filed formal complaints with the U.S. Agriculture Department’s organic program and with Minnesota and Wisconsin officials.

Cornucopia has previously criticized Dean Foods, the maker of Silk, for quietly switching to conventional soybeans in the core products of its White Wave soy division.

Was the image of the organic carton an honest mistake by a graphic designer, or an attempt to capitalize on the cachet of the organic label by implying that Silk is organic? Target isn’t saying much at this point. Spokeswoman Jana O’Leary tells Utne Reader that Target is investigating the matter and that the retailer sells both organic and nonorganic Silk at its SuperTarget stores.

Cornucopia has called foul on Target before, most notably in 2007 when it accused Target’s private-label food line, Archer Farms, of using milk that was produced in violation of federal organic livestock standards by the Colorado-based Aurora Dairy. Despite that the USDA found Aurora had willfully violated 14 federal organic regulations, the dairy was allowed to stay in business and Target stuck with Aurora as its Archer Farms milk supplier.

Source: Cornucopia Institute, City Pages

Image by GenGlo, licensed under Creative Commons.

The world’s insatiable hunger for soy products, including biofuels and cattle feed, is creating an environmental and social disaster in South America. Workers in Paraguay are plagued by the rampant use of pesticides and are being forced off their land and to make way for more soy plants, many of which are genetically modified. In response, locals have begun to forcibly occupy the farms, causing court-ordered evictions and fueling greater use of private security forces in the region.

The plight of the Paraguayan farmers and the desolate monoculture created by multinational food corporations like Cargil are beautifully captured in a recent photo essay by Evan Abramson in NACLA Report on the Americas. Abramson reports that some 6 million gallons of pesticides, including some classified as extremely dangerous by the World Health Organization, are being dumped on Paraguayan soil every year. This creates serious health problems and some birth defects for the surrounding population.

The environmental argument for soy-based biodiesel is canceled out by the destruction being caused by the crop, April Howard and Benjamin Dangl wrote in the July-August 2007 issue of Utne Reader. Yet the land being devoted to biofuels continues to rise. Howard and Dangl quoted a local farmer Meriton Ramírez who explained the problem:

"I didn't want to leave. I built my farm and raised my children here. I planted fruit trees. For the first time in my life I had good land," Ramírez says, motioning to the vacant space that used to be his home. "Then the soy farmers arrived and we couldn't stand the fumigation. We had terrible headaches, nausea and skin rashes, problems seeing, respiratory infections. The chickens died. The cows aborted their calves and their milk dried up."

Photo courtesy of Evan Abramson.

Sources: NACLA Report on the Americas, Utne Reader

A vegan strip club opened this month in Portland—allegedly the world’s first, Willamette Week reports. At Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, club owner Johnny Diablo tells KPTV, his customers can enjoy “meat on the pole, not on the plate.” Some feminists quickly took issue with this instance of exploiting women’s bodies in lieu of exploiting animals, a la PETA’s racy “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” ad campaign. Diablo maintains that his club provides “cruelty free pleasure.”

In addition to slinging healthy vegan fare, Casa Diablo is Portland’s only smoke-free strip club. It’s questionable whether clean air or a clean conscience for carnally indulging will be customers’ first reasons to visit.

—Lisa Gulya

Vegetarian converts can be won without employing the ubiquitous mantra of “meat is murder.” Functional and affordable products are key, argues Silicon Valley Metro Active food columnist Elisa Camahort, which is why she embraces big-box organics along with neighborhood co-ops.

“Like anybody else,” Camahort writes, “I want the fact that a product or service meets my personal ethical requirements to be the bonus, the cherry on the sundae. I don’t want it to be the reason I have to put up with below-par quality or service.”

Increasing the availability of veg products is the modus operandi of “vegan culinary activism,” which Post Punk Kitchen co-creator Isa Chandra Moskowitz outlines in the vegetarian magazine Satya. Attracting the omnivorous masses starts with convincing your mom to use a vegan cookbook or your neighborhood 7-Eleven to stock seitan sandwiches, which they do in Philadelphia. Moskowitz challenges animal libbers to tempt the taste buds of omnivores as a form of activism.

“Every time I hear animal rights activists engaging in heated debate,” Moskowitz writes, “I want to shout, ‘Shut the hell up and go invent a good-tasting soy cheese!’”

—Lisa Gulya