thanx ayesha for the taqwa reference. if your in the chicago area...please buy your meat from them. its organic. and as far as i know....its the only muslim zabiha and organic meat around.

Cool stuff, sisters..

The family will be interested in these links -- Taqwa EcoFoods, i'll have to check them out!

Talib and Ayesha -- you're right about whole paycheck, and it seems their produce is less and less organic, and certainly doesn't emphasize small local sustainable farming practices. Hydro-shmydro.

CSAs are wonderful, Rukhshan -- the next best thing to having your own garden or a space in a community garden. Great you found one!


Living, do you eat mostly raw food too? Yum!
Does magruder's have organic now, or do they focus on high-end retailing? Are there any raw restaurants in DC?


Last week on a visit to SF, someone turned me on to an issue about RICE. i had gotten lundberg organic basmati for my family, and they didn't like it. turns out, it's not real basmati, and is hurting the livelihoods of southeast Asian farmers who would love for the market to support them in sustainable farming endeavours. She gave me the names of 2 companies. AHAR is the company to talk to about organic native basmati, Fairly traded... and Alter Egos, the company for fairly traded jasmine rice.

One of the links I posted here, realgoods.com, apparently has funny ownership / investment. Better to use the catalog for ideas, than to actually buy from them.

Has everyone seen the lists detailing corporate ownership of some common organic brands? I know there are convenient wallet-sized versions of them, but can't find them right now:


A familiar brand name to organic shoppers is Hain. This company now owns many other organic brands, which continue to appear to be independent. Some examples include: Bearitos (chips), Bread Shop (granola), Celestial Seasonings (tea), Garden of Eatin', Health Valley, Imagine Foods (Rice Dream), Terra Chips, and Westbrae (canned vegetables, soy drinks, pastas, and more). And who owns Hain? The prime investors in the Hain Food Group are mutual funds and holding companies. Their principal stockholders are Phillip Morris (tobacco), Monsanto (genetically modified food), Citigroup (responsible for rainforest destruction), Exxon/Mobil, Wal-Mart, Entergy Nuclear, and Lockheed Martin (weapons manufacturer). In 9/99 the H.J. Heinz Co. acquired ownership of nearly 20% of Hain. And, no surprises here, Heinz is principally owned by the same mutual funds and principal stockholders as is Hain.

Cascadian Farms (the brand offering much of the organic frozen food on the market) and Muir Glen (tomato products) are owned by Small Planet Foods, which is the organic marketing "niche"owned by General Mills, the third biggest food conglomerate in North America. Agribusiness is guilty enough for negative impacts on the global environment, local economies, and the nutritional quality of the food most of us have little choice but to consume. But look who "owns" General Mills. Their principal investors are Philip Morris, Exxon/Mobil, General Electric, Chevron, Nike, McDonald's, Target Stores, Starbucks, Monsanto, Dupont (weapons & pesticides), Dow Chemical (Agent Orange, breast implants, napalm), Pepsico, Alcoa Aluminium, Disney, and Texas Instruments (weapons producer and one of G.W. Bush's top contributors).

Fresh Samantha, a popular organic juice brand regionally produced in Maine, merged with Odwalla in 5/00. Little do health conscious consumers suspect that Odwalla Juice is owned by CocaCola, as part of their Minute Maid unit (and pasteurizes their juices). Boca Burgers is owned by Kraft Foods, which is owned by Philip Morris. Stoned Wheat Thins is made with GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and is owned by Nabisco, which was acquired by Philip Morris in December, 2000. Arrowhead Water and Poland Spring Water are owned by Nestle (which is being boycotted because its "breast milk substitute" causes the deaths of millions of babies). Silk Soy Drink is owned by White Wave, which is owned by Dean Foods, whose main shareholders are Microsoft, General Electric, Philip Morris, Citigroup, Pfizer, Exxon/Mobil, Coca Cola, WalMart, PepsiCo, and Home Depot.

Writing for the New York Times Sunday Magazine (5/13/01), Michael Pollan reported that Organic Cow, previously represented to consumers as an organic dairy based in the Northeast and consisting of a network of small farms, was bought out by Horizon. Another source of organic dairy products, Horizon is a $127 million public corporation that has become the Microsoft of organic milk, controlling 70 percent of the retail market. The milk is now "ultrapasteurized" using a highheat process that "kills the milk," destroying its enzymes and many of its vitamins so it can be sold over long distances. Arguably, ultrapasteurized organic milk is actually less nutritious than conventionally pasteurized non-organic milk. Horizon's "factory farms" in the West are described as a clear example of the certifiability of inhumane practices through the emerging corporate organics system. Pollan writes: "On Horizon's dairy farms in the west, thousands of cows that never encounter a blade of grass spend their days confined to a fenced dry lot, eating (certified organic) grain and tethered to milking machines three times a day." (Horizon is also owned by Dean Foods)

I shop at Health & Harmony, a great little health food store a few blocks away from my office in the West Village/Soho area.

My Organic Market myorganicmarket.com

Magruders www.magruders.com

Trader Joe's traderjoes.com

Helpful Links vegdc.com rawdc.org

Trader Joes and my local farmers market. Also, Taqwa EcoFoods has a meat cooperative that supports sustainable farming. I also think Whole Foods is overrated - and not all the products are sustainably cultivated anyway.

Trader Joe's is a great place. You practically do not even need to look at the ingredients (well, it depends on what you are buying). Most of the stuff I try to buy is vegan, so the local food co-op is ideal (I find Whole Foods way over priced).

I joined my local C.S.A (Community Supported Agriculture), basically you buy a share in a local farms crops for the year. Every week you get a box of fresh veggies just picked from the farm that is organic. It's great because I get to try veggies I normally would never try.

I try to go to Whole Foods or Wild Oats grocery stores.... that's about all that is available in this town.....
But thanks for the websites - good info!

right, it's no picnic here, smartiepants.

In this town, the current options are either to ask the tiny Christian health food store to order a whole box of whatever you want a week in advance, or drive around to three or four stores and find half the things you need, or drive 70 minutes to a larger town, where 90% will be available. Even in the larger cities, organics are mostly an upper-class privilege, and fair trade seems to be pretty low on the priority list.

There are a couple of buyers' clubs, but Albert's Organics (the produce arm of United Buying Clubs) doesn't deliver to the Southeast.

I've planted a garden, and we've hooked up with a CSA in operation for part of the year, but i'm skeptical about the goat meat (for the fam), since this area suffers from a number of heavy footprints of "civilization."

As for clothes or political gear, well, forget it :)

I shop at Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, it's great and also Whole Foods.

i shop @ whole foods and trader joe's. online is a great tool too if you don't have access to these stores in your area. veganessential.com !