boycott eden foods!
posted by molly under cooking, health and wellness, this and that, vegan living | permalink | | leave a comment | 23 comments
Eden Foods makes that soymilk you see everywhere, the one with the pastoral landscape on it:
They also make a ton of other natural foods products, like beans and oil and vinegar and flour and cereal and all kinds of shit. Anyways, they are suing the Obama administration because they don’t want to cover birth control for their employees.
Fuck them. Fuck that shit!
Here’s the Salon.com article where I initially found out about Eden Foods’ conservative agenda. It’s awful:
Eden Foods … says in its filing that the company believes of birth control that “these procedures almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices.” The complaint also says that “Plaintiffs believe that Plan B and ‘ella’ can cause the death of the embryo, which is a person.” (Studies show that neither Plan B nor Ella interfere with fertilization, which is the Catholic definition of the beginning of life, if not the medical one. In other words, not the death of an embryo. Also, at that stage, it’s a zygote, not an embryo — let alone a “person.”) The filing also said that “Plaintiff Eden Foods’ products, methods, and accomplishments are described by critics as: tasteful, nutritious, wholesome, principled, unrivaled, nurturing, pure.”
As if the above wasn’t awful enough, Eden Foods’ CEO is just so goddamn enthusiastic about their taking a wholesome, principled, nurturing stand against women’s health that he called Salon to respond to their article! And comes off as a fundamentalist asshole!
I floated by him the fact that contraceptive coverage is cheaper to pay for than, say, maternity coverage.
Potter replied, “One’s got a little more warmth and fuzziness to it than the other, for crying out loud.”
For crying out loud!
…he opposes “using abortion as birth control, definitely.” But the mandate doesn’t cover abortion, I reminded him, only contraception, and emergency contraception is not abortion.
“It’s a morass,” Potter said. “I’m not an expert in anything. I’m not the pope. I’m in the food business. I’m qualified to have opinions about that and not issues that are purely women’s issues. I am qualified to have an opinion about what health insurance I pay for.”
Morass indeed. Read the whole thing here.
So, yeah, fuck them! Don’t buy their shit, and even more importantly, write them a letter or go say something on their FB page or something.
Obviously lots of natural foods companies are owned by parent corporations that suck, or are shitty in some way, but when they sue to make this country even more goddamn backwards, and then come right out and enthuse about their fundamentalist, religious, conservative ideologies, well. As I said: Fuck them.
6:51 pm, 22 April 2013
Go Eden GO! PLEASE don’t get scared by the few loud-mouth LIBS. Values are more important than our president vying for a few votes, thereby gutting “everything” our founding fathers stood for! U R not in the minority. U R on the side of lots of Americans (who may not be so outspoken, since they stick to their principals regardless of the media and street people, and feel no need to rant). I’m with U all the way. Hope your LAWSUIT suceeds and sets a precedent! Amazingly, these same LIBS who claim that FOOD Establishments shall not side with MORAL issues, didn’t say a word when STARBUCKS came out FOR the LGBT Movement! Hypocrites! Once again…GO EDEN GO! May God bless U, and all who stick to their moral values and religious beliefs.
10:09 am, 23 April 2013
Sorry but most American women do use contraceptive, even the catholic ones…. and if you think you are going to force them not to, you are highly deluded… And not saying a word means endorsement? On which planet do you live and in what century?
10:21 am, 27 April 2013
I have a hard time with people who say that contraception violates religious freedom, but then allow millions of children to starve and otherwise suffer abuse which violates religious teachings. You can’t be prolife and allow that.
8:57 am, 9 July 2014
The problem with your argument is that Eden Foods primarily markets to the same demographic that supports a woman’s right to have her healthcare needs covered. So they are directly insulting their core customers. In marketing that is a BIG no-no.
Besides, Eden Foods hasn’t objected to their own investments in companies that make the same contraceptives. So is it only when they have to cover it through a woman’s healthcare program and not when they themselves make money on it? A very interested morality they have.
9:08 pm, 22 April 2013
I will never purchase your products again since you don’t want to provide coverage for woman’s birth control. It is totally discriminating against women in your employ and I will stop spending money on your products. Shame on you.
9:14 pm, 22 April 2013
Hopefully, there is a VAST MAJORITY of citizens who RESPECT the law, and have opinions, too.
5:08 am, 23 April 2013
I don’t use their products, there are many healthier choices so I would advise those that do,to take this opportunity, this little extra push, to indulge your desire for a healthy life and switch it up to one of the dozens of better choices in their product category. I’m not naming names intentionally. Read the ingredients, know what it is that your body needs nutritionally to not simply survive, but to prosper and see which products give them to you. If you don’t know what you are putting in your body you will not like what it does to you.
To a woman’s right to choose and healthcare: women have a right to choose and I’m not down for a business’s rights trumping them in any way, shape or form. Anytime.
Women control the household budget (except for that nearly “rounding error” fraction) and for the owners to be so deaf to that fact astounds me.
Eden’s only hope is to start slapping some “4 for $5” signs up in those grocery ailes.
7:56 am, 6 July 2014
The ingredients in Eden products are VERY good, so your “healthier” products argument is ridiculous.
But, you are correct that women control the household in terms of purchasing products and that women have the right to control their fertility and their health.
It is unfortunate that the Eden CEO wishes to politicize his personal beliefs this way because I can no longer buy these products, which are of high quality. I simply cannot fund such woman-hating activity.
1:01 pm, 7 July 2014
Let’s keep things civil and to the point. I’m sure there are healthier and less healthier alternatives than Eden offerings. The real issue is their stance on women’s rights. Thanks!
5:33 am, 23 April 2013
I am shocked. One of our grand children has used your product for years. Given that you are back in the 19th C. regarding women’s health issues, we shall not buy your product again and will urge others in our congregation to do the same.
Rev. John Ekman
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
9:52 am, 23 April 2013
While individual religious rights are protected in this country, corporations are not, notwithstanding the court’s statement that corporations are people. You can’t subject your employees and the public to your religious values. Would you by from an Arab grocery store that supports Sharia law? That is way I will never again buy from you and tell all of my friends not to also
10:05 am, 23 April 2013
This is absolutely shocking. When you should be happy that so many people who can’t afford healthcare will be saved by Obamacare insurance, you have the gall to attack it on the basis of you biased and intolerant ideology! Not everybody in the world holds your belief and why are you trying to push it on us. This definitely call for boycotting your products!
1:38 pm, 23 April 2013
Why don’t you put free condoms with your soy milk and help stoop disease, and overpopulation?
1:22 am, 24 April 2013
I will not knowingly purchase Eden products while they discriminate against contraceptives. It is wrong for you to force your bias on others. There are other companies from whom I can fill my needs and I will use them. Do not self-righteously foist your beliefs onto others, and I won’t force mine on you!
7:05 am, 24 April 2013
The efforts by certain groups and individuals to inject their personal religious views and dogmas into
policy has no justification. A consumer products corporation is not a religious platform for biased opinions!
10:21 am, 27 April 2013
Thank you!
5:43 am, 26 April 2013
And what about the religious rights of those employees who are not Roman Catholic? My family came to Virginia in the early 1600s from France to escape from persecution by the Roman church. I am sick and tired of Catholic bishops and Catholic businessmen trying to reverse history and establish Catholic control over health care. What’s next? Will they ban anything their Pope doesn’t approve of?I certainly will not be buying anything from Eden foods. I’ve been boycotting a lot of companies over the health care issue. There are plenty of other companies happy to do business with me.
4:50 pm, 28 April 2013
Another lost customer here.
I’ve seen women’s lives ruined from unwanted pregnancy and the poverty that has created for them.
And then the religious right has helped to make it tough for those unwanted kids and their mothers to get much help. Social services? Affordable day care? Or is your company big on voting for tax dollars to go toward programs that help the poor?
Do you offer daycare for your employees? Paid maternity leave? I hope so.
Otherwise you’re just another hypocrite whose true motivation has more to do with money than religious convictions.
Get out of your employee’s bedrooms.
Your stance and your church is a far cry from the message your Jesus preached.
The only difference you are making with this lawsuit is in your profit margin.
4:56 pm, 3 July 2014
Heres a petition calling for a total boycott, spread the word! I for one will never be buying their products again.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/938/500/053/a-total-boycott-of-eden-food-products/#next_action
11:00 am, 7 July 2014
I am deeply disturbed by the position that the company has taken. I will now after many years of support, withdraw my support of your product line. There is nothing I can say that is adequate to my frustration.
2:43 am, 9 July 2014
Aren’t you an ingrate. Someone with a lot of cash to buy food, whatever you want that does not come from an owner who disagrees with your religious beliefs or lack thereof. You want to have sex all you want and be on a pill so that you don’t have children. Well someone should ship you off to Africa, where they have no electricity, running water, and certainly no birth control. They also do not have food there like you see in America’s stores. Life is hard there. Then after a year of living there watching starving children every day, and feeling starvation yourself, you can come back here to America, the land of the free, where people broke their back and grew their own food for themselves and communities forced out people they didn’t like. You will then think about not boycotting a food company and move your sight to something more important like spending your time trying to arrange an actual community garden in your neighborhood or boycotting some company that uses slave labor in China. Cut the crap and stop being such an ingrate.
7:29 am, 9 July 2014
Keep it classy and on-point, Devotion for Jesus! You seem like a true follower of Christ. I’d say more but I’m off to go have all the sex I want and be on a pill so I don’t have children!
9:00 am, 9 July 2014
If I may suggest more action on this issue:
Here is a petition to Eden Foods (similar to the many ones circulating for Hobby Lobby) asking them to cover women’s healthcare:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/938/500/053/a-total-boycott-of-eden-food-products/
Here is another such petition:
http://act.credoaction.com/sign/Eden_ACA?akid=11122.3753923.vV2V8-&rd=1&t=6
AND another one:
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/eden_foods_birth_control_lawsuit/?akid=409.7283.rfRglK&rd=1&t=3
I think the focus on Hobby Lobby won’t get far, at least not alone. By contrast, Eden Foods actively markets to a progressive community. They can’t afford to piss off their customers and we need to let them feel the pressure.
I would additionally add that one of the main problems is of course the Supreme Court. In addition to pressuring companies, we have to ensure a Democratic majority in the Senate to better be able to approve justices like Sotomayor and prevent justices like Thomas from getting on the bench for life. This is a key year for this, so please send a few bucks to at least the Senate candidates on my Act Blue Site. (Would love to see it get to $2000!) https://secure.actblue.com/page/close2014