Guest guest Posted July 9, 2003 Report Share Posted July 9, 2003 Vegan Spam, a e-newsletter from Vegan Outreach, posted a rave review of 8th Continent soymilks. I clicked on the link provided and found a lot of unpleasant things. So I wrote the following letter and thought I'd share it with you all. For the record, the author of vegan spam decided he would continue to promeote products like 8th Continent, because it furthers the vegan options and gets corporations to think about providing more vegan foods, as well as getting soymilk available to a larger market, as these corps have big marketing budgets. I disagree, and stopped my subscription to his newletter. Vegan Outreach does some good, uh, vegan outreach, but I can't justify donating to them if they want to promote products such as this. His original post is below my response. If you want, I can dig up his reply to my letter (and I wasn't the only one who wrote in protest). Without further ado, my letter: I wanted to respond to the letter from Matt Ball [VeganSpam's author], regarding 8th Continent soymilk. I recently saw this in a local grocery store, so I visited the link you provided, and clicked on " Media Room. " This product is a joint venture of General Mills and a DuPont subsidiary called Protein Technologies International (the name alone is frightening to me). This " high tech " subsidiary, according to an insightful article found at a pro-biotech site, http://www.biotech-info.net/hybrid_rigour.html, performs genetic engineering on soy (skip to the last paragraph for this tidbit); General Mills is active in genetic modification research. 8th Continent soy is not organic, and not to put too fine a point on it, one can safely assume that the soy is genetically modified. DuPont performs animal testing, and a quick Google search of " DuPont, animal tests " turns up articles showing that the company has been criticized by animal- and human health proponents for cruel and unnecessary animal tests. A glance at the ingredient lists is unsettling. All flavors contain food-grade chemical additives, which is not surprising since DuPont is a chemical company. Sodium hexametaphosphate, for example, is used to protect metals from calcification, as a water softener, and to remove stains from teeth, among other operations - it seems unnecessary, at least. The cocoa in the chocolate flavor is processed with alkali. The vitamin D could be from animal sources. The vanilla and chocolate flavors contain both natural and *artificial* flavors. Not a product I'd expect Vegan Outreach to promote. ~Doh Driver ---------- All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? ~ Buddha Vegan Spam <veganspam Vegan Anti-Spam? May 18, 2003 May 16, 2003 News and Updates Soymilk Encounter of the 8th Kind I finally had the chance to try 8th Continent soymilk <http://www.8thcontinent.com/> , and damn if the chocolate <http://www.8thcontinent.com/our_soymilks/product_detail.asp?flavor=choc> isn't even better than Silk's <http://whitewave.com/index.php?id=34> ! -Matt Ball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 11, 2003 Report Share Posted July 11, 2003 Thanks for supporting my hunch. The first time I saw it on the shelf I scanned the label. Not organic, not for me (or more importantly, my daughters). I suspected it was made by some monster corporation trying to horn in on the market. Sodium hexamaetaphosphate, ugh. I took organic chem. in college but a person doesn't need that backround to know that certain chemicals don't belong inside living things. Thanks again Doh. Stephanie , Doh! <dohdriver> wrote: > Vegan Spam, a e-newsletter from Vegan Outreach, posted a rave review of 8th > Continent soymilks. I clicked on the link provided and found a lot of > unpleasant things. So I wrote the following letter and thought I'd share it > with you all. For the record, the author of vegan spam decided he would > continue to promeote products like 8th Continent, because it furthers the > vegan options and gets corporations to think about providing more vegan > foods, as well as getting soymilk available to a larger market, as these > corps have big marketing budgets. I disagree, and stopped my subscription > to his newletter. Vegan Outreach does some good, uh, vegan outreach, but I > can't justify donating to them if they want to promote products such as > this. His original post is below my response. If you want, I can dig up > his reply to my letter (and I wasn't the only one who wrote in protest). > > Without further ado, my letter: > > I wanted to respond to the letter from Matt Ball [VeganSpam's author], > regarding 8th Continent soymilk. I recently saw this in a local grocery > store, so I visited the link you provided, and clicked on " Media Room. " > > This product is a joint venture of General Mills and a DuPont subsidiary > called Protein Technologies International (the name alone is frightening to > me). This " high tech " subsidiary, according to an insightful article found > at a pro-biotech site, http://www.biotech- info.net/hybrid_rigour.html, > performs genetic engineering on soy (skip to the last paragraph for this > tidbit); General Mills is active in genetic modification research. 8th > Continent soy is not organic, and not to put too fine a point on it, one can > safely assume that the soy is genetically modified. > > DuPont performs animal testing, and a quick Google search of " DuPont, animal > tests " turns up articles showing that the company has been criticized by > animal- and human health proponents for cruel and unnecessary animal tests. > > A glance at the ingredient lists is unsettling. All flavors contain > food-grade chemical additives, which is not surprising since DuPont is a > chemical company. Sodium hexametaphosphate, for example, is used to protect > metals from calcification, as a water softener, and to remove stains from > teeth, among other operations - it seems unnecessary, at least. The cocoa > in the chocolate flavor is processed with alkali. The vitamin D could be > from animal sources. The vanilla and chocolate flavors contain both natural > and *artificial* flavors. > > Not a product I'd expect Vegan Outreach to promote. > ~Doh Driver > > ---------- > All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See > yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? ~ Buddha > > Vegan Spam <veganspam@v...> > Vegan Anti-Spam? May 18, 2003 > > > May 16, 2003 > News and Updates > > Soymilk Encounter of the 8th Kind > I finally had the chance to try 8th Continent soymilk > <http://www.8thcontinent.com/> , and damn if the chocolate > <http://www.8thcontinent.com/our_soymilks/product_detail.asp? flavor=choc> > isn't even better than Silk's <http://whitewave.com/index.php? id=34> ! > -Matt Ball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 16, 2003 Report Share Posted July 16, 2003 Could you please post Matt Ball's response to you? Thanks, Scott , Doh! <dohdriver> wrote: > Vegan Spam, a e-newsletter from Vegan Outreach, posted a rave review of 8th > Continent soymilks. I clicked on the link provided and found a lot of > unpleasant things. So I wrote the following letter and thought I'd share it > with you all. For the record, the author of vegan spam decided he would > continue to promeote products like 8th Continent, because it furthers the > vegan options and gets corporations to think about providing more vegan > foods, as well as getting soymilk available to a larger market, as these > corps have big marketing budgets. I disagree, and stopped my subscription > to his newletter. Vegan Outreach does some good, uh, vegan outreach, but I > can't justify donating to them if they want to promote products such as > this. His original post is below my response. If you want, I can dig up > his reply to my letter (and I wasn't the only one who wrote in protest). > > Without further ado, my letter: > > I wanted to respond to the letter from Matt Ball [VeganSpam's author], > regarding 8th Continent soymilk. I recently saw this in a local grocery > store, so I visited the link you provided, and clicked on " Media Room. " > > This product is a joint venture of General Mills and a DuPont subsidiary > called Protein Technologies International (the name alone is frightening to > me). This " high tech " subsidiary, according to an insightful article found > at a pro-biotech site, http://www.biotech- info.net/hybrid_rigour.html, > performs genetic engineering on soy (skip to the last paragraph for this > tidbit); General Mills is active in genetic modification research. 8th > Continent soy is not organic, and not to put too fine a point on it, one can > safely assume that the soy is genetically modified. > > DuPont performs animal testing, and a quick Google search of " DuPont, animal > tests " turns up articles showing that the company has been criticized by > animal- and human health proponents for cruel and unnecessary animal tests. > > A glance at the ingredient lists is unsettling. All flavors contain > food-grade chemical additives, which is not surprising since DuPont is a > chemical company. Sodium hexametaphosphate, for example, is used to protect > metals from calcification, as a water softener, and to remove stains from > teeth, among other operations - it seems unnecessary, at least. The cocoa > in the chocolate flavor is processed with alkali. The vitamin D could be > from animal sources. The vanilla and chocolate flavors contain both natural > and *artificial* flavors. > > Not a product I'd expect Vegan Outreach to promote. > ~Doh Driver > > ---------- > All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See > yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? ~ Buddha > > Vegan Spam <veganspam@v...> > Vegan Anti-Spam? May 18, 2003 > > > May 16, 2003 > News and Updates > > Soymilk Encounter of the 8th Kind > I finally had the chance to try 8th Continent soymilk > <http://www.8thcontinent.com/> , and damn if the chocolate > <http://www.8thcontinent.com/our_soymilks/product_detail.asp? flavor=choc> > isn't even better than Silk's <http://whitewave.com/index.php? id=34> ! > -Matt Ball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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