Silk soymilk...good, right? Not so much.

My sister recently sent me a link to the Cornucopia institute, a group that "promotes economic justice for family scale farming." They have developed a rating system for soy milk brands which takes into account manufacturing processes (do they use hexane, etc), whether the products use American soy or imported soy, and whether or not the company sources organic soybeans. You can read it yourself, but I'll give you the preview that Silk brand was rated very poorly. They used to be only organic, and used American beans, but the company was purchased by Dean Foods, a giant agribusiness that runs many factory farms. In the past few years they started buying up organic and health food brands right and left. The upshot is that not only are most of Silk's products no longer organic, but they also are sourcing soy from China. Oh, and they bought Horizon Organics as well...

The Organic Consumers Association writes about the dangers of this trend here.

Support your local farms.