We Mediterranean types happily notice that olive oil is not included in ADM's catalogue of vegetable oils.  And we shall continue importing from the EU, so long as that is practical.

But canola oil perhaps is practical too.  Do you, dear Tom, have anything good to say about canola?

In general, congratulations!, this is sort of like a Federalist Paper leading up to a Constitution, regarding especially buying food in multi-product-genre stores.

Regarding seafood, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "little fold-out sheet": I would like to know more about people's experience with that.  I have a couple of editions of it magneted to my refrigerator, but generally do not refer to them.  (They are next to a picture of the late Pope John Paul II, in healthier days, holding on high a Book of the Gospels.  But the juxtaposition is just a post-modern thing, there is no hegemonic patriarchal significance attached.)  And that is fitting, seeing that we very rarely eat seafood -- an occasional can of sardines, an occasional order from a Chinese restaurant -- , and never buy it from a food store.  So, I would be fascinated to know what kinds of conversations seafood customers have with seafood managers.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

If we insisted on this, ADM, exxonmob, halliburton and the rest would be heartbroken.  Their very special corporate "citizen" constitutional  rights to do anything they want to with no consequences canceled.

But the bad news is that it would take a grassroots effort, and the badder news is that any reform or GHG global climate disaster fight will only proceed from the grassroots up too.

But we DO have the internet. At least part of it. Yikes.  

They only have the US government, the banks, the federal reserve, the means of production, the media, the military, Diebold, computerized redistricting using the credit reporting agency's proprietary "secret" information on all of US....     Hehehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

If one simply buys locally, such as from truck farms and ranches, chances are you are avoiding AMD, CON-AGRA, and other global food-based suppliers.  This is not always possible but please support your local growers, cheese shops, butchers, and so forth.  

It costs more but some of us value quality over quantity.  For those of you who don't know, most all factory tomatoes and oranges and similar fruits are picked as green and hard and can be, and then are gassed with ethylene for ripening and a pesticide.  AMD is mostly known for its grain operations, and since our family gave up eating a lot of starchy foods, we feel much better.

A good point was raised about fish products.  Again, what should be avoided are fish caught on "factory ships" so please support your local fisherman, especially the hook-and-line fishermen.  We acually have a wholesaler that works with the small boats and will call us if a nice load of fresh snapper, bass, and tuna comes in.  

And canned sardines, PULEEEEZZZ!  Those fish are rounded up in huge seine nets and pumped onto a ship by the metric ton, something that would make AMD quite envious.  /sammie

Onward through the fog

Uh, yeah, because being pulled out of the water by a hook in the mouth is so much better than being pulled out in a net!

No, wait.

Minimizing eating these things--ADM products, fish, etc--is great.  If we're going to indulge from time to time, we shouldn't kid ourselves that it's actually a good thing if we just do it right.  I do bad stuff from time to time, and dammit, I enjoy it, but I don't pretend it's virtuous.

Thanks, Tom, for laying out the gigantic scale of the problem, and for giving us yet one more specific reason to to the right things.  It's easy to feel anxious and guilty about eating prepared foods, not as easy to remember the specific reasons we shouldn't, and the specific things we need to do instead.

I'm really at a loss. What is with all you people bashing ADM? What did ADM ever do to any of you? Oh, I get it. This must be one of those anti-trade, anti-capitalism websites that would like to see every major American corporation shrivel up and die so that millions of people would be out of work and our economy would tank. I for one will buy certain products because I know that ADM ingredients are in them. Particularly those using ADM cocoa and ADM soy protein. And needless to say, I always gas up with ethanol. Not only does most of it come from ADM, but it's generally two cents less per gallon. As for the evil xanthan gum and your general assault on the bioproducts division, what gives? You know, what, go ahead and boycott ADM. And as soon as you figure out how to feed the entire planet from a road side stand, let me know.