A little plug for the farmers market

The best vote, is your local farmers market to buy organics, or 'used no pesticide' produce. ;)

Honestly, there are some brands in the store that still hold high ideals. Organic Valley is one. They are an amazing company that is really trying to hold local food ideals. None of their food is shipped more than 300 miles from their factories. They process mostly local food from small(er) farms... and they highly support sustainable agriculture.

Earth Bound Organics is another one. They are based in CA, but they started out as a very small farm, and have tried to maintain these ideals as much as they can. They are organic, grown in the USA, and pay their workers a living wage.

The ones I would never purchase are Stonyfield Farms, or Brown Cow (owned by Stonyfield Farm). Them and companies like them are the reason why people have started to use the terms "Locavore" and "Beyond Organic". The huge organic companies are removing pesticide from our planet... which is wonderful. But the lives of the animals making your cheese and eggs are no different than the lives of the 'conventional' cow or chicken (meaning downright barbaric). The miles of single variety produce that they grow (and when I saw miles, I mean many hundreds of miles) creates an issue with mono-cropping.

For more info, here are some links:

Who Owns What?

The Battle for the Soul of the Organic Market