Carrot & stick

Vegetarian Times, Sept, 2004

a CARROT to:

* Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock for his documentary Super Size Me, which chronicles the month in which he subsisted on nothing but McDonald's fare. The expose of what the food will do to an otherwise healthy young person serves as a reminder not to be taken in by the chain's well-publicized attempts to offer more healthful items. Behind these moves, LA Weekly's film critic writes, is "an industry selling crappy food, at very low overhead, in ever-increasing quantities, while slipping in a few new salads low on the menu."

* Organic Valley, the 100 percent farmer-owned organic co-op in LaFarge, Wisconsin, for its new $5.9 million, energy-efficient "green headquarters." The 49,000-square-foot building uses natural day lighting inside, solar-powered lights in the parking lot and insulation made of recycled cloth similar to denim. "We've made a conscious decision to stay in rural Wisconsin for the long haul," says CEO and farmer George Siemon. "We're passionately committed to helping revive rural communities and saving family farms through organic, sustainable agriculture."

* The Sierra Club for compiling and making available a list of US dairy farms and manufacturers that do not use genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in their cheese products. (The list includes products from cows only; sheep and goats are never injected with the growth hormone.) For a copy, visit www.sierraclub.org/biotech/ nonrBGH.asp.

a STICK to:

* The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for challenging a 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in February that the DEA has no legal grounds to outlaw hemp oil and sterilized hemp seeds, the non-psychoactive ingredients in industrial hemp, illegal since 1937. A mainstay of the American agricultural economy for most of this country's history, hemp can be made into more than 25,000 products, according to the North American Hemp Council, including cosmetics, clothing and food.

* Oscar Mayer for its advertising campaign marketing the sodium-heavy, fat-laden Lunchables kids' meals as "nutrition disguised as fun."

* Masterfoods USA for introducing its Snickers Marathon candy bar as a "Long Lasting Energy Bar." The good folks at Snickers say they "have understood energy since long before the first energy bar existed"--true enough if, by energy, they mean sudden bursts of sugar-induced frenzy followed by crashes.

* Coca-Cola for buying sugar from Central Izalco, El Salvador's largest sugar mill, which in turn buys its cane from plantations that illegally employ children, some as young as 8 years old, in highly dangerous jobs. "If Coca-Cola is serious about avoiding complicity in the use of hazardous child labor," says Michael Bochenek of Human Rights Watch, which studied the child-labor problem in El Salvador, "the company should recognize its responsibility to ensure that respect for human rights extends beyond its direct suppliers."