Unsurprising News: Major Organic Food Company Run By Christian Right Nutters

[phantom power]

I can’t say I’m really surprised any time it turns out that there’s right wing nuttery lurking behind a major organic foods line. For all the good stuff in the organic food movement, there’s also a sector of people that get into it that have strong reactionary tendencies. That’s because organic food isn’t just about real world environmental issues. It also touches on some people’s concerns about “purity”—this outsized, irrational fear of moral contamination—-that is fundamentally reactionary. The uptight prudery of the right is all about this purity obsession. On the misogynist, sex-phobic right, there’s a lot of talk about “natural” sexuality, an attempt to gain control over their deepset fears about impurity by creating rigid rules about non-procreative vs. procreative sex. On the right, there’s a lot of fearfulness of medicine and science that also stems from this, though unsurprisingly the needs of women, children, and lower income people tend to be the ones first sacrificed in the name of being “skeptical” of modernism and science.

There’s a strong streak of “purity” politics on the left that shades into reactionary politics, and unsurprisingly, women, low income folks, and children are the ones expected to carry the heaviest burden for it. The anti-vaccination folks, the people that are hardcore attachment parenting people, the unschoolers, and the anti-GMO people: These are all movements that are associated with the left, but are reactionary purity panics at heart. Unsurprisingly, these movements also tend to attract a lot more right wing adherents, who definitely are attracted to the way that these movements position the nuclear family as this little individual group against the world, and particularly like how the wife/mother member is expected to be a self-sacrificing saint who will go as far as to spend her days staring at a baby rather than use a diaper. The use of unlicensed midwives for home births is another one of those things that has a Hollywood liberal reputation, but is, in reality, as much a hardcore fundamentalist Christian thing, because of the belief that labor is women’s punishment for Eve’s sin. Certainly, I’ve had a lot of self-identified “feminists” rant at me online about the supposed horrors of female-controlled contraception, muttering dark conspiracy theories about how Big Pharma is trying to reduce women to sex objects, a line taken straight out of the Catholic anti-contraception handbook.

I’m just saying that there’s a paranoid, purity-obsessed, anti-feminist (despite claiming otherwise) streak on the left that merges neatly with conservative Christian obsessions, and so I’m never surprised to see that someone involved in the organic food industry—especially if they embrace unscientific claims about GMOs—is actually a Bible-thumping right winger at heart. I’m into organic food, but it’s definitely an area where it pays to be skeptical and do your research, because it’s really not as partisan an area as some people might think. Crunchy conservatism is a pretty widespread phenomenon.

Also, don’t buy Promised Land dairy products. The guy who runs that company, which is stocked in like every organic supermarket everywhere, is a right wing nut of the highest degree who has financed Rick Perry through his entire career. Really, like with Eden Foods, it’s wise to slow your roll when the company’s name references the Bible.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/11/unsurprising-news-major-organic-food-company-run-by-christian-right-nutters/

[shenmue]

1. Dang

Well, I will check more closely when I go to the store.

[byeya]

2. Good information to know - thanks!

[myrna minx]

3. I often buy Eden Foods products. I won't anymore. I had no idea.

Thanks for posting.

[phantom power]

4. The 'bible memes in my company name thing" is something I've noticed locally

I generally associated it more with smaller, local, mom/pop kinds of companies, but for example you see companies with names like "Grace Plumbing", and other businesses with variations on the christian fish in their logo, or on their business cards, etc.

My unscientific impression is that this whole "Part of my brand is that I'm Christian" is something that's happened mostly over the last couple decades. I don't remember anything like that when I was a kid.

[SunSeeker]

5. Wow, didn't know about Promised Land either. I'll just stay away from Bible-theme brands. nt

[KittyWampus]

6. If you stop buying please contact them and tell them why

[Paul E Ester]

7. whole foods is run by a right wing nut...nt

[hobbit709]

8. He's more of an all round asshole and always has been.

[phantom power]

9. we generally don't shop there but its largely because they're super expensive

I can recall one time, years ago now, we went there and for some reason decided we'd just do our grocery shopping. Lord, it was like $400. eeeeek!

Now we generally go there for specialty items. And I won't lie, I have respect for their craft beer selection. Still, I can get an even bigger selection at Total Wine for less money.

[kestrel91316]

10. He's just your garden-variety money hungry free-market capitalist.

i don't think he's a christofascist.

The Eden Foods guy and Promised Land guy are basically christofascists. I'll take the WFM guy over them any day of the week, lol.

[pediatricmedic]

11. Had to laugh at this, so true...

I’m just saying that there’s a paranoid, purity-obsessed, anti-feminist (despite claiming otherwise) streak on the left that merges neatly with conservative Christian obsessions, and so I’m never surprised to see that someone involved in the organic food industry—especially if they embrace unscientific claims about GMOs—is actually a Bible-thumping right winger at heart. I’m into organic food, but it’s definitely an area where it pays to be skeptical and do your research, because it’s really not as partisan an area as some people might think. Crunchy conservatism is a pretty widespread phenomenon.

Hope none of you just figured that out. A lot of things besides whole/organic foods and anti GMO is from the right and supported by the left. Open your eyes and actually look around.