best thing since sliced bread

This was on display today at Whole Foods:

Batter Blaster

The best part is that it's all real ingredients. That's my new thing these days - I want to be able to pronounce the ingredients on the things that I put in - or on - my body. I try and only drink natural sodas now; I even bought Tom's toothpaste.

Which leads us to an interesting issue. Here's an article at Organicconsumers.org speaking about who owns brands that tout themselves as organic, natural, earth friendly. Somewhat ironically, many well known 'natural' food and product brands are owned by HUGE companies that are faaaarrrrr from natural. Examples - Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola; Tom's of Maine is owned by Colgate-Palmolive; Burt's Bees is owned by Clorox - the list goes on.

So the question is, is this a bad thing? In some ways it's equivalent to a local, unknown band making it big. You know the situation. It leads to such statements as "I've had that CD since 3 years ago" or "Yeah well I heard about them in the 90s when I went to see their concert in a tiny little club." Personally, I'm completely against this. I think no matter the origins that when someone or something is successful it should be met with excitement. And, let's be honest, in this society how can a small business make it without some help from the big guys.

Another thing, H made a good point that the reason these products are even remotely affordable for us, the consumer, is because they have the financial backing of huge conglomerates. The crucial issue then becomes - who controls these companies? When Tom's is bought by Colgate, who makes the business decisions? When Dannon buys most shares of Brown Cow and Stonyfield, are their cows still treatment humanely?

Then all you have left to decide is exactly how pure you wish to be. The argument could be made that by buying these products you are supporting the big companies. By wearing Burt's Bees chapstick you are giving money to Clorox - a huge contributor of chemicals and pollutants in our world. But aren't you also perpetuating the use of natural products? If natural and organic can become corporate than who wins?