Eden Foods bills itself as the “oldest natural and organic food company in America” and is best known for its EdenSoy line of organic soy milk.
Most of Eden’s products are organic and nearly all are vegan.
It’s a very familiar brand in health food stores and marketing studies have shown it to be a favorite of female and liberal customers.
These customers, to put it mildly, are not pleased with the news that Eden hired the Thomas More Law Center to file a lawsuit against Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and other government parties, associated with the Obama administration’s rule on contraception.
The lawsuit claims the contraception rule violates Eden Foods owner Michael Potter’s religious freedom under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by requiring him to provide his employees with medical coverage for contraception.
Potter believes contraception “almost always involves immoral and unnatural practices.”
Irin Carmon at Salon.com launched the story yesterday (April 11, 2013). Predictably enough, it has gone viral, with a massive outcry on Facebook and other social media.
In brief, protesters are not pleased by Eden’s pursuit of a right-wing ideological agenda and its espousal of Catholic church teachings on the evils of contraception. Thousands of people have already voiced their intent to stop buying Eden products, including Facebook commenter Cheryl DeMarco who summed up the issues particularly well. “Now that you’ve sued to avoid providing birth control coverage to your employees based on bogus science, I don’t trust you to provide me with clean food based on good science. I won’t be buying your products.”
As yet, the debaters have not pointed out the supreme irony of Eden Foods — one of the top manufacturers of soy milk — coming out against birth control. All soy milks — including organic soy milks — include high levels of the plant estrogens known as isoflavones. Over the past seven decades, scientists have linked isoflavones to reproductive problems in all animal tested, including the human animal. For women, soy contributes to anovulatory cycles and other symptoms indicative of infertility; for men, it causes adverse effects on the quality and quantity of sperm.
The illustration posted by Salon.com — and posted here — was surely not intended to be literal. But yes, this product can make birth control unnecessary!
Indeed, in the 1970s the World Health Organization funded a $5 million study through the University of Chicago and sent researchers out in the field in search of all-natural contraceptives. The idea was to find a safe and effective alternative to the high-dose birth control pills of that era. Researchers visited dozens of native cultures to discover which herbs and plants were being used to prevent pregnancy, examined hundreds of plants and analyzed their phytochemicals. Although they found many contraceptive plants — soy, prominently among them — they ultimately abandoned the project. Not because “natural” methods didn’t work, but because the side effects were similar to — and just as serious — as those of the birth control pill.
The obvious conclusion here is that customers who consume EdenSoy “soy milks” are unwittingly —and almost certainly unwillingly — swallowing liquid birth control. Lest any readers at this point think soy milk might a good “all natural” form of contraception, however, my advice is don’t count on it! Soy isoflavone content varies from carton to carton, and any contraceptive effects would depend as well on the amount and duration of consumption.
Eden Foods furthermore has a shabby track record in terms of supporting the health of babies. In 1990 the FDA investigated after a two-month old girl in California was hospitalized with severe malnutrition. Her parents had fed her EdenSoy brand soy milk instead of infant formula. Because of this and a similar incident in Arkansas involving the SoyMoo brand of soy milk, the FDA issued a warning on June 13, 1990, stating soy milk was “grossly lacking in the nutrients needed for infants.” The FDA asked — but unfortunately has never required — all manufacturers to put warning labels on soy milk so that they would not be used as formula substitutes.
Since these tragic incidents, most brands of soy milk — but not EdenSoy — include warning labels in tiny print on their packaging.
Sadly, babies continue to be hospitalized and die because of EdenSoy and other brands of soy milk. At least four couples have been found guilty of the deaths of their babies fed soy milk in lieu of soy infant formula. Many of these parents were health conscious, well-meaning vegans who truly thought they were doing a good thing for their babies by choosing organic soy milk instead of commercial soy formula. The myth that soy is a health food and Eden’s irresponsibility led to these tragic deaths.
How many more unnecessary and tragic cases of malnutrition and deaths will occur before Eden takes the right action? For me, the “right action” is clear: Boycott Eden Foods.
Sources
For more information about Eden’s lawsuit:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/11/organic_eden_foods_quiet_right_wing_agenda/
For more information about soy formula and the effect soy milk and other products containing soy vegetable protein on reproduction, The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food.
Shouldn’t all the left-wing idealogues be pleased that they’re providing them with a cheaper birth control product, then?
Jenna, until the president’s recent “evolution,” the Obama administration held the same position on gay marriage and contraception as Eden Soy. Is it now necessary to demonstrate that one is in full ideological compliance with party orthodoxy? If you’re a feminist or a gay or any of the other house pets in the Democrat menagerie, you might want to look at Obama’s pirouette, and his coziness with Islamic homophobia. These guys are about power, and right now your cause happens to coincide with their political advantage. But political winds shift. Already in Europe, in previously gay-friendly cities like Amsterdam, demographically surging Muslim populations have muted leftie politicians’ commitment to gay rights, feminism, and much else. It’s easy to cheer on the thugs when they’re thuggish in your name. What happens when Obama’s political needs change? Americans talk more about liberty than citizens of other Western nations, but, underneath the rhetorical swagger, liberty bleeds. It’s not about marriage, it’s not about gays, it’s not about contaception, it’s about a basic understanding that a free society requires a decent respect for a wide range of opinion. Which apparently you don’t have.
Again……I used to.drink soy….many many did thinking it was healthy. This man doesn’t see it as unhealthy.
birthcontrol is so cheap — it is not what is upping the cost of insurance.
I’ve got no problem with the CEO’s personal beliefs. That’s his business and if he wants to sue over his right to enforce it as his company, that is also his belief and is fine. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the corporate stance versus what the company sells is fair game I think.
Perhaps the reason you’re getting so many negative responses to this article is a.) it reflects a clear hostility toward the CEO’s personal beliefs, referencing a “right-wing ideological agenda and… espousal of Catholic church teachings on the evils of contraception” b.) it advocates a boycott against said CEO after agreeing with the following statement, “Now that you’ve sued to avoid providing birth control coverage to your employees based on bogus science, I don’t trust you to provide me with clean food based on good science. I won’t be buying your products,” which is also hostile to the CEO’s personal beliefs, and c.) while it may be ironic that a who opposes being forced by the federal government to pay for birth control coverage for his employees, while selling one food product among many that has been shown to adversely impact fertility, it in no way, by definition, hypocritical.
I think perhaps you would have written a better article on the subject yourself, in your own words, seeing as how you respect the personal beliefs of the CEO.
Pax et bonum
Sarah,
I agree with what many are saying about the tone of the article giving the impression that the writer does have a hostility toward his personal beliefs. That aside, what I don’t understand is why the writer wants to boycott Eden. If, as you say, the article isn’t about his personal beliefs, then why would we want to boycott his company?? Because some idiots gave soy milk to their babies? That’s not a persuasive argument for boycotting either. The article did much more than point out the hypocrisy (let’s assume that he even is aware and believes that soy can cause infertility), but it called for a boycott. On what grounds? If it called for us to not drink soy milk, I can get behind that. If it called for us to write Eden and tell them about the link between soy and infertility, I can get behind that.
The fact the article asks for a boycott leads readers to assume that the writer agrees with the protesters who are also boycotting because they “are not pleased by Eden’s pursuit of a right-wing ideological agenda and its espousal of Catholic church teachings on the evils of contraception”.
As another person commented, Eden was one of the companies who endorsed the GM labeling. It wasn’t very long ago when we were all trying to support those companies. Now we should boycott Eden because, why exactly?
So glad to see the clarity in the comments- no business owner should have to provide birth control against their religious beliefs. And with regards to the labeling question, it seems some ill-informed parents went the wrong route. If Eden was advertising their soymilk as baby formula, that would be wrong. But they aren’t. I advocate an approach of buyer beware – do your research, be informed, then make your own decision and live with the consequences. It’s not McDonald’s job to warn you their food is unhealthy nor is it the governments. While I don’t like eating too much soy due to lots of research which has raised big questions, I love some of their other products and will eagerly buy them.
Thanks to the author for bringing this to my attention. Off to send a letter of support to Eden Foods.
shame on them
Wow! Grasping at straws. “Sadly, babies continue to be hospitalized and die because of EdenSoy and other brands of soy milk.”
It’s not their fault some parents are idiots or prentend to be so to kill their babies.
There is no warning label on cows milk and neither is it a substitute for formula.
No, the real irony is phony people who drink soy and other “natural” foods but think it’s fine to put non-therapeutic drugs in their body to change a perfectly healthy process so they can be more thoughtless and careless about sex.
I started taking BC pills 15 years ago. Two years after I had my tubes tied after having six children. Without the pill, I cry all the time. I also lose some of my language abilities – can’t find the proper word for something, 10 to 15 times a day. I also have been celebate most of that time. So I am using these hormones for a therapeutic use. Should one man’s point of view be allowed to withhold this drug from me or someone like me? What if he decides that all mental illness is just a fake? Should he be allowed to not cover medications for that? Or he decides that breathing exercises can control high blood pressure, and refuses to pay for BP medicine?
People have all kinds of ideas, many of which are unsupported by facts. Why should people who are educated about these things be held hostage by people who aren’t? People have many diffferent religious beliefs, many of which other people would think are just weird. Why should other people have to be held hostage by one man’s religious beliefs?
Jennifer J,
You want to take birth control pills? Then buy them yourself! He’s not trying to prevent you from taking them. How does one go from “I am entitled to medications” to “I am entitled to someone else’s money to buy my medications”?
As far as your “facts” about medications, every one you named has plenty of evidence to support that they do more harm than good (if any good). So, there are those who are “educated about these things” yet somehow reached a different educated conclusion than you, and we could argue all day long about it. That is completely irrelevant to the fact that A) he shouldn’t be forced to pay for your stuff, especially when B) it is in direct conflict with his moral and religious beliefs which are C) protected by the Constitution.
You have six children – you are going to cry a lot! Its the nature of birthing a large family; it doesn’t mean you need birth control pills. There are other things you can do nutritionally to help with those kind of mood swings; one of the first would be getting your gut in better shape with the GAPS diet, a common topic on this blog. If you are losing language abilities, there may be other things going on inside your body that need attention. Attempting to cover up symptoms with drugs is dangerous.
I still should not have to pay for your birth control just because you are using it for therapeutic mood control and not careless sex. I am not holding you hostage at all. If you want to take birth control pills for mood control, go ahead. Pay for it yourself.
Are you serious?! This comparison is so over the top and ridiculous… Unlike.