Dammit! Another food goes off the menu

[miriam_e]

Nestle has bought Uncle Toby's. For the last few decades I've enjoyed eating oats every morning. Lately I'd become a little puzzled at the crappy quality of Uncle Toby's Oats. They have always been reliably the best. However now they taste bitter instead of creamy and have adulterants in them -- little bits of round, black stuff, and bits of what look like mould. Well, I've found the reason. Uncle Toby's has been taken over by the biggest vampire of them all: Nestle.

No more oats from them.

It is no suprise that a high quality company gets swallowed up by one of the biggest collectives of immorality and then the quality drops through the floor. I mean, after all, they have no problem killing thousands of little children who are their customers (earlier in Africa, more recently in Bangladesh). They do everything they can to ram as much sugar, coloring and flavoring down Western kids' throats, helping to build a generation addicted to the stuff and in line for terrible health problems. Have you ever noticed how hard it is becoming to buy food that isn't sold to you by Nestle? They are clearly aiming at controlling as much of the food market as they can. They are definitely not the sort of organisation that you want controlling your food supply.

I wonder what it is in the oats that makes them taste bitter now. Probably pesticides. I don't think they are deliberately poisoning us -- I think they just don't care.

Comments

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

What always surprised me is that they seem to think people won't notice.
They buy a company that's doing well because it's a high value product, change the product to a low value one and think they're gonna keep people buying it. That's bizarre.
I used to buy Tom of Maine's toothpaste. It got bought out. I've tried it since. They've obviously changed the formula somehow. It doesn't taste right and I feel I get less benefit from it. I won't buy it again.
Really that simple.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

That always puzzled me too. I have no explanation. But you're right, it happens time and time again. A good quality company is taken over by a bigger one and quality goes straight down the plughole.

What astonishes me even more is when I tell people about these ruthless corporations people look at me with this blank look and tend to say things like "I don't let morality influence my shopping." I always point out that, while it is partly a question of morality, by far the major question should be survival -- these are companies that don't care about their customers, as they've shown time and again. Our survival depends on not getting food from people who have no qualms about poisoning or killing you. But people have this extraordinary ability to close their eyes against what they don't want to see. [sigh]

[dorjejaguar.livejournal.com]

Yup.
Funny, seems like most people I know do let morality influence their shopping. At least to some degree.
Personally I really like spending money on the good stuff and not the bad stuff. For one the good stuff is always better, for two, by doing so I influence the market to change in the direction I want. Makes me feel powerful. Lol. :)