Boycotting is the ordinary, every day expression of justice in the context of consumerism. Not to boycott is to say that there are some areas of life immune to ethics – it is cultural nihilism. In the same way, however, it’s important to choose thoughtfully those businesses one intentionally patronizes.
- Walmart (100%)
- Blockbuster (100%)
- Best Buy (99%)
- Horizon organic and other Dean Foods dairy products, and all factory farmed milk (100%)
- Starbucks (100%)
- TGI Fridays, Applebees, Chilis, Olive Garden (and similar places – for what they’ve done to food) (100%)
- McDonalds and all other fast food joints (99%)
- Ethanol (99%)
- Meat (90%)
- Factory-farmed meat (including eggs and fish) (90%)
- All products considered food but containing MSG (or other excitotoxins), even when it’s not called MSG – including anything hydrolyzed, autolyzed, glutamates and other components of MSG designed to reconstitute into the body killing, idiot-producing drug, including nebulous “natural and artificial flavors (which the FDA allows to contain MSG replacers)”
- partially hydrogenated oils, modified food starch, high fructose corn syrup. casein(ate), aspartame, dough conditioners, disguisers of toxins like boullion, gelatin, and yeast extracts, and the other flavor enhancers and hiders that make the Augustus Gloops and their children say the food is “gooood”. (95%)
- Rap music, even if it’s called hip hop, top-40 country music, and top-40 pop (100%)
- Beverages with less than 100% food value – e.g. Coke and Pepsi products, “juice cocktails”, “sports water”, “energy drinks”, etc. (the exception being an occasional organic or home-made rootbeer or cola)
- All television with police, crime, military, spy, detective, inspector, special ops, black ops, special forces, murder, and uniformed professional themes
- All “reality TV”, if not specifically contributing to a good cause (like “Whale Wars”)
- Art museums, ballet, tourist attractions, resorts, and resort cities
- Clothing with big box store logos or designer labels
- Places that charge $50 for a plate of raw food, because it’s chic.
- Frozen yogurt, “Slabs” of ice cream, non-alcoholic dessert coffees, and other over-sized, fashion-inflated confections and sugar-delivery systems.
- Non-refrigerated or imitation dairy products, including miniature containers of cream, powdered “creamer”, “butter flavor”, canned “whipped cream” (corn syrup) – even if “made with real dairy”, and all other food products that utilize the word “real”
- Microwaved popcorn, boxed “cake mix”, canned fruit, instant box, foil pouch, or frozen container ‘meals’ (pasta, potatoes, whatever), “flavored” frozen vegetables, white bread, white sugar, and enriched “wheat” products
- Iams pet foods and all supermarket or other pet products using rendering plant ‘meal’ (rotting roadkill) or containing nebulous “meat” and animal “byproducts” (waste)
- Yahoo, anything avoidable from Microsoft
People sometimes ask if it’s hard having to think so much (as if thinking weren’t delightful in and of itself), or if it’s difficult to live or get anything to eat this way. Nope. Life is much easier and freer ignoring crap and eating real food (whether for body or soul). Peaches from the farmers market are picked just before ripe, not green and then artificially chilled into eternal sawdust-flavored, non-ripeness. Whose doing it simpler, the guy that buys stuff the farmer picked, or the person that buys it at the supermarket, when it’s changed hands 20-times, got sticky pesticide embedded in it, and been shipped across the continent? Hard is choking down a bad piece of supermarket fruit, or watching your veggies rot prematurely in the crisper.
