Put Down That Glass of Organic Milk and Forget about Sipping Silk Soymilk!: USDA Labeling Challenged by the Organic Consumers Association

The Organic Consumers Association announced Friday it was “expanding its boycott of Horizon and Aurora organic dairy products to include five national ‘private label’ organic milk brands supplied by Aurora, as well as two leading organic soy products, Silk and White Wave.” Aurora, who supplies “organic” milk for Costco, Safeway’s ‘O” brand, Publix, Nature’s Promise, and Wild Oat’s “organic” dairy line was found to be violating animal welfare law. In truth, Aurora operates like a factory farm, milking 2,000 to 10,000 cows, confining cattle to feedlots, ordering replacement cows, and potentially using antibiotics.

A farmer the OCA spoke with said “real organic dairy farms don’t need to buy replacement heifers.” The new cattle are brought in only on industrial scale farms where cows are pushed to high levels of milk production, sometimes slaughtered after only a year or two after they stop milking often due to stress. Check out the report to read more on how Bush kept Aurora rolling under the mask of the “organic” label.

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If this makes you want to switch from organic milk to soymilk, think twice before buying Silk brand (or White Wave tofu for that matter). The OCA argues Silk sources a percentage of their soy from Brazil and China, not only increasing their carbon footprint but also buying from a country whose soy industry is destroying the Amazon. To find out more about the downsides of soy, surf here.

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