Be careful next time you're in your favorite local health food store. That bottle of juice in your hand might be a product of a soft drink empire. Or the frozen veggie burger patties you got from the freezer could be made by a tobacco giant. Natural Food companies are being snapped up by mega-conglomerates left and right, and that dollar you're spending might be having the opposite effect than you'd thought.

The organic food industry is being taken hostage by corrupt multinational corporations. No longer can we accept in good faith our food being made under ethical labor practices by small mom and pop enterprises who want to supply vegetarians and health food junkies with tasty snacks. In December 2001, Santa Cruz based Odwalla Juice was bought by the Coca-Cola Corporation for $181 million. At $3 a bottle, Odwalla offers non-organic juices, and the profits are now filtered into the corporation who's largest bottling plant is in Colombia, where labor-union organizers have been murdered and the human-rights record is South America's worst.

Odwalla's not alone. Philip Morris's Altria owns Veggie-patty maker Boca Burger, Santa Cruz Organic is under the Smuckers label, and M&M Mars owns Seeds of Change Organic. Find out more about the corporate ownership of natural foods here:

www.corporateswine.net/organic.html