Buycott

This is a post about an app. Other than my slavish obsession with Instagram and my wont to make a million vines of my cat drinking water (out of the darndest places! a flower arrangement! a champagne bucket! a DOG bowl!!!), I’m a slow app adapter. But then Janelle hipped me to Buycott. In short, Buycott is an app that allows you to scan the barcode of any food item and then it will tell you if the company that makes that product is environmentally sustainable or that they voted against mandatory GMO labeling or if that company doesn’t support reproductive rights for women or if they don’t support gay rights or clean energy or good labor and on and on and on. You choose which “causes” you want to filter, the app parses the old-boy-networks and paper-trails and spiderwebby corporate partnerships to let you know that by buying Angel Soft instead of Charmin, you’re directly funding fracking. I immediately started scanning every product in my house. Unsurprisingly, the big companies are usually cuplable, Raisin Bran: BAD! Post gave $1,176,700 against mandatory GMO labeling, Cheerios: BAD! General Mills donated $1,135,300, PowerAde: BAD, Coca-Cola gave $1,700, 500. But, like we’ve been hearing for a long while some wolves are lurking in organic sheep’s clothing: Horizon Organic Dairy who makes my 1/2 and 1/2 is against GMO labeling, as is Muir Glen with their Organic Tomatoes, apparently parent company “Small Planet Foods” doesn’t want us to know that our tomatoes have been genetically modified. Dang. In fact, one of the only foods in what I thought was my sustainably focused pantry that had a clean bill of sale was Duke’s Mayonnaise. Bless them, and bless Buycott for making sustainable choices a little easier.

Author: loiseaufait

Little by little the bird feathers its nest, and object by heart burnished object we surround ourselves with lovely necessities of memory and function. It is these things that make a silly Apartment a Home or a silly Wednesday an Occasion. Whether my nest is an old farmhouse, a sixth floor tenement walk up, or a brownstone basement... whether I share it with family, vagabonds, women of heart and mind, or a little brown cat and a sweet ginger banjo, my principal joy is filling it with light and laughter (and corralling). View all posts by loiseaufait