That's it? Salon isn't even going to give the rebuttal a red star? After running the original hit piece on front page? With the shitty 'journalism' Salon has done these days, your corrections section should be your front page story.

It's hard to say whether Salon has completly sold out, or is just lacking any journalistic cred or balls.

Why did Salon feel the need to attack an organic food maker anyways? Was attacking the Phillip Morris owned Kraft foods and all their truly shitty brands just too obvious? Not enough snark in that perhaps?

No wonder Salon has such financial issues. Look at all the awful decisions Salon mngt makes on a daily basis.

Have you noticed that dogs often consume their own shit? I have, and I always that they did that because, well, dogs are basically nuts. But not long ago a friend who is married to a veteranarian told me that it was actually because the dog sensed that important vitamins and minerals were being lost in its fecal matter, so it ate it up again in an attempt to absorb the nutrients.

I think it's high time we humans looked into this. Who knows how much nutrition we're flushing away every year?

(and if you don't think someone won't seriously propose this someday, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you)

Actually, feces aka fertilizer, contributes a big part of the nutrients of farmed products, and always has bee since earliest recorded agrarian history.

The richest soil is made by microorganism, worms, and bugs eating their way through decomposing vegetable and animal matter including feces. And what makes the soil rich afterwards is their excrement. Some of the richest soil for example is made by basically worm shit.

That's another benefit of Organic farming: the high density of good creatures, bugs, worms, etc that are preserved by avoiding pesticides allow the soil to produce maximum nutrients, which then makes more nutritious produce.

But even if the end product was exactly the same nutritionally, organic still has many other benefits.

The soil doesn't deplete as fast due to the additional nutrient production by good microorganisms.

The surrounding ecosystem is healthier, including creatures we directly appreciate like birds, fish and mammals, because the base of the food chain is kept intact rather than poisoned off by pesticides.

Organic farming of meat and dairy products are also better because they don't use antibiotics. Antibiotic reliant farmers tend to keep animals in dirty and infectious conditions, which makes for less healthy animals and less healthy products. Additionally, the widespread use of antibiotics in everything from beef to fish creates resistant supergerms which may also infect people. and since many of the antibiotics are the same or similar to human medicines, that's a really dangerous thing.

Then there is bovine growth hormones passed through cows into human diet. It's shown to correlate with several types of cancer. The hormones are especially dangerous to children. Also, it makes the cows sick, particularly it tends to cause udder infections which leak puss into milk. mmm tasty. All that for a 10% increase in milk production.

Some people who don't know about Organic farming think it's just a snobby thing or hippy thing. But, if they knew the science behind organic farming, well, they wouldn't be so ignorant about what they're already eating.

If you really want to deconstruct food, and everything else, it's all stardust. The question is, in what form do you want to eat this stardust? Plain stardust is too dry for my taste. I also do now want to eat it in its fecal form. Most importantly for this article, I do not want to eat in its its toxic form, i.e., pesticides and herbicides (and also naturally occurring toxic forms, like toadstools). This is why organic is, IMHO, the best choice for anyone who is susceptible to the ill effects of poison.

I like Annie's because that company caters to vegans, and I eat their frozen meals for lunch once in a while, but ultimately, I find cooking from scratch to be less expensive and better tasting. Still, Annie's organic foods will do in a crunch.

If you really want to deconstruct food, and everything else, it's all stardust. The question is, in what form do you want to eat this stardust? Plain stardust is too dry for my taste. I also do NOT want to eat it in its fecal form. Most importantly for this article, I do not want to eat in its its toxic form, i.e., pesticides and herbicides (and also naturally occurring toxic forms, like toadstools). This is why organic is, IMHO, the best choice for anyone who is susceptible to the ill effects of poison.

I respect Annie's because that company caters to vegans, and I eat their frozen meals for lunch once in a while, but ultimately, I find cooking from scratch to be less expensive and better tasting. Still, Annie's organic foods will do in a crunch.

Anastacia, are you bitter at Annie because you were too dull to have figured out that parents will indeed pay a slight premium to give their kids food that, unlike Kraft mac, is devoid of artificial ingredients, fake colors, nuclear fabricaed "cheese sauce" and CRAP? Annie deserves to be applauded for having the balls, well, you know, courage, to go head to head with one of the biggest food companies on the earth, and it looks like she is winning...

I found your article to be a whining holier than though pile of garbage. Did you even check your facts for the story? You imply that the two products are identical, and nothing could be further from the truth. Annie's is cleaner, and when made to the instructions on the box is much healthier than a bowl of blue box. Why did you not print that? Did that fact not quite fit with your considerable obvious disdain for Annie the business woman?

My family are devoted purple box people. No blue box Kraft garbage in this house. And no, I do not feel guilty that I am not making my mac and cheese from scratch.

Melinda