More quizzes.... yaaaaayyyyy!!!

As an Asian female I feel the need to constantly assess my abilities through online quizzes. Not like the Cosmo kind, those are too subjective, but the MSNBC kind... the real kind.

Here's a Are You a Green Consumer? quiz from MSNBC. I only scored a 60% (some of my wrong answers were technicalities, I swear).

On a completely unrelated note, this whole eating food from the US thing is really wearing on me, and the sad thing is that most of my diet is still probably not from the US anyways. Like the chocolate in my Stonyfield Farm yogurt. Or the can of seitan that's been sitting in the cupboard since December that we ate the other day. Or anytime we get food from a restaurant. I mean, we've been checking for "product of USA" labels but I'm pretty sure this means that the item was "assembled"/cooked/frozen/packaged in the US, not that the raw materials are from the US. I got this email from Hain Celestial today (they own Arrowhead Mills, Ethnic Gourmet, Rice/Soy Dream, Imagine Foods, Bearitos, Garden of Eatin', and TONS of other brands):

Dear Ms. Tham,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding our Ethnic Gourmet Product. We apologize for the delay in our reply and appreciate your patience. We strive to maintain the highest quality products and we appreciate your patronage.

All of our Ethnic Gourmet products are made at one of our Facilites located in the United States.

The Hain Celestial Group purchases ingredients based on requirements designed to meet rigid specifications, food safety, and compliance with applicable regulations and certifications. The Company works with known suppliers who assure the quality and safety of their ingredients which are supported by signed affidavits, certificates of analysis, and analytical testing. Additionally, many of our food products receive independent certification from organic and kosher certification third parties.

Although there are no regulations requiring country of origin declarations at present in the United Sates, The Hain Celestial Group is diligently working with our suppliers to identify country of origin for all raw materials.

Based on information gathered to date we know that a limited number of our ingredients are sourced from China. Although ingredients are predominantly sourced domestically, it is sometimes necessary to source globally. This is due to the fact that some ingredients are not available domestically or the domestic sources are limited based on market demand.

We understand your concern and greatly appreciate your continued business and trust that we have outlined the measures that The Hain Celestial Group is taking to ensure that the ingredients used in our products are safe and comply with our specifications and overall quality standards. We also want to assure you that we are closely monitoring all FDA information and alerts on this matter.

Thank you for your continued support. If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us at 1-800-434-4246, Monday through Friday from 7AM - 5PM Mountain Time.

Sincerely,

Gabe
Consumer Relations Representative