This is a Good Week to Stock up on Cocoa Puffs

by Rod Williams, April 21, 2025- I have rarely taken part in boycotts or changed my spending habits due to an action of a company or a call for a boycott. Over the years, there have been campaigns to boycott some companies by conservatives because the company gives money to organizations that support abortion or some other cause contrary to the preferences of their conservative shoppers. These campaigns urging you to boycott a business, often argue that when you shop with a company that supports liberal causes, you are in effect supporting a cause with wish you disagree. 

I guess in a certain sense that is true. However, my life is kind of consumed by politics. I consume a lot of news and analysis and read political journals and books dealing with contemporary issues and political ideology. When I go shopping, I don't want to have to remember which products I can and cannot buy in good conscious. 

Actually, I shop very little. I don't like shopping and almost never go into a store unless I have a specific item in mind. If I go to a store, I am going there to buy some thing. I just don't understand shopping as a leisure activity. When I do shop, I don't want to be bothered remembering which products I can buy and which I can't. 

I live not far from a Home Depot. Lowes and Home Depot to me are pretty much interchangeable in my mind. Now, I know one of them supports liberal causes and I am supposed to boycott it, but I forget which one. If the two were side by side and I remembered which was the good one and which was the bad one, I would shop at the good one. However, Home Depot is a mile from my house and Lowes is about four miles. I am going to the one closest to my house regardless of which one it is.

I did boycott Bud Light. Of course, I never drink Bud Light anyway. So, do I get credit for not buying Bud Light when I already was already not buying it? I don't think so, but I will claim I boycotted Bud Light. 

In addition to not wanting to inconvenience myself by remembering who I am supposed to boycott and not wanting to drive the extra mile to avoid the bad brand, I justify buying the evil brand or shopping at the evil store the same way an environmentalist will justify emitting carbon into the air. To soothe their conscious, an environmentalist may buy carbon offset credits.  These offsets are used to plant trees or something which is supposed to cancel out the evil of emitting carbon into the air. Now, if the environmentalist was already spending money to plant trees or whatever, can they in good conscience pollute? Can they rationalize their emitting of carbon by giving other monies to noble causes. I don't know; that is a tricky one. 

For a person of modest income, I contribute a fair amount of money to support conservative causes. Not as much as I used to in this age of Trump because I have stopped supporting all branches of the Republican Party and have stopped supporting organization that used to be conservative but have gone Trumpinista. I still support quit a lot of conservative causes, however. So, if a fraction of a penny of my $12.96 purchase goes to Planned Parenthood, can I tell myself, I am a paid subscriber to National Review, so I have offset for my sin of baying a product from a store that supports Planned Parenthood? I don't know, but it is my rationalization. 

If I go to the story and buy the wrong brand. How much of my money is actually going to that cause with which I disagree. It could not be much. Greedy corporations only operate on a net profit margin of about 7.71% across different industries.  Amazon only operates on a net profit margin of about 3.5%. Grocery stores have a lower profit margin. Of the little bit of money I spend buying stuff, not much of it could possibly be going to support abortion advocacy or trans rights or whatever. 

Anyway, all of this brings me to Cocoa Puffs. A group called People's Union USA, has announced a week-long boycott of General Mills products. It started today and ends April 28th.

A week-long boycott is something I don't understand. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted until Blacks no longer had to sit in the back of the bus. The Boycott Grapes movement of the early 70's lasted for years. A week-long boycott seems useless. If you know the boycott is coming you can stock up on your Cocoa Puffs the day before it starts and then resume purchasing the day after it ends. This seems kind of silly really.  Having to plan your shopping around a week-long boycott does not seem like much of a commitment. 

The group is boycotting General Mills because "not just for their toxic ingredients, or the fact that they dodge their fair share of taxes, but because General Mills represents everything that is wrong with the corporate grip on our food system. ... floods our stores with ultra-processed garbage and targets our children with sugary poison. They have spent millions lobbying against GMO [genetically modified organism] transparency and better food labeling, just so we stay blind to what we're really feeding our families. This company has exploited farmers, drained our soils with unethical farming and done nothing to fix their role in the plastic pollution crisis. Their executives rake in millions while factory workers struggle to make ends meet." 

And that ain't all: "they have spent millions lobbying against GMO [genetically modified organism] transparency and better food labeling, just so we stay blind to what we're really feeding our families. This company has exploited farmers, drained our soils with unethical farming and done nothing to fix their role in the plastic pollution crisis. Their executives rake in millions while factory workers struggle to make ends meet."

What silly liberal pablum. I said this was a good week to by Cocoa Puffs. That is one of the General Mills products and one loaded in added sugar and one I would never buy. I read labels and try to avoid products with added sugar. Cheerios, also a General Mills product, is one of the cereals with very little added sugar at only 1 gram a serving.  I buy Cheerios. 

If I have nothing else to do, I may go grocery shopping this week so my purchase can counter the lack of purchase of someone participating in the week-long boycott. I will stock up on Cheerios and some Fiber One bars and I might go off my diet and buy some Häagen-Dazs ice cream. I love the Rum Raisin. 

So, if you are going to go shopping this week, here are a list of products you can buy to counter the boycott:

Pet Food: Blue Buffalo

Ice Cream: Häagen-Dazs ice creams

Breakfast Cereals: Cheerios: Honey Nut Cheerios, Multi-Grain Cheerios, and more. Chex: Rice Chex, Corn Chex, Wheat Chex, and other flavors. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Lucky Charms. Wheaties. Trix. Cocoa Puffs. Kix: Original, Berry Berry, and Honey Kix. Total: Whole grain flakes with various vitamins and minerals. 

Snacks and Bars: Nature Valley granola bars and snacks. Larabar Energy Bars. Fiber One Bars.Fruit Roll-Ups, Fruit by the Foot, Gushers

Baking Products and Mixes; Betty Crocker baking products. Bisquick pancake and baking mixes. Gold Medal Flour.

Dairy and Yogurt: Yoplait. Go-Gurt. Liberté.

Frozen and Prepared Foods: Totino's pizza rolls and frozen pizzas. Old El Paso products, including taco kits and sauces. Progresso soups and broths. Green Giant's frozen and canned vegetables. Annie's Homegrown products.

Happy shopping. 

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