for years now, i've been buying so good soy milk - it's the central staple of my diet. this formulation was by far superior to anything else on the market in terms of heavy fortification and good decisions regarding preservatives. that meant it had a shorter shelf life, and was sometimes hard to locate, but was by far the best thing on the market, when you could. i used to walk for miles to find this stuff.
i started noticing it clear out of stores a few months ago, and realized that was ominous. it seems to have been bought by a company called "nature's own" "earth's own" fairly recently, and they finally switched over the marketing, in the newest batch on the shelf - complete with decreased levels of fortification.
this couldn't have come at a worse time. i took one look at it and rejected it flat out. so, the next update will be to remove data from the so good brand and enter data from the more expensive natura brand. and, this is a giant shame, too.
as far as i can tell, nature's own earth's own (which makes junk food products like almond milk) bought up so good so it would have a monopoly on the shelf. now, when you go to that section at food basics, it's one company selling all of the "milk alternatives" - oat, almond, rice, soy, etc. the problem is that, in the process, they've standardized their fortification levels, and the result is just no longer useful to me. frankly, it's easy to see why nature's own earth's own wanted to stamp out so good - no discerning consumer would have purchased a nature's own earth's own product when the so good product is right there beside it.
if you take a look through my matrix, you'll see that the b vitamins in the soy are mostly excess and the thing i really need to care about is vitamin d, which, as an ovo-lacto-vegetarian, i get minimal amounts of in my diet. d is like b12 - i need it fortified, period. so, you can imagine that i was heartbroken to see my so good cut the d from 45% to 13% - and the calcium from 30% to 23%. this standardizes their soy with their other (junk food) products, and also with their major competitor (silk). i was also disappointed to see increases in the number of calories, amount of saturated fat and amounts of sugar. it seemed to have more minerals, though.
if soy is supposed to be a milk replacement, cutting the d out defeats the point. and, they also cut the b12 from a nice 50% to a lower 42%.
together, these things are the reason people drink soy milk instead of cow's milk. they may save a few cents per carton, but such a victory is pyrrhic if their customers abandon them, and they will. this product won awards for heart health. it was probably the single healthiest thing on the market - and now it's ruined, because it was competing with almond milk, which is literally junk food.
the natura is not as good as the so good was - it's more expensive, it has more calories, it has more monounsaturated fat, it has more salt & it has less omega-3s because it uses sunflower oil as an additive. it doesn't taste as good, either. but, the vitamin fortification is identical, so i can plug it in and keep going.
i'm heartbroken, really. and, i'd call for somebody to enter the market and produce a so good replica.
capitalism ruins everything, and governments just help it destroy.