According to articles published as recently as August 2015, Kikkoman Corporation, the popular soy sauce company, was conducting and funding cruel and deadly experiments in which mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, and other animals are sickened, mutilated, and killed in order to support marketing claims for their products.
The following experiments were conducted: Feeding tubes were repeatedly forced down rats' throats to administer fermented soy milk. Mice bred to be obese were fed citrus extract before being killed and having their muscles removed. Rabbits were fed high-cholesterol diets in order to induce heart disease and then later killed. Rats were force-fed soy sauce through surgically attached stomach tubes, after which they were "sacrificed by decapitation … followed by rapid removal of the brains."
These types of cruel health claim experiments are not required by law, and there are more relevant non-animal research methods available that are humane and can actually establish the health benefits of food products for humans.
Other progressive companies have established policies against funding, conducting, or commissioning experiments on animals and Kikkoman should do the same.
