You've Been Served

One lawyer's mission to find the lies in what we eat.

- By Sarah Larson

In 2021, Duval Clemmons, a retiree from the West Bronx, went to his local BJ’s Wholesale Club and discovered a pleasant surprise in the dairy aisle. Clemmons, sixty-eight, had a long career as a maintenance worker, but was disabled when he fell down some subway stairs, in 2009. “I’m trying to eat healthy when I can, and when I can afford it,” he told me recently. “So when I seen plant-based butter, I said, ‘Oh, this is real cool. This is what I need.’” What he saw was Country Crock Plant Butter Made with Olive Oil, a product with a green lid and a label showing a leafy olive branch floating above a buttered slice of toast, with the words “New!” and “Dairy Free” in delighted-looking cursive. “Most margarines, they don’t put pictures of the ingredients,” Clemmons went on.