The ethics of food is something that I've become very interested in lately. I think it's both fascinating (at times horrifying) when you start to understand the series of events and string of people that bring your tomato to your grocery store, or the chocolate in your grande non-fat mocha to Starbucks.
I first heard about the child labor abuses surrounding the cocoa trade not too long ago and made a conscious effort to curb any random chocolate binges and try and do a little research. I stumbled across this article and think it's a very important issue to become aware of. Basically the industry leaders in chocolate production (think Nestle & Hershey's) have dominated the market and driven the price of cocoa in West Africa down so significantly that cocoa farmers are using child slave labor to work the farms.
If you read the article and want to speak out, you can send U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack an email urging the Department of Agriculture to use it's influence to stop the practice.The bright side is there are companies who are trying to make a difference, check them out here at the 2009 chocolate score card. One of the companies listed you can feel good about (for more than just chocolate) is Equal Exchange.
Here's to organic, fair trade chocolate bunnies in all of our futures!
oh no, i love my Dove bite sized dark chocolates! i'm going to think twice now before eating them. Can you repost the link to the article on cocoa/child slave labor? Thanks Jkell!
ReplyDeleteHey saaara! I know it's chocolate-heart breaking! But I still think we can enjoy our guilty pleasures, maybe shoot Dove an email (Mars actually owns them) and tell them what you think. Or try Equal Exchange chocolate...very good!
ReplyDeleteThanks saaara & I'll re-post momentarily!