Chocolate - oh how I love chocolate. Ever since I can remember I have always had a chocolate bar or two a day but since discovering some not so sweet facts I can no longer just stop by the corner store a pick up a chocolate bar or two.Not so sweet facts:
- Is farmed in unsafe conditions were large amounts of pesticides are used in order to yield a greater crop. These pesticides cause great environment damage seeping into local ground water, soil erosion and not to mentioned being in hailed by the farmers.
- Farmers are often children under 14, approximately 284 000 children are working on cocoa farms. These children are often beaten with whips and switches.
- Farmers are living in total poverty earning between $30.00 and $100.00 US dollars a year. That's way less than I spend in chocolate in a year.
For more information on the above see the following websites: http://www.sustainabletimes.ca/articles/chocolate.htm; http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/02/14/chocolate/; http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/the_bitter_trut.php.Our family picked up a bar of Fair Trade chocolate the other day and after explaining to my children why this bar of chocolate was so much different to all others we sat and savoured its goodness and yes it did taste good we devoured the whole bar, even my son who is not that crazy about chocolate had his fair share of the bar. At over $4.00 for the bar, I think it may need to become a weekly treat, rather than a daily treat. We found a store selling our delicious chocolate through http://www.cocoacamino.com/
Picture on this blog is from http://www.sustainabletimes.ca/
1 comment:
Hey Jen! I remember how back in high school your favourite colour was green :-)
I'm enjoying your blog. Nice to be keeping up with your news - makes you not seem so far away.
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