Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Chocolate Choices... (A letter to the editor)

In two weeks it will be Valentine's Day. Roughly 6 weeks after that it will be Easter. What food comes to mind for those two celebrations? If you are anything like me it is chocolate (the more the better).

But chocolate comes with a cost. And I don't mean the extra waistline.

Were you aware that a large percentage of the world's chocolate production relies on slave labour in the growing and harvesting of the cocoa beans? If you had a choice would you buy chocolate that came from sources that paid their labour a fair, living wage?

Such a choice is possible. Rather than tell you what to buy I ask that you Google “fair trade chocolate” and read for yourself about the issue. If we continue to support companies that do not pay attention to how their raw materials are produced then we enable them to continue to profit off the lives of others. It can even be said that we ourselves are accomplices in the modern slave trade.

This year, as we feed our chocaholism (and I am definitely an addict) may we all pause and consider where our chocolate comes from. And maybe we have the power to choose to support fair labour practices and fair prices. Who is in it with me?

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