wow who knew??

Recently i outed myself as a non-weener. We do not celebrate Halloween, however this topic still affects us. Though we limit the amount coming into our home our thoughts on candy don't extend much further than that. All is good in moderation. I did not pass out candy for Halloween but i do wish i had learned about this sooner. I wish I could have gotten the word out before all the chocolate folks enjoyed one of their most profitable seasons, but its never to late for learning and sharing.

A mama friend shared her knowledge on chocolate with me. So where does it come from..well  most of it comes from cocoa plantations in africa. That sounds nice enough right? but no, think a little deeper. The average African is under 20 years old. This makes most of Africa populated by children. Many African children work hard to support their families, that alone would be considered illegal and abusive by American standards. It would be nice to think that cocoa plantations help these children to support their families and pay them a fair wage, but that is not the case. Similar to the diamond situation, children are forced into slavery. Taken from their homes and families, they are beaten, sold, even killed when the beatings don't produce fruitful results. As usual  Americans tend to assume this is someone else's fault/problem etc. but this is a very American problem and though there is no real instant cure, there is a very easy way to help. I absolutely would love to purchase all organic and fair trade foods for my family all the time, but the reality is they are very expensive and not quite compatible with our supersized troupe. All that said, nobody needs to eat chocolate in bulk and if you make a choice to only accept and purchase fair trade chocolate you are making a choice not to support MAJOR human rights violations. Most of the companies buying the bloodstained cocoa are the companies you know and love, Hershey's, Nestle etc. Many of these companies do produce their own brands of fair trade chocolates and if they don't , well, too bad. They have been promising for a decade to change their ways so lets pray for these children and lets make a statement to these companies that Americans will not allow children to be harmed for the sake of a sweet tooth. This is unacceptable!

for more info on this subject please check out this site and the links provided there http://www.otherwords.org/articles/big_chocolates_child_slavery_addiction 

and if your not quite sure what fair trade is check it out. if you are already buying organic then consider a switch. it doesn't cost more and  i will gladly ingest a few pesticides if it means the life and comfort of another human is protected. often fair trade products are organic as well and its just a matter of switching brands. http://www.transfairusa.org/content/about/overview.php