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September a Guilt-Free Chocolate Month!
Monday, 31 August 2009
At the beginning of this month, I finished a personal challenge to go A Year Without Chocolate.
Now I'm ready to step up to another chocolatey challenge: Dixiebelle's Guilt Free Chocolate Month.
The challenge? To only consume "chocolate and chocolate products that are Slave free, Fair Trade and where possible, organic/ local!"
Dixiebelle has the right idea. We need to take a stance against:
- chocolate that supports slavery,
- chocolate that cheats farmers from a fair pay, and
- chocolate that creates toxic waste.
Chocolate isn't delicious when it is cruel, unfair and toxic. That melt in your mouth feeling becomes a bitter aftertaste that won't go away.
I'm lucky. I have a friend who sings with me at City Choir and sells Trade Aid chocolate to us at choir - we don't even need to go shopping!
Another friend sings with me at St. Paul's Cathedral and works at Trade Aid as a volunteer. Together we've discussed the finer points of chocolate lust. Her favourite is peppermint. Mine is the orange. Both varieties are vegan, gluten-free, guilt-free (apart from our waistlines!) and delicious.
I'm especially lucky that there's a push for our own city of Dunedin to become New Zealand's first Fair Trade city.
Our pushes targeting major chocolate companies are working. Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate will go Fair Trade in 2010, and we hope this will be the first of many Cadbury lines. We'll be encouraging other companies to follow suit. Thumbs up for Cadbury's!
So - are you up to Dixiebelle's Challenge? If you are, drop by her blog and sign on - make September a Guilt Free Chocolate Month!
--
Cluttercut - Green simplicity
7 comments:
Thanks Daharja! You said it much more effectively and efficiently than I did!
Sounds like you have friends in all the right places! Good luck...
I'm in! I've just left a comment on dixiebelle's blog - will post on mine soon ...
I just bought my first fairtrade chocolate yesterday, how's that for timing?
Now, I might just have to have a nibble now ... you know, just to make sure it's ok ....!
:-)
I agree! chocolate should be guilt-free! I LOVE camino's fair trade organic chocolate, but we do have a coffee roasting company that's local and sells fair trade organic chocolate... :)
Hi Dixiebelle - Friends who work in shops that sell great, guilt-free chocolate? You bet! :-)
Hi Mountainwildlife - I'll check out your blog post when it's up. Perfect timing on the fairtrade chocolate though - I think this is a chocolatey idea whose time has come!
Hi Eco Yogini - Guilt-free is definitely the way to go. And if you close your eyes when you eat it and think happy thoughts, it has no calories! Ok, well maybe not...;-)
"chocolate and chocolate products that are Slave free, Fair Trade and where possible, organic/ local!"
Unfortunately, the fair trade chocolate that we buy is made in Switzerland. I can't remember where the cocoa and sugar comes from, but it's not Europe.
And then once it's made in Europe it gets shipped to the other side of the world (literally!).
So it's slave free, fair trade, and organic, but not local by a long shot.
Hi Michael - And just when I was feeling GOOD about eating chocolate! And after a WHOLE YEAR without the stuff!
I don't think local IS possible in Dunedin :-( But I can certainly make sure what I eat is Fair Trade, Slave-free and Organic.
That's a step in the right direction, isn't it!
Hey Daharja, Cadbury NZ has a special treat waiting for you! Email us your postal details and keep one eye on your mail box!
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