Does any of it matter?

Last post, probably for a while. I want to finish up by talking about one of the questions I have to ask myself every now and again: Does any of it matter?

After I became a vegetarian, I told one of my good friends about why I had decided to do it. And she said, "Well, I'm glad you think that does something."

She has a point, right? I think this is what stops many of my ethically minded friends from making radical life changes for idealistic moral reasons. Does it really make any difference for one person to stop buying meat? Can our refusal to eat most chocolate really end slavery in another country?

To be honest, I don't know. The machine, so to speak, is overwhelmingly large.

But what I do know is that it definitely doesn't help anything for you to do nothing. I feel that being a vegetarian has allowed me to introduce lots of people to issues within the food industry, or the concept of animal rights.  I don't know that I've ever changed anyone's mind. But I think I have gotten some people to broaden their thinking. And, in my opinion, when lots of people start broadening their minds, that is when real change can happen.

Food, Inc.

Oh hello. I didn't see you there. Have you missed me for the 30 seconds between these posts?

While I finish up my blog, I'd like to talk about some other major influences on my food philosophy.

By now, you've probably seen it. It's free on Netflix, it's one of the most successful current food documentaries.  If you haven't, go watch it. I first saw it over Christmas Break 2009. After watching it, it just seemed incredibly clear to me that I needed to be a vegetarian. I had already known this, really, after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a few months earlier. But watching Food, Inc., I just felt that I had no excuse. I knew the facts, I knew where my food was coming from, and morally it didn't seem to make any sense to me to continue buying a product when I knew I did not like the way it was being produced. So I quit. And it's been great, I absolutely love being a vegetarian.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Well, it's the last day of the semester, and time for me to squish in some last minute posts for grade purposes. That's lame, but at least I'm being up front about it.

It seems like a decent number of people have found the chocolate posts helpful and interesting, so that makes me happy. On facebook, Rose shared that the Kallari chocolate company is also a good one to support. She even knows some of the farmers, so you can't ask for a better recommendation than that.

In this post, I'd like to write about one of the books that was instrumental in changing the way that I think about food. And that book is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Just look at that beautiful cover. You want to read it already, don't you?

Barbara Kingsolver is, of course, a noted fiction writer (if you haven't read The Bean Trees, you should get that one too) but this book is non-fiction. It is the story of Barbara and her family and the year they spent living on a farm eating only local food. They grew much of their own.

Kingsolver's storytelling skills make this a pleasure to read as she chronicles the struggles of raising turkeys, attempting to plan a large birthday party without the convenience of store-bought food, and adventures in learning to make cheese.

Interspersed throughout the book are some of the family's favorite recipes, information about eating seasonally, and facts about the industrial agriculture.

But this book is not based on gory imagery or fear tactics. Instead, it is a beautiful book that not only makes you want to embrace the slow food philosophy in your own life, but makes you excited to do so.

I found out there's slavery in my chocolate and now my life is ruined. What do I do?

Alright, I'll tell you what I know. Welcome to

Victoria's Guide to Buying Chocolate NOT Produced with Child Slave Labor

First, you can buy organic chocolate. This is not a perfect guarantee, but organic chocolate most likley  was not produced with slave labor, because there are no certified organic farms in Cote d'Ivorie, where most of the issues occur. The majority of organic cocoa farms are in South America where slavery has not been found to occur. (Source)

Humans in Provo: You can buy Organic Chocolate Chips at Smith's or in SLC at Whole Foods.

Brands of Organic Chocolate include Newman's Own Organics, Trader Joe's Brand chocolates, Green & Black, and Dagoba.

For baking, Whole Foods and Harmon's sell Organic cocoa powder.

Next, you can buy Fair Trade Certified chocolate, which means that fair labor practices have been verified by an independent third party group. 

   

Other certifications include Rainforest Alliance certification and Fair for Life. All of these logos are ones you should look for!

There are lots of lists available of every company that is Fair Trade certified, but they're overwhelming and sometimes outdated. Rather than memorize a list of everyone you can buy from, just look at the packaging on the chocolate you're considering buying. Is it organic? Does it have any of the above fair trade labels? Is the country of origin listed?

I'll make a plug here for my personal favorite chocolate company, Theo, which recently came out with a Fair Trade bar from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also, if you ever go to Seattle you can tour their chocolate factory, which is super fun.

In most stores in Provo, all of these kinds of chocolate will be displayed together in grocery stores. You can get Fair trade chocolate bars at Sprouts, Good Earth, Allen's, Whole Foods,Trader Joe's, Harmon's, and some Smith's stores in Salt Lake City.

Like most things involving international trade, Fair Trade is complicated and has its critics. Here is a great blog post that discusses some of the potential issues with Fair Trade, as well as providing lists of slavery-free chocolate and companies that are working towards eradicating slavery in their supply lines.

You can read about the specific requirements that different fair trade labels require by visiting the label's website. So if you want to buy something, but are unsure what the label means, just get on their website!

And finally, activism. Choosing to buy slavery-free chocolate is great, but it's also important to let companies know how you feel. Currently, one of the most successful campaigns is Raise the Bar, Hershey! Thanks to the efforts of this campaign, Hershey's Bliss Bars will be Rainforest Alliance Certified in 2013, and the company has agreed to certify all of its cocoa by 2020. However, there is still work to be done.

 (It is worth noting that Dagoba, though Fair Trade, is owned by Hershey, and so the Raise the Bar, Hershey Campaign also boycotts that brand. But that's up to you).

My friend and I have a rule about our cocoa purchasing. Mostly, we buy organic and fair trade. But if we decide to buy something that isn't certified, then we have to write the company a letter expressing our concern. Letter writing is very important. Few people take the time to do it, and so when you send a company a letter (particularly a hand-written letter) they assume that you represent numerous concerned consumers.

Best of luck in your cocoa purchasing and activism journey! Hopefully this wasn't too overwhelming- I promise, it isn't hard to find ethically produced chocolate if you just start looking around. And if your local grocery store doesn't carry any fair trade or organic chocolate, tell them that you want it! The wonderful thing about being a consumer is that you get to create demand.

Is There Slavery in Your Chocolate?

Most likely.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. 

I was already vaguely aware that slavery was used in the production of chocolate, but recently I wrote a paper on the topic and I now feel much more qualified to speak on the subject. Here is my research paper, Reader's Digest version:

Most cocoa used in the largest chocolate brands comes from Africa, particularly Cote d'Ivorie. Investigations have revealed that the cocoa industry in the following countries uses child labor or forced labor:

 Cameroon

Cote d'Ivorie

Ghana

Guinea

Nigeria
Sierra Leone 

Want proof? Good for you, here are some links:

The U.S. Department of Labor's List of  Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor

BBC News, 2007- Child Cocoa Workers Still Exploited

The Payson Center for International Development's report on efforts made by the chocolate industry to eliminate child labor in their supply chain (hint: they haven't done it)

Now, are you skeptical that "child labor" is inherently a bad thing? Are we perhaps wrongly projecting my western view of children and work onto other cultures?

Maybe.  But the kinds of child labor we're talking about eliminating are known as the "Worst Forms of Child Labor"as defined by the International Labor Organization, a department of the U.N. Here is what is considered Worst Forms of Child Labor:

(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;
(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;
(d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

I mean, that's pretty bad. It is also the type of thing that the chocolate industry has been promising to do its part to eradicate for the past 10 years.

The Chocolate Manufacturers Association, which represents some of the top companies in the industry (Hershey, M&M Mars, Nestle, See's, etc etc etc) stepped in in 2001 when the United States congress was about to pass a bill requiring them to label chocolate "Slave Free" if it used no child labor. They came up with a compromise, known as the Harkin-Engel Protocol, in which the industry promised to work to end child slavery in their supply line.

Want to see the CEO's signatures on this promise? They're right here.

The companies who signed this protocol have repeatedly missed the deadlines to fulfill their promises. The Payson Center, which oversees compliance with the agreement, said in 2011 that the chocolate industry had not completely fulfilled any of the the promises made.

Perhaps the companies can't regulate their suppliers. Maybe we're making the wrong people responsible for the problem. That could be true. Global trade is certainly not simple. 

 But then again, plenty of other companies have managed to keep slavery out of their chocolate, largely by using Fair Trade certified chocolate, which has certain standards that producers must meet. Whether or not Fair Trade certified is the way to go is open for debate- but it is one way of ensuring that a suppliers are not committing  labor abuses.

                         

And Chocolate companies do not have to use the Fair Trade system. One of the agreements of the Protocol was that the industry could come up with it's own third-party verified labeling system. Maybe something like this:

That's going to be all for Part one of this. Next week, or sometime soon when I feel like it, I'll talk about current consumer campaigns and companies committed to fair trade chocolate, and how to buy slavery free chocolate.

 

Freeganism

Look at all of that delicious food. All those bright colorful vegetables...all those bell peppers that cost a dollar or more in the grocery store. We got them for free. From a dumpster.

Ah yes, Freeganism, perhaps the most controversial of all the alternative food lifestyles. I'll tell you about my experience with it, and you can judge it as you like.

For about 2 months, I was a part of a regular dumpster diving group. There were about 10 of us, and we went every Thursday night at midnight. We quickly learned which stores to go to (some have indoor dumpsters, trash compactors, or locked dumpsters, so they're no good), and what our local laws about dumpster diving were. We developed regular routes, split into two groups,  and returned at about 2:00am to divide up our spoils (get it?!).

I usually wore crappy clothes and dishwasher gloves and we brought headlamps. One or two people would climb into the actual dumpster and hand things out to the others to examine and pack into the car.

Dumpsters are not as gross as you would think they are. Don't get me wrong- some were horrible. But mostly, the trash is contained in separate bags, so the dumpster itself is clean. Produce is usually in a bag with other produce, not other kinds of trash, so it's pretty clean.

There were often gallons and half gallons of milk that weren't even expired, still cold from the store coolers. They would have dents in the handles or cartons. There were bell peppers that were oddly shaped or colored, but otherwise fine. We'd take cartons of berries and pick out the moldy ones, cut bruises out of apples, soft spots out of cucumbers. We washed everything in vinegar and hot water before we ate it. No one in the group ever got sick.

Basically, that's how dumpster diving is. It can be messy, it requires some work, but as long as you use your judgement, it's a pretty good way to cut down your grocery bill.

Food Waste

I'm tired of writing about GMO's. Although, if you're interested, California did not vote to label them.

Let's turn to what is possibly the most infuriating topic in the whole world: Food Waste.

Our source today is a TED talk:

Tristram Stuart: The global food waste scandal

This is a video well-worth watching yourself, but I'll just give you the basics.In America, we throw away a tremendous amount of food. And not just rotten food, no, most of the food we throw away is fit for consumption. We throw away food because it is too small for supermarket regulation, or because of "cosmetic blemishes." All told, there is twice as much food in our grocery stores as is necessary to feed our population. Though some food waste is inevitable, the amount we throw away is staggering, particularly in a world where millions are starving.

Perhaps next time I'll discuss my own adventures in "Freeganism."