Chocolate without Guilt

The mind-numbing, euphoria-inducing selection at Dean & Deluca in Soho, shot moments before Phil was busted for taking photos in the store, which apparently is taboo.

I love chocolate. Love it. Love Halloween. Couldn't wait for the season so I could make excuses for buying bags and bags that would significantly exceed the number of trick-or-treaters we'd see. Then I learned a bit about chocolate harvesting and fair trade chocolate and how Nestle's and Hershey's and other companies aren't so into it.

Carla sent a link to a company selling fun-sized dark chocolate that is fair trade: that is, harvesters are paid a fair wage and children aren't laboring under dangerous conditions to pick the cocoa beans that get processed into our GooGoo Clusters and Mr. Goodbars. So I just ordered a bunch of fair trade, organic chocolate for Halloween. I didn't bother with the whole "Halloween" package that included "Fair Trade is Boo-tiful" posters and postcards to hand out to kids about the atrocities of mass chocolate. I want to buy candy I feel good about, but I don't want to harangue the kids or their parents or start giving speeches about the ills of capitalism. The kids just need their candy.

I love that a simple purchase choice means fewer kids and families are being exploited so that we can have cheap Reese's cups. If enough of us get together and demand fair trade choices, the big guys are going to have to listen. McDonald's execs didn't add apple dippers to the menu because they were concerned about obese kids -- they added them because they knew that parents trying to avoid having obese kids would go elsewhere if there weren't some decent choices.

There are lots of free trade choices out there. I got mine at Global Exchange. Consider doing the same this year; it really only seems right that people harvesting our luxuries should be able to earn a living wage.

Eat up!