I was perusing MSN.com this morning, and found this article about eco-guilt-free chocolate.
The article states that most of the people creating the non-fair-trade version of the delicious food are mainly
"West African tikes who fritter away their days in the hot sun extracting seeds (not beans) from gooey cacao fruit. The Ivory Coast supplies almost half of the world’s cocoa, and it is estimated that up to 6 percent of its child workers are victims of human trafficking or slavery."
With the amount of chocolate I eat, I probably keep hundreds of child slaves busy in the hot sun.
The article does go on to list some fair trade cocoa companies, as well as telling us to check chocolate's packaging for the TransFair USA’s Fair Trade logo. Unfortunately, when I went to their site and entered my zip code to find stores near me that sell fair trade products, the search produced zero results.
I'm really going to have to do some more research on this. And maybe look into carob as an alternative. A life without chocolate? The future's looking bleak.
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