Is eating chocolate ever entirely guilt-free?!

Posted by Stina

March 30, 2009

I read in the Scotsman over the weekend that a group of city businesswomen have raised awareness of Fairtrade chocolate by eating as much of it as possible. Around 70 women were involved in Saturday’s party at a member of Edinburgh’s Soroptimist organisation, which formed part of a worldwide initiative to draw attention to the current situation regarding the Ivory Coast.

I’m not sure how this challenge was organised or what the cut-off point was (an ‘eat until you feel sick’ tactic does not sound that great to me.) But then as the event is aimed at highlighting how thousands of children have been trafficked to work on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast, then a bit of nausea seems a small price to pay for such an important campaign.

The Scotsman reported that a third of the world’s chocolate comes from the Ivory Coast, which means that there is quite a hill to climb in terms of change. However, although it helps enormously to have profile-raising campaigns to promote such causes, we can all make small changes without having to raid the sweet counter until we throw up!

By choosing only Fairtrade certified chocolate (made even easier now by Cadbury switching all of its dairy chocolate bars sold in the UK to Fairtrade) we can ensure that our afternoon sugar hit leaves us with a cleaner conscience (because eating chocolate is never entirely guilt-free, right?) and helps put an end to the cycle of poverty and dangerous conditions involved in the chocolate industry on the Ivory Coast.