Read labels, ask questions and modify your spending. Seem tough?
No tougher than being "green" is it to buy locally and buy domestically-made and owned items.
Some things may seem impossible, but there are options for just about everything we need or want in this world.
I really don't want to see some of my favorite locally-owned and operated businesses go away and so I take a bit of extra time to patronize them. Think it takes extra fuel to do so?
Not always...many of our local businesses have online stores from which to purchase and even have the items delivered to you.
Rumors of another big-box store make me queasy, but I will not shop there. I have been in the Home Depot just a few times, and purchased nothing personally so far. I have no need to, and when/if I do, it will be out of sheer necessity and lack of option that I do.
We have plenty of options here and I will continue to shop with them as long as they exist.
My Easter candies will not be from Hersheys or Mars, they will be from local candy stores from local and domestic sources.
Times like these, we all need to tend the yards and gardens closest to home, to take care of our neighbors and the ones that take care of us.
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2 comments:
Interesting that you would choose to boycott Hershey and Mars. They both started as owner-operated small businesses. Mars started in Tacoma, WA, with a man and wife toiling away in their own kitchen. Hershey started in Lancaster, PA, as a subsidiary to the Lancaster Caramel Company, started by a lone entrepreneur.
In thinking before you buy I wonder if you've considered from where the ingredients in chocolate come. West African nations are the primary producers of cocoa, where child labor and human trafficking are common practices in the cultivation and harvesting of the beans.
And sugar? Unless the local candy marketers are growing and processing their own beets, it's probably from cane imported from Brazil, India or China, though it may have come from Florida or Louisiana. Then there's the environmental cost of sugar. It's high. Much of the destruction of the Everglades can be attributed to the production of sugar cane.
Mmm, pass me that chocolate bar. ;-)
Yes, the individual ingredients need consideration.
Fair Trade is not a perfect process but most of the people I buy from have a better chain of supply than the lower-quality of Mars and Hershey.
I have a few chocolate bars for you to try. They cost a little more but a little goes a long ways.
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