Just say no to Hershey

Awesome! That is definitely progress I don't even like Hershey's chocolate but I wouldn't wanna test my willpower against free chocolate bars.

Awesome!

Way to go. You are strong.

When I first read the title I thought of the old episode of Nanny and the Professor where Fran's mother slaps her hand over her heart and urges Franny to "get my medicine", then Franny grabs a spoon from the drawer and rushes to the fridge where she grabs the bottle of Hersheys syrup, squeezes it into the spoon and hands it to her mom.

EMTFreakGirl wrote: »

I will admit that my first thought upon reading the post's headline was, " ...and say YES to Ghirardelli, DAGOBA, Green & Black, etc..." I do LOVE a good dark chocolate and treat myself to one square or about 1/3 of a portion each and every day!

LOL. Yeah, no reason not to eat chocolate if the calories work out for the day. Sometimes that stuff isn't too bad, calorie-wise. But Hershey's would so NOT be worth it (Although free? Hmmmm ...)

Where I live, in Kathmandu, storekeepers will honest to gosh give change in candy. If you buy something and they owe you a small amount, like 2 or 3 rupees, they keep a drawer full of little candy and give that instead. Mostly I don't take it, but I've been known to give candy back as money. "Well, you gave me this yesterday and said it was three rupees!" They just grin and take it, what can they do?

Here's some motivation for not eatting Hershey...

We don't eat hershey's because you can get good imported chocolate for less. Heck the dollar store 1.00 chocolate bars are better. Plus I get Palmer's chocolates that are made here in PA too and aren't run by a giant corporation.

metta4 wrote: »

I received a rude PM from someone who thought my post referred to child labour in the US. Cocoa is imported from other countries, into the US where it is manufactured into chocolate. The child labour happens on the cocoa farms (Eg in Africa).

Thanks so much for posting, Metta. I didn't know about the issues in chocolate -- now I do. But I see child laborers all the time. It's pervasive, and much of it is really modern-day slavery. Fighting child labor is part of what my husband does for a living. It's a complicated issue that I could talk about all day, and it obviously extends to chocolate, in a big way.

Google will tell you a lot. I'm finding it very educational. It seems the bad news is that almost everything you can possibly get now WAS made with child/slave labor. (There are fair trade chocolate options, and that's ideal if you live where it's sold, but that's a tiny drop in the bucket and a niche market.)

The good news is that the handful of chocolate corporations that control the global market almost exclusively -- Hershey's being one -- actually have signed onto agreements to make changes. I know it's slow going and it's probably half b.s., but that's what has to happen to make a difference. (Not all the b.s. is from the corporations, either. Like I said: complicated issue.) Hershey's seems to have a gourmet line (Scharffen Berger, Dagoba and Bliss) that's child labor free, for those who want to support corporations in making change. (And yeah, it's change for a profit, but that's their job.)

Anyhow, it seems that our extra calories and fitness issues can come at the expense of slaves. I'd never looked at it that way. Charming. It seems that trying to be an ethical consumer is at least one way to control a sudden desire to grab some piece of junk off the shelf

Thanks again for the info!

Wow, I don't even like Hershey and I wouldn't have been able to do that! Way to go, you rock!