Some useful information, some anecdotes, some rantings, and some inspiration
from my quest to make my family and perhaps the world around me A Little Greener Every Day

First of all, sorry I went quiet last week. I flew down to Atlanta to the Mother Nature Network offices last Sunday to meet with the people in the home office, and I was in Atlanta for two days. I have to say, the MNN people are really great. Technically, I’m not an MNN employee, I contract myself out to them as a blogger. So for an organization to take the time and expense to fly in a contract blogger is really huge. I have a few ghostwriting clients that I’ve had for years now that have never even taken the time to talk with me on the phone let alone make an effort to meet me. It’s a real testimony to MNN’s commitment to being the best at what they do that they are willing to bring the bloggers in for a face to face brain storming session.

After I left Atlanta, I went out to Persimmon Creek Vineyards in Clayton, GA for a two day stay as their media guest. Persimmon Creek’s operations are highly sustainable, and my hosts, MaryAnn and Sonny Hardman couldn’t have been more gracious. My MNN post on their vineyards and winery will be up in a couple of days, and I’ll make sure to put a link here.

All of that to say that while I was in Georgia, my access to the Internet was limited and then when I got home, this site and SJ Locavore were acting up. So I went a week without posting to either. But  I’m back and operational once again and I’ve got a question for you.

Do you take the eco-friendliness or the social responsibilitiness (made up a word, I know) of the Halloween candy that you hand out into consideration? Last year was the first time I gave it any thought and we ended up giving away Endangered Species milk chocolate squares (which were really tasty) but I must say, the neighborhood kids weren’t as quick to scoop it up as they were to scoop up a Snickers bar. You can read all about that in my post on thoughts from my first greenish Halloween.

Anyway, this year, I’m going with Divine Spooky Halloween Balls. Last Easter when I gave my boys each one small Divine chocolate bar as part of their Easter baseball hats (I put their Easter candy in a new baseball hat each year), they both said it was some of the best candy they ever had.

Divine chocolate is fair trade, and I like the fact that I’ll be giving out candy that is made with cocoa that wasn’t picked at the hands of child labor. Something we’d prefer not to think of this time of year is that a lot of the mainstream candy that is given away on Halloween has unknown sources. Sure we know it comes from Hershey or Nestle, but where do they get their cocoa from? Who picks it? What conditions do they cocoa plantation workers pick under? It’s difficult to know unless the chocolate you are given out has some sort of fair trade certification.

I just put up a post over on MNN that has various eco-friendlier Halloween candy options including the Divine Spooky Halloween Balls. Before you buy your Halloween candy this year, please give a little thought to how it was sourced. It’s great to let our kids have a blast on Halloween, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of other kids around the world.