Sorry for no sooner update but things have been hectic. Anyway the Ethical Challenge is going quite well. This past month we have focused on our food, particularly as Fairtrade Fortnight is currently on, and I have been looking quite closely at Fairtrade from a Bahá’í Perspective lately. We even had a very successful Fairtrade Event at the Newcastle Bahá’í Centre this week, which I will blog about shortly.
For the past couple of years we have bought Fairtrade on and off, but quite recently we made a commitment to, where possible only buy Fairtrade. For tea, coffee and sugar this is easy, and we have already been doing this for some time anyway. But we have looked very closely at everything else, bananas, chocolate, cola and even our rubber gloves! All of these are products we can swap for something that is Fairtrade, many of which we are buying online from ethicalsuperstore.com, and they are based in Team Valley so low carbon on the transport.
You see most people involved in the manufacturing of cheap food get a raw deal. In some cases the economies of entire nations are affected: people are kept in poverty through the actions of western consumers. And if I am trying to live more ethically I really need to try and help stop that.
So our weekly shop now has more Fairtrade products in the basket, from spices to rice. Although we currently do have a lot of Ringtons tea in the cupboard, but this is because my Nana is always giving it to us, however, Traidcraft have their Fairtrade tea blended by Ringtons, and I can’t imagine that they would have anything to do with a non-ethical company, so I don’t feel too bad about having that in my cupboard.
I am also aware that eating too much meat is not so good for the environment, so we have also looked to eliminate some meat from our diet. We aren’t going veggie, I used to be and would love to again, but I have medical issues preventing me from becoming completely veggie. So fewer cows need to fart methane to keep me happy!!!
Fruit and veg is one area where we are badly failing, looking at what we buy, its often imported or grown in hot houses. So I have been looking at ordering a weekly veg box from Riverford Farm, who deliver organic veg boxes. So that’s starting once we return from a visit to Suffolk next week, so we will see how that goes.
So I will keep plodding on and let you know how its going.
God Bless
Michael
