Everyone should read The Big Green Purse by Diane Maceachern, whether or not they carry a purse! I have made it my personal mission to take note of several things I have learned from reading this book, in order for us all to use our spending power to shift to a greener market. Even one person can make a difference when you think about how much money you actually spend in a year, and the more this attitude accumulates, the more power we have to push for change. Not only that, but you can learn just how bad all the products we buy really are. I was appalled and saddened by some of the truths I learned, but trust me, these are things you will want to know.
Here is pt. 1 of a brief summary of my notes. For the full downloadable version of ALL my Big Green Purse notes, Click Here
Of course, you could pick up a copy of the book yourself 🙂
The Big Green Purse Notes Pt. 1 - Coffee, Tea, Chocolate
Buy Shade Grown!
- Full sun methods used by these companies instead of shade-grown are accomplished by cutting down massive amounts of rainforests (I will discuss rainforests later on)
- Of the 50 countries in the world with the highest deforestation rates from 1990-95, 37 were coffee producers
Decaf is BAD for you!
- Chemical solvents are almost always used to decaffeinate coffee and tea:
- Methylene chloride, a suspected carcinogen
- Ethyl acetate, may lead to skin problems
Blood and Children are making your chocolate
- the Ivory Coast produces 40% of the world’s cocoa, where hundreds of thousands of children are enslaved on cocoa farms
- Hershey's, Nestle, and M&Ms/Mars Inc. are some of the big companies who buy from those farms. From now on I take my cravings elsewhere
Some Fair Trade Teas and Coffees:
- Choice Organic Teas
- Upton Tea
- Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
- Starbucks
- Triple-Certified Canadian brand: Kicking Horse Coffee http://www.kickinghorsecoffee.com/
The key to change: If you want to change a company’s behaviour, spend your money on a competitor’s more desirable offerings.
