subject: The Fairtrade Diet [print this page] The choice of food we have in the UK is absolutely astonishing; we have access to food from all over the world as well as from farms all over Britain and it is this year round choice of fruit and vegetables that has meant that a lot of us are not knowledgeable about seasonal foods or the origins of our food. The good news is that producers and retailers have cottoned on to the importance of fresh, seasonal, British produce and the importance of fairtrade on those ingredients which our climate does not enable us to grow in any sort of quantity in this country, things like rice, cocoa beans and pineapples.
When were thinking about the food we eat, its important to make the right choices for our health and wellbeing but also to buy in a way that supports the producers whether theyre British or not. Buying British wherever we can means we are supporting local farmers and ensuring that we dont lose access to freshly grown and locally produced items and to ensure that we dont lose our trade links with other countries. But for those items which cannot be produced in the UK, its important to buy smart and look for the fairtrade symbol on things like tea, coffee and chocolate. Fairtrade food may cost a few pence more than the non fairtrade equivalent but it literally is this to us rather than the difference between making a living in decent working conditions and being poorly treated and unfairly paid for raw ingredients to farmers in the third world.
The coffee we buy is often from countries such as Kenya or Columbia anyway and fairtrade coffee will be from the same crops but the farmer who owns the crops and the land will be fairly paid for his produce, as will the workers who turn this produce into the food we buy in the supermarkets. Not only this but the conditions they work in will meet agreed standards and as such they will work in decent conditions and work no more than the agreed number of hours per day. The same goes for all other fairtrade food, in others the food you see which displays to green, blue, black and white fairtrade symbol in your local supermarket.
So when you next go shopping, look out for the Union Flag which will symbolise that the product is British and for the Fairtrade symbol on all goods you know you wont be able to buy from British heritage. This way your body will be healthy and so will your conscience.
by: Jamie Francis
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