A reminder to have an ethical Halloween

If you are signed up for our Daily Retreat & Renew Tips, you saw our message on Saturday, courtesy of our guest blogger, Kristen Howerton, about how to be ethically responsible this evening by not handing out candy that can be traced to child labor or trafficking.

In case you missed it, the low-down is here . . . but in a nutshell a BBC documentary revealed that child labor and even child trafficking is rampant in chocolate production, and that chocolate from most mainstream candy companies can be traced back to farms employing (and even buying) children to work in dangerous conditions.

For Kristen’s family, the response to learning this has been to limit our chocolate purchases to fair-trade chocolate, which is a system that ensures that workers are paid and treated fairly.

The first step? Avoid Hershey’s and buy Newman’s Own Organics Peanut Butter Cups, for example. Check this out for more suggestions on the good, the bad and the scary for this year’s Trick or Treating.