Chocolate is supposed to stimulate your brain into producing endorphins.

In the words of the film Legally Blonde - '[Chocolate] gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't kill their [housemates]'.

Also there's probably an element of psychosomatic-ness in there - she thinks the chocolate will make her feel better, and then voila, it does. But it *does* stimulate the brain into producing endorphins, so it's not all in her head :)

If tampons were a luxury, I'd have to go on a killing spree.
If tampons were a Luxury, I'd have to go on a killing spree and then file about fifteen sexual assault lawsuits.

It just makes me angry.

Because it's not just appalling work conditions. It's slavery. Like, as in, thirteen year old boys kidnapped and sold to a plantation where they are beaten and worked to death without pay and chained up at night to keep them from escaping. That's not just appalling conditions, that's slavery, a practice outlawed in most of the Western world (all, actually, to my admittedly little knowledge).

I don't blame people for the condition of Africa, nor Asia, nor the workers who make them up. I blame the corrupt governments of those countries, and I blame the corporations propping them up because cheap labor makes the economy go 'round. But honestly, I don't understand how buying something you don't need (yes, I know, some people do, endomorphins, etc, but the fact is the more expensive stuff is a higher percent cocoa most of the time, which means it's actually -better- for those scientific purposes than the cheap stuff, which is usually less than fifty percent cocoa and thus virtually useless where antioxidants and endomorphins are concerned), fully knowing that the product was made with unwilling slave labor, is... I don't know. There are a lot of words I want to put there, none that won't offend you (and several other people). I know I was harsher in that post than I needed to be; I should've glanced over it before putting it up here, as it was cross-posted from another forum (where, by the way, it was utterly ignored. so you're not alone in being irritated with my constant activist shite). Anyway. Yes, I meant there to be a guilt issue. There should be. On that, I won't back down. But you're right in that it shouldn't have been that aggressive.

As for your second problem? Yeah, like I said, if it's a medical issue the fair-trade organic stuff is better for any purpose. Hershey's and their ilk are generally a very tiny percent cocoa-- if you look at the ingredients, it usually goes "sugar, milk, etc," and then chocolate'll be somewhere near the end. For dietary purposes alone you're better off buying the good stuff. Chocolate's not medically necessary for me, though, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

But I do take offense (kind of-- I am bearing in mind that you're drunk, and trying not to take it personally) to you implying that I can afford to buy luxury chocolate all the time, or whatever. I currently work two jobs, don't get enough hours at either, can't afford to drive or go to college or do much more than eat (most of the time) and pay a few of my dad's bills. And this is going to sound self-righteous, but if it's a choice between fair-trade and nothing, I just don't buy it. To me, it's not worth the guilt trip. Because even though I complain about my life all the time, the chocolate isn't worth making someone else's life that much worse.

And actually I don't wear tampons either. Though that's actually just because they bug me.

...the remark about holidays. It's nice to be informed, but there's no need to make your point more than you have to.

(And it may say something about my state of awareness or intellect that it took me about thirty seconds to figure out where that pun was. x_x)

I rarely make that mistake.

It is completely impossible to tell what comes from where, because all the cocoa is mixed together by the time it reaches the consumer. Unless it says something like 100% Fair-Trade certified, or... I think Rainforest Trade is another one that's both ethical and environmentally friendly, you honestly can't tell.

The thing that I don't get is why it's such a problem to buy fair-trade chocolate and coffee. If it was, I don't know, life-blood or something, yeah, but this stuff is a luxury. It's not like we literally can't do without it.

I plug it sporadically throughout the internet.