The True Cost of Cheap Food

Someone on Tumblr posted a link to this budget raw vegan food blog, and since I'm thinking about going vegan for Lent, I took a look.

On February 12th, the smoothies and ice cream have bananas, and the chocolate toast and the brownies have cocoa powder. On February 5th, the smoothies have bananas and the dessert has bananas and cocoa powder. On January 29th, the smoothies have bananas and cocoa powder and the dessert has bananas. The trend continues through the archives-- bananas are a common ingredient in anything sweet, because they add a creamy texture without dairy, and cocoa powder is also a common ingredient. I found praise for bananas at this raw foods site and I know bananas are a common ingredient in vegan ice cream, and sometimes in baking.

This wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't a blog about eating on a budget, to show anyone how affordable the raw, vegan lifestyle can be. But-- the banana industry is plagued by hideous labor problems. Chiquita, a major exporter of bananas to the US, has given money to violent militia groups. Maybe things have changed in the past ten years, but Ecuador, where Dole and Del Monte get a lot of their bananas, uses a lot of child labor. The cocoa industry, particularly Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, which produce about 60% of the world's chocolate, exploits over 100,000 children, about 10% of whom may have been trafficked. A report aired only a month ago about how efforts to stop child slavery and exploitation in the cocoa industry have done little, which echoes the findings of other investigate efforts. The reason bananas and cocoa powder are cheap enough to be a staple of the raw lifestyle is because the industry is built on the backs of exploited workers, especially children; their sweat, blood, and unpaid labor subsidize our cheap treats.

The problem isn't limited to bananas and chocolate, of course; among others, the tea and coffee industries are also plagued with human rights abuses, as is the garment manufacturing industry. But bananas and chocolate are two of the big ones. And the problem is of course not limited, by any stretch of the imagination, to either the raw food community or the vegan community, though that is where I see bananas most commonly used as staples; bananas, after all, make up about half of all US fresh fruit imports (link goes to PDF). Against a backdrop of concern for ethical eating, reliance on food subsidized by human rights abuses stands out more than in other communities; however, the problems of human rights abuses in our food supply chain are concerns for everyone, whatever our diets.