Slavery and Coco... --Help with an assignment--

Remove all ads!

Dare I even ask what this would entail?

 

I find it hard to believe that so many of you guys don't eat *any* products from Mars, Nestle, or Hershey.

Let me enlighten you: (I spoiler tagged them because listing all three companies' products would have made for a very long post)

Mars:

Spoiler

3 Musketeers
CocoaVia
Combos
Dove Chocolate
Fling
Flyte
Galaxy (alternative for the Dove range used in the UK, Ireland, Australia and the Middle East)
Kudos
M&M's
Maltesers
Marathon (UK name for Snickers until it was renamed in 1990)
Mars Bar
Mars Delight
Mars Planets
M-Azing
Milky Way
Minstrels
Nutro
Revels
Schmackos
Snickers Marathon Energy Bar
Snickers
Spillers
Summit Candy Bar
Teasers
Twix

Hershey's:

Spoiler

The 5th Avenue candy bar
Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars
Bar None
Cadbury Creme Eggs
Cherry Blossom
Glosette(s) (a Canada exclusive)
Heath bar
Hershey's Bites
Hershey's Bliss
Hershey's Cookies and Cream
Hershey's Milkshake
Hershey's Symphony bar
Hershey's Pot of Gold (premium boxed chocolates in a variety of assortments)
Hershey's Sticks
Hershey's Kisses
Kit Kat
Krackel
Milk Duds
Mr. Goodbar
Oh Henry!
Hershey's Pops
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (also includes any Reese’s sub-product)
Rolo
Skor
Swoops
Hershey's S'mores
Hershey's Shell Topping
Take 5 (known as Max 5 in Canada)
WHATCHAMACALLIT
Whoppers
York Peppermint Pattie

Nestlé:

Spoiler

100 Grand Bar
Aero
After Eight
Allens
Animal Bar
Baby Ruth
Bertie Beetle (Australia)
Big Turk (Canada)
Black Magic
Blue Riband
Bono(Brazil)
Breakaway
Butterfinger
Bon Pari (Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary)
Cailler
Capri (Chile)
Caramac
Carlos V
Charge (Brazil)
Chips Ahoy! (Canada)
Chocolate Surpresa (Brazil)
Chokito (Brazil)
Coffee Crisp (Canada)
Chunky
D'Onofrio (Peru)
Damak (Turkey)
Drifter
Frigor
Galak/Milkybar
Heaven
JOJO (Czech Republic and Poland)
Icebreakers
Kit Kat(INDIA)(except the United States where Hershey's makes it)
Lion
Matchmakers
Milky Bar
Minties (Australia)
Mirage
Joff
Munchies
Negrita (Chile)
Nestlé Alpine White
Nestlé with Almonds
Nestlé Crunch
Nestlé Milk Chocolate
Nestlé Princessa
Nestlé Wonder Ball
Nestlé Yes (Germany)
Nips
Nuts (Europe)
Oh Henry (except Canada)
Orion (chocolate) (Czech Republic)
Peppermint Crisp
Perugina Baci
Polo
Prestigio (Chile,Brazil)
Quality Street
Rolo (except the United States where Hershey makes it)
Rowntrees
Sahne Nuss (Chile)
Sensação (Brazil)
Snowcaps
Smarties
Suflair (Brazil)
Super 8 (Chile)
Susy (Venezuela)
Texan Bar
Toffee Crisp
Toll House cookies
Trencito (Chile)
Turtles
Walnut Whip
Violet Crumble
Yorkie

 

I've eaten a Susy before ... or was it Susie....

 

The only products from this list I've eaten in the last decade are M&Ms, Twix bars and Frigor chocolate. I haven't eaten any of these recently though. The last time I had some Milky Way was probably more than twenty years ago.

I usually eat Toblerone and Lindt chocolate (and some other less known Swiss brands) but I didn't find them on your list.

I don't eat chocolate on a very regular basis though.

Who hasn't?

 

I occasionally have some M&Ms, usually peanut, but that's it. For everything else I like, there's either better chocolate than these or equivalent chocolate at a cheaper price. Ghirardelli fills most of my chocolate needs, and an odd russian company called Korkunov/Kirkorov (or something) has the best dark chocolate I've ever had.

 

Also, Nestle:

Gerber (baby foods)
Perrier (bottled water)
Coffee (Nescafe)
Coffee Mate
Nestle and Haagen-Daz (ice cream)
Purina (pet foods, which includes the Purina Dog Chow and Friskies cat food branded products.

To name just a few of its products.

 

When I said I don't eat them, it means that they are not items I purchase now. When I was a kid, I certainly ate candy bars and M&Ms and the like. I just don't regularly buy any chocolate.

In addition, from Chandos' list, we did buy my son Gerber baby food before he got teeth, but he's 2 now, so he eats the same food we do.

So no, I don't eat any of those foods.

However, the larger point is, even if I did, I doubt I would change based on what I've read. I imagine that if I stopped buying things from companies which took actions I did not agree with, I imagine there would be very little indeed that I could purchase.

 

Being vegan, avoiding those products is easy. I won't eat the vast majority of them, anyway, since most have some sort of animal product.

You do, however, bring into play a fundamental question. In today's global economy, does it really make sense to boycott an entire corporation's product line because it happens to produce one of its products in a manner you don't like? A lot of companies have introduced "fair trade," "environmentally friendly," and "cruelty free" versions of their products. Should we continue to punish these companies by refusing to buy these products, too, or should we show them that there is a market out there that is ready and willing to purchase these more expensive but less ethically questionable products?

On the one hand, there are companies that only produce, say, fair trade coffee or chocolate. These companies are usually smaller and have little real chance of building a strong national presence. The other option is a large, established company that produces scads of questionable products but has recently introduced some new lines following <insert ethical standard here>. These companies already have branding and a robust distribution network. If the new lines succeed, they will likely end up in every grocery store.

There's no easy answer. If the vast majority of people buying such products opt to go with the smaller and more specialized companies, large companies will likely stop reaching out to that demographic. On the flip side, if this demographic buys from the larger corporations, they are favoring big business over small business.

 

Mars is also well-known for its Uncle Ben's Rice brand of products. Which I like, since they have the boil-in-the-packets version of their rice. ATM, I have Nestle's Drumsticks in my freezer - assorted ice cream cones, which my two girls like. And I have two cats that like Frieskies brand dry food (but not the cans).

 

A few Uncle Ben's products are vegan, but I wouldn't know which ones since I've never bought them. Any fool with a few bags of rice and some vegetable stock can make a pilaf. With a rice cooker, you just dump everything in, turn it on, and walk away. I've never seen the point of the instant stuff. It costs more and I spend the same amount of my time cooking it either way.

 

Yes, if you like pilaf. I just like the rice plain with some butter (real butter) on it.

That would be me, since I'm the one who usually cooks it.

 

That's even easier. Rice. Water. Rice Cooker. I assume you don't add the butter until after it's done. I know that's how I do it (with margarine).

 

Use coconut milk and water.

 

True...

I removed many products from the list that I knew didn't have coco in them. These companies make products that are perfectly slave free. My cat's love Friskies wet food...and since it doesn't have coco in it, I will continue to give them said wet food every Sunday....but only if they're good.

 

Do M&M's or Mars bars have coco in them?

If you start taking into account all the food products that these companies make that will only show that boycotting certain products is hardly an answer. Except of course if you can create a lobbying group large and strong enough to rally enough support so that these companies would notice.

Nestlé alone is a very big company that owns directly or indirectly numerous brands.

 

It depends on what your objective is. If the objective is to put the company out of business, to punish them for their actions, a boycott won't help much. If the objective is to show them that the American People aren't happy with X and want to see it change, a boycott of products involved in X may help, even if it's small.

 

If it has chocolate in it or on it, it has coco.

 

My mind must have reverted back to French at one point, see "coco" is for coconut in French and you are referring to coco, not cocoa. I did a quick search in my dictionary and I couldn't find any reference to chocolate in the coco entry which specifically refers to coconut palm and its fruit. It's a bit misleading. Is "coco" used to refer to cocoa in American English?