# Chocolate - Fair Trade and Well-Travelled! Better than Valentine's Day!



## Copepod (Mar 1, 2009)

Apologies to those on low carbohydrate or low sugar diets, but for active Type 1s, this is a great time!
One of the many interests shared by my partner and I is chocolate. Most of our interests are more active, but we both believe in not wasting resources and buying ethically whereever possible. That's why, yesterday, when he returned from 6 weeks working at Rothera, the British Antarctic Survey base on the Antarctic Peninsula, he brought back a 125g bar of Cadbury's Millk Chocolate, with the Best Before Date 28/05/03 - it tastes fine! As I grew up in Birmingham, I have a particular liking for chocolate from Bourneville, even if it has made a somewhat long detour of several 1000 miles, rather than just 100 miles as the crow flies. As he's away nearly every winter for periods of 5 weeks to 5 months, Valentines Day never means anything to us, but chocolate on reunion does!
I had already stocked up on Fair Trade chocolate - this is a good time to do tat, as 23 Feb to 8 March 2009 is Fair Trade Fortnight, when many retailers sell fairly traded products at special prices, typically 20% off, to encourage people to try products - coffee, tea, chocolate bars, drinking chocolate, bananas, dried fruit, nuts etc are among the most popular.


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## Northerner (Mar 1, 2009)

Slurp! When I lived in Folkestone I used to go on regular trips to Belgium, and the coach would always stop off at a 'chocolate factory'. We were always advised to buy twice the quantity we intended to buy as gifts, as we'd end up eating half ourselves. They weren't wrong! 

I had half a bar of fairtrade fruit and nut last night - 85p from my local co-op, yum!

And, talking of out-of-date foods - I had a tuna sandwich the other day. I was a bit sceptical, as the tin said 2001 on it, but it tasted ok and I haven't been ill! I think stuff in tins last ages beyond the dates anyway, they're just playing safe. I've found that with stuff like chocolate though, it can go 'off' if not stored properly - not that it lasts long enough, as a rule! How come your partner had such an old bar? Was it washed up after floating the ocean currents for a few years?


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## Copepod (Mar 1, 2009)

Best Before 2003 isn't unusually old for BAS food! This chocolate had crossed the equator twice - going south by ship, then back north by plane. We've had older tins of Nido milk powder, brought all the way back to Cambridge - then put in a skip, from where some emplyees take them home. The food boxes used by BAS field parties are still labelled MAN FOOD, to distinguish them from dog food boxes, even though the last dogs left Antarctica in Feb 1994 and both sexes of humans have worked there since before the last dogs left. 
See http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_a...ources/information/primary/pschoolsq_food.php and http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/living_and_working/daily_life/food.php for info about food used by BAS in Antartica and http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_antarctica/environment/wildlife/removal_of_sledge_dogs.php for, well, as you might guess, removal of dogs from Antarctica!


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## bev (Mar 1, 2009)

Oooh Your hubby certainly knows how to treat a girl! I bet you enjoyed every mouthful- if only that bar of chocolate could tell a tale! Bev


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## Copepod (Mar 1, 2009)

Yes, thanks, we really enjoyed our chocolate, as well as cheese & veg omlette on bread last night, then chicken kievs with leeks from our garden, plus sweet potatoes, swede & carrots tonight. Only had wine tonight, as he was too tired after overnight flight home. I know it's not as difficult as for military families - but ironically, I deliberately didn't get involved with anyone when I was in the Territorial Army, but soon after diagnosis made rejoining impossible, and met him - and we're still together nearly 10 years later! 

No point wasting good food, even if it is well past its Best Before date!


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## bev (Mar 1, 2009)

Wow - you grow your own chicken kievs? Bev x


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## Copepod (Mar 2, 2009)

No to growing chicken kievs, but if the ducks don't start laying eggs soon...


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## mikep1979 (Mar 2, 2009)

mmmmmmmmm duck in hoisin sauce


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## Northerner (Mar 2, 2009)

mikep1979 said:


> mmmmmmmmm duck in hoisin sauce



I'm with you there mike!


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## mikep1979 (Mar 2, 2009)

the crispy pancakes to!!! oh and you cant forget the seaweed and soy either!!!!! mmmmmmmmmmm im bloody drooling now!!!!!!


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## Copepod (Mar 2, 2009)

They're called Easter and Midsummer until they lay eggs...


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## Caroline (Mar 2, 2009)

Copepod said:


> No to growing chicken kievs, but if the ducks don't start laying eggs soon...



One of the reasons w don't keep ducks or chickens is I'm a vegetarian and couldn't kill one of my pets to eat. My country cousins are all meat famers or butchers or work close to the farms.

Now choclate, I could do a lot with a chocolate farm...


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## Copepod (Mar 2, 2009)

*not all animals are pets*

Our ducks aren't pets, which is why they don't really have names, just nicknames of when they would be eaten if they don't lay eggs in the meantime! Equally, the Highland cattle I look after at work aren't pets either, although they have a lovely life - they graze our grass and we feed them carrots or parsnips by hand and scratch their heads. 
I try to only eat meat that has been humanely raised and killed. I realised that there was no point me being a vegetarian when I was given a dead rabbit to skin when I was about 17 years old - and very hungry on a venture / ranger training weekend - and I did it and it tasted very nice!


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