vegansaurus!

This is why you’re vegan: Your Halloween candy is made by slaves  »

You read that article in Good last week by Kristen Howerton, about the big candy companies using child-slave labor to harvest the cocoa beans to make their chocolate; of course you did, you care about child-slave labor. It’s fucking disgusting, it’s outrageous, it’s major U.S. candy companies—“Hershey, Mars, Nestle, and the U.S. division of Cadbury“—directly profiting from child slaves. CHILD SLAVES

It’s also not the most shocking news we’ve ever heard. Nike, right? That scandal broke when I was in high school and I still can’t buy Nike. I read No Logo the year I graduated, and 11 years later (I’m an old), when my conscience feels weak, I still think about the international exploitation of people and animals, and think, yes, this is why I’m vegan.

U.S. candy companies did shock us this week when the New York Times reported on the Hershey Company’s exploitation of exchange students working in their factory IN HERSHEY, PA. Yes, for real: These people came over as Ph.D. candidates and were forced to work “physically arduous” jobs at $8 per hour with “steep deductions from their paychecks for housing, transportation and insurance.” They were kept isolated and poor, and the program’s sponsor ignored the students’ requests for help for months. Horrifying.

Sadie of Tiger Beatdown is sufficiently enraged. And what we—and our pal Kate Dollarhyde—would add to Sadie’s anger is relief, that being vegan, we don’t participate in the exploitation of animals, and now, because these companies don’t make vegan candy, we don’t participate in the exploitation of exchange students, either. Like it’s not enough to make the shitty chocolates from horrible cow’s milk, you have to force foreign engineering students to make the shitty chocolates, too? Hershey’s, you are the goddamn worst.

Fair Trade, you guys. It costs more because it isn’t made by LITERAL SLAVES. Thank goodness we’re vegan. If anyone wants to join us, we’re planning on taking over some abandoned suburban tract homes and growing our own food and never participating in the corporatocracy again.

Or you could just patronize companies on the Food Empowerment Project’s fair trade chocolate list. Might be simpler, though not nearly as fun.

[photos, from top: QuintanaRoo; tofutti break; norwichnuts via Flickr]

Top 10 links of the week!: A dashing and daring, courageous and caring bounce through veganism!!  »

[Simon the Cat has a kitten friend! Kinda! Saw this on Holy Cuteness]

Hello pals. Been busy again so here is your not really weekly top ten links! 

First up! Veganmainstream makes cinnamon rolls for Vegan MoFo! Check it out.

This Dish is Veg has the scoop on a giveaway from my favorite doctor, Dr. McDougall! Win one of his Asian Entrees and an ipad! Holy cannoli.

Here’s the story on Zack Galifianakis’ bday Babycakes order!

Our Rachel has three smart things about banana peels she wants to tell you about over at Wired!

Ad beat: Nestlé is marketing to your dog! Like, directly!

Adorable pygmy owl denied federal protection! Corny. 

Lauri Apple at Gawker gives us the story on cops shutting down a highway for a rabbit shaman!

Learn how meat destroys the environment with Care 2! It’s bad news! Yay!

Occupy Wall Street demands corporate abuse of animals to stop! MAN I got to get over there. It’s just hard to get back in the saddle once you been illegally arrested at a protest. 

Albino animals from National Geographic! I love these little freaks.