Why Fair Trade? 

In the hustle and bustle of today's society, it seems we're all so plugged into our electronic devices that most people don't stop and wonder, "Where does my food come from?" Several years ago, a friend of mine from Westover School wrote a great book called Kitchen Literacy. Ann Vileises was always curious and always asked the most intriguing questions in Mr. Coffin's English class. She was so smart that she graduated at the very top of our class and went on to travel the country in a cool van, writing about her travels.

One day, Ann was standing in the middle of a grocery store, holding a tomato and thinking to herself, "Where did this tomato come from?" But it wasn't just the tomato she was concerned about. It was the chemical -laden cereals, the canned soups and veggies, the lettuce, and the meat. Where did all of this food come from and who made it? This led to an all-out scavenger hunt to investigate the history of food production in the United States. Ann's search led her to unearth the history of the Olden Days, when pioneers harvested their own wheat and raised and killed their own meat and poultry. As times changed, manufacturing changed the way people lived teir lives, with more and more people seeking jobs outside the home. Folks in cicites had to find different ways to source their food. Canning became a popular way to preserve fruits and vegetables, but what was put in the food to actually make it safe to eat months or even years down the road?