Posts tagged 'ethical' - page 3
15 March 2010
Child Labour and Vanilla
There was a pretty damning article in The Times yesterday about child labour and low prices paid for vanilla from Madagascar - see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7060962.ece, however rest assured our vanilla beans are not c...
Read more11 March 2010
Enjoying Tasting Oolong Tea
Today it's a sunny day with a warming, clear fresh light and a blue sky. This is great weather to look at tasting oolong teas from China and Taiwan (sometimes called Formosa by tea drinkers). The clear light allows you to see the subtle colour diff...
Read more21 February 2010
How We Are Reducing Our Family Environmental Impact – Insulating the Loft
One of the major users of energy in a house is for heating the building. Space and water heating in homes gives off about 20% of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions, which is about 5 tonnes CO2 per home every year.
Read more01 February 2010
Trying To Build A Better Spices Business
When Sophie and I set up Steenbergs, we were very clear in our own minds about what Steenbergs as a business wanted to offer as products - the widest and most exotic range of great spices, herbs, seasonings and teas from around the world that are gro...
Read more30 January 2010
Reflections On Le Credit Crunch
I think I am now pretty much up to looking back on 2007 - 2009, and thinking about 2010 and forwards. Le credit crunch and le recession have been a roller coaster, like surfing a bad set of hairy, tumbling roiling waves, but it's been a truly cathar...
Read more24 January 2010
Recipe - Baking Chocolate Brownies For Haiti
Our children's school council have decided to run a cake stall tomorrow to raise money for Haiti. I feel especially moved by Haiti as my grandmother was born next door in the Dominican Republic, which has escaped the horrors of their neighbours. Th...
Read more13 December 2009
Water, Water Everywhere And Not A Drop To Drink
As world leaders take themselves very seriously and think themselves very powerful as they negotiate their climate change treaties in Copenhagen, while they drive their big limos and they fly in from around the globe, I have been thinking about water...
Read more07 December 2009
Kit-Kat Goes Fairtrade
Fairtrade has just announced that Kit-Kat, the massive brand of Nestlé in the UK, is switching its cocoa over to Fairtrade. This will start in mid January 2010 and is obviously a reaction to Cadbury's Dairy Milk going Fairtrade in Summer 2009. See...
Read more17 November 2009
Keep Governments Out Of Saving The World
One of the areas of society that is exercising my thoughts at present is how societies organise themselves, are governed and whether we (as citizens) are actually free ... or just whether we are being told that we are free, but in reality are all jus...
Read more04 November 2009
Autumnal Leaves Falling
Autumnal leaves are falling everywhere. They have hung on in there for quite a while longer as we have had a short spell of decent warm weather and very little wind. But even so, nature cannot be stopped and even the delicate finger-like leaves of...
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