I say “might,” because listen – we all know how hotdogs and chicken nuggets are made and we still eat those.
We all know about red dye, and we give it to our kids. We all know about sugar and whoo boy, I don’t know what I would do without it.
But hey. Maybe, maybe education really is key. We’ll see – read through these 14 things and see if the truth makes you determined to stop consuming them today.
14. My haircuts take at least an hour.
Not a product, but a service…. I’m a hair stylist that’s worked at Great Clips. They want us to do haircuts in under 16 minutes. If you’re closer to 12, you become one of the “elite”.
If you get a bad haircut from GC, yes, sometimes the stylist just isn’t skilled. Most times, it’s because we’re rushed and bit**ed at for taking longer than 16 minutes.
13. I bet everyone ate the kiss.
One of my teachers in middle school made the class read an article about chocolate and child slavery.
She gave us all a Hershey’s kiss too and told us we couldn’t eat it until we had read the whole article. I think she was doing some moral test on us 6th graders.
TBH looking back I can see that she was trying to teach us about current events and to be careful about consumption but she could have done a better job.
12. Read your billing statement thoroughly.
Not exactly a product, but certain legal services. A lot of times lawyers are just filling in blanks from a template when drafting documents, and many problems can be resolved with a two minute online search if you know where to look.
If the public had the knowledge of and access to the resources available to lawyers, there’s an awful lot people could figure out for themselves.
Of course, that’s not to say it’s a good idea to DIY a legal matter if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. Just that the prices people pay for certain legal services aren’t commensurate with the amount of time and effort they actually take the lawyer to complete.
11. Having just bought a house full of issues, can confirm.
Biggest thing I have seen is, don’t expect the home inspector to find these issues, especially when they are hired by the sellers or the bank. Your better off hiring your own, and if you can multiple.
The same for Surveyors. If you’re going to spend over $100k buying a house, you can afford multiple home inspections and a survey. You would be amazed at how many times issues are uncovered. Bring a HvAC company with you asking them about new AC system and ask them to point out problems with the existing system.
Talk to the neighbors. Amazing how people will be honest with you m, if they expect to be living next to you seeing you every day.
10. A depressing thought.
You’d be surprised how many products, including food, involve slavery and/or animal cruelty.
I greatly prefer to go leather free in anything I use.
9. Those poor worms.
“Extracting raw silk starts by cultivating the silkworms on mulberry leaves. Once the worms start pupating in their cocoons, these are dissolved in boiling water…” (Wiki)
What is worse is that the silkworms themselves are no longer capable of surviving without human influence. The male silkworm, which matures into a moth, is so physically weak that they are unable to fly due to poor breeding.
And that’s just one species of animal that has suffered due to domestication.
8. Something else to watch on Netflix.
This reminds me of a documentary series my dad once watched. Garlic. The garlic industry is a hell of a lot darker than most people would think. I don’t remember everything, but apparently a lot of Chinese companies that sell to restaurants overseas use prison labor. These inmates have to peel the garlic completely by hand, no tools whatsoever.
There were a few inmates missing fingernails. If I recall correctly, one man said that he had a friend who had to resort to using his teeth because he didn’t have any nails left. They work unimaginably grueling shifts, in which they have to meet a quota for the day or face consequences.
They get paid very little, if anything at all. They all seemed so miserable. The series is titled “Rotten”, you can find it on Netflix.
7. If only it were that easy.
I’d imagine if people walked through the sweat shops that produce most of their clothing, they would consider spending a bit more for products made in a more humane way.
6. Yum, chemicals.
Fresh juices are not so fresh apparently.
A friend whose family owns mango orchard told me these companies buy the leftover stock that doesn’t sell directly and leave the rest to strong artificial flavoring for uniform taste.
5. Human beings are the worst.
Mica products. I watched a documentary about mica mines in areas where child labor tends to be exploited and the interviewer asked this girl about her experience and she described how her sister died in the mine and she’s still working there.
Mica is in almost all beauty products and due to the change of hands it can be hard to determine if natural mica is actually ethically sourced. However, after watching some soap making videos, I’ve discovered that Mad Mica sells sparkly stuff that neither puts children at risk nor destroys the environment with microplastics. For those who want their cake and want to eat it too.
4. These are the hard facts.
Oh god I knew this girl who was like “oh no you don’t kill the sheep to make Uggs!”
And I was like “no you are thinking of wool this is literally sheep SKIN you have to kill it”
3. This will make you feel icky. Or it should.
“Buy” might be a stretch, but pr0n.
When abuse happens there, not only is it pretty abominable, but the end-user also watches a good bit of it with their own eyes.
2. The fact of the matter.
The human brain is incredibly good at forgetting and ignoring information that might inconvenience it.
1. Literally everything.
People always point at Apple for exploiting Chinese labor but don’t realize that pretty much every company does the same thing and most of them use the exact same factory as Apple. It’s called “Foxconn” not “Apple”. They make everything.
I have to say, I wish we were different, as a species.
Are you going to stop using any of these things? Tell us in the comments!
