BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 03:46 PM

What? Missing your point man. Was it aimed at me?

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 03:49 PM

Actually, I think the thread title is a bit too strong. All any humane person needs to do is change from eating child slave labour produced chocolate, to readily available and very good, fair trade alternatives. I won't be buying Green & Blacks any more, I'll stick to the Co-Op who are as reliably decent and responsible as ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: SharonA
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 03:53 PM

Oh, sorry, Spaw, I didn't follow your link to your other thread where you linked to that news story. (Too many degrees of separation!) At least we referenced different articles. Since the incident was on the local news here in southeastern PA, I knew that the chocolate was destined for Hershey bars, so I looked for a locally-published story that had that angle.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 04:10 PM

Currently, there are LOTS of choices in chocolate... perhaps way too many. ;-) Today in the New York Times: Tasteful Company | Madécasse
Food
July 10, 2009, 3:53 pm
By Jill Santopietro

These days my favorite chocolate isn't U.S.D.A. organic certified and it's not Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance stamped. It's Madécasse, made from cacao grown in Madagascar's naturally organic forests. It's traded fairly and is environmentally friendly. Best of all, the new Madécasse 63% and 70% chocolate tastes so good — a refreshing anomaly in a sea of astringent bitter chocolates with trendy (and often misleading) labels.

When it comes to chocolate, the meaning of the term "organic" is much more complicated than it is for, say, local blueberries. But my personal theory is that cacao grown in pesticide-free forests shaded by biodiversity is better for the health of the plant and the land than cacao grown on a mono-crop organic plantation. It typically tastes better, too.

Kallari, a company I wrote about in a Times article last November, grows its cacao beans and produces its bars in Ecuador with the indigenous Kichwa people.

Madécasse (pronounced mah-DAY-cas) chocolate, on the other hand, is made from beans grown in Madagascar and produced in factories nearby. The company is owned by two young Americans, Brett Beach and Tim McCollum; both worked there as Peace Corps volunteers before moving on to the U.S Embassy and Usaid in Madagascar (Brett) and the business world and business school in New York (Tim). Because their entire manufacturing process happens in Madagascar's cacao-growing region, much of the profits go back into the local economy.

(some more is available via the link...)

And yes, what did they do with the chocolate that was in the vat with the guy...?

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 04:16 PM

I should have put up a blatantly titled thread Sharon but we used to get by with those titles and now I have to link it to a few threads to get any attention. ANd that didn't work too well here either LOL!!!!


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 04:50 PM

I have yet to taste chocolate to rival Cadbury's and trust me I have tried most! I only have a gulit trip about my increasing girth caused by this indulgence particularly since Cadbury's source their cocoa from fair trade sources anyway.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/cadbury-adopts-fairtrade-source-1636575.html

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 04:57 PM

Yeah, stop the child labor in the poor countries. Let them starve instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 05:07 PM

Why is all the news about the Ivory Coast bad, now?

And, no. At least, not dark chocolate.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 05:26 PM

"Yeah, stop the child labor in the poor countries. Let them starve instead."

What total crap.

No instead, let the West pay right prices to countries providing such luxury items with a non enslaved workforce. Instead of funding a lifetime's of child slave labour, so you can have a moments chocalate orgasm.

It's not too far off peadophilia - being perfectly happy and willing to have some child forced to suffer terribly, in order to grant you a few brief moments of pleasure?

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 08:39 PM

Cote d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is hardly a country, divided between the Muslims in the North (no government representation) and the animists and christians in the south. War can re-start any time, in spite of efforts by UN peacekeepers.
Stop buying their coffee, cocoa and other agricultural products, and many will starve, adults as well as children.
Three-fourths of the people have little or no education.
An income producer, diamonds, has been forced into the black market.

Unless money, troops and educators can be poured into the country, there is no solution to the child labor, lack of government, racial and religious conflicts, corruption and other problems. There are no signs that the developed countries are willing to do this.

Paying higher prices will just put more money into a corrupt government, much of it ending up sent back out of the country.

I repeat, boycott and increase starvation. There is no easy solution.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 10:35 PM

I fell into a vat of chocolate,
I fell into a vat of chocolate,
Lolly to dum, lolly to dum day.

What did you cry when you fell into the chocolate?
What did you cry when you fell into the chocolate?
Lolly to dum, lolly to dum day.

I yelled "Fire" when I fell into the chocolate;
I yelled "Fire" when I fell into the chocolate,
Lolly to dum, lolly to dum day.

Why'd you yell fire when you fell into the chocolate?
Why'd you yell fire when you fell into the chocolate?
Lolly to dum, lolly to dum day.

'Cause no one would come if I yelled "Chocolate,
Chocolate, Chocolate!

Smothers Brothers routine

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 02:12 PM

When I was growing up there, Cote d'Ivoire was the model of democracy - now Obama didn't even mention it on his trip next door, to Ghana.

We miss Houphy, as we used to call him.

Q, d'ou your ken?

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 02:46 PM

I don't eat commercial chocolate which contains byproducts such as sugar, and other chemicals. I eat raw chocolate which is grown "fair trade" and can be sweetened with
fruit juices, agave syrup or stevia.

I won't support Nestles or Hershey.

Raw chocolate which is not contaminated with chemicals and sugar is a great alternative.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 03:39 PM

Mrzzy, yes I remember when Cote d'Ivoire was pointed out as an example for other sub-Saharan regimes. Its descent into chaos is a very sad tale.

Most chocolate is purchased on the commodity market, and comes from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and Indonesia (a tariff on the last, the result of poor quality).

Some high quality cacao does come from those sources, but there are many smaller producers throughout the tropical belt, including the South American area of origin. Many of these small producers are able to get 2-3 times the commodity market price.
Often sold as fair-market, organic, co-op, etc., these products do not benefit the poorest growers, although they offer the consumer a better product.

All companies in the business, including Hershey, Cadbury, Nestle, buy top grades, as well as commodity market grades, which are used in their top-end products or sold to better chocolate candy makers.

Hershey has several brands based on quality chocolate, including Special Dark and Cacao Reserve brands. Other companies selling high quality include Lindt 70%, Noka Vintage, Ghiradelli, Callebaut Dark, Green & Black, Dragoba, but there are many others.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 05:39 PM

Hey, look...I will stop eating chocolate on behalf of anyone here who wants to quit! And I'll do it for only $25 dollars a month. Sort of like shaving my head for cancer research, you know?

You want to quit, but can't? Noooooo problem. I will quit FOR you. Only $25 a month. Cheap at the price. PM me.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 09:35 AM

Will You stop eating crap? That's the real question here.

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 09:51 AM

No, the real question here is why did I pick this thread to refresh with a post about a guy who died in a vat of chocolate.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 12:52 PM

Because you're a dumbass?

Subject: RE: BS: Will YOU stop eating chocolate?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 01:39 PM

I remember an old British film where a visitor became nauseated by the boiling, gluging and bubbling of the chocolate vat and vomited into the vat.
Eureka! A new flavo(u)r!

(Another British TV film was about a murder in which the victim was killed in a beer vat).
The British are rather good at this sort of thing.

Stringsinger, some people eat raw fish bait (sucki or whatever) or tear raw flesh off the bone, or immerse their heads in cacao pods, but I prefer a more civilized product.
Even a mole sauce made with chocolate requires a product that has been fermented and concentrated.

CHOCOLATE
The first stages of preparing chocolate are not pleasant.
The insect-infested pods are opened and the beans (seeds) are scraped, along with the pulp, into open containers. Covered with banana leaves, the mess is fermented in hot shade. The stink is over-powering!
Natural sugars are converted to acids and the bitter taste begins to become more chocolaty.
After a time, the seeds are dried and bagged.
Ergo, raw chocolate!

The seeds are then cleaned to remove bugs, dirt, etc. Bean coatings are cracked and removed. Roasted at high temperature, the cocoa butter is liquified, and a paste is obtained.

The cocoa *mess is pressed and the part that flows out is made ready for the chocolate makers, the remaining solids are pulverized to make the powders the consumer uses to make drinks.   
*Called 'mass.'