Hi, I'm Jolene and welcome to the fourth jonesing week of your sustainable life. The show where we all want to be a little greener, but might not get around to it until Jolene yammers on about it for an hour. We're getting into the big leagues this week and talking chocolate.
You can't walk very far in the developed world without finding someone who swears by their chocolate. Anyone with a sweet tooth can boast for hours about how their addiction to chocolate tops others. Everyone has heard that chocolate both contains caffeine and other good-feeling stimulants - quickening the heart pace. It also releases endorphins, thereby setting its place amongst the best-feeling of candies. Our chocolate intake ranges from fine dining to a quick treat on the dash.
You also cant walk very far without meeting someone who has no idea what a cocoa bean looks like. I'm going to use a few choco-late specific terms on this show, so after the break I going to give you a brief intro into the chocolate world.
Are We Not Horses - fifteen hands (03:50)
Julie Doiron - The Wrong Guy (03:51)
ABOUT CHOCOLATE:
So there are two bands around the world that cocoa can grow in. Within a certain distance of the border, and with a certain humidity level. The theobroma tree is cultivated ideally in the shade of taller trees to provide vital shade. Year round thousands of tiny flowers burst fourth from the trunk. Only a hand full of which will actually pollinate and ripen into football sized red-orange, or green pods with 20-30 tasteless beans, covered in white mushy pulp and a shell. The beans are carefully removed from the pods and transported to wide open spaces to be fermented over days, dried over a few more days, then shipped of to the world's markets. To make chocolate the beans must first have the oils and solids separated. The oils or cocoa butter is squeezed out by a hydraulic press. Whats left gets ground into cocoa powder. Heres where some big differences come along. Depending on the quality of the chocolate the cocoa power is mixed with just cocoa butter, or cocoa butter and a bunch of other cheaper oils along with varying qualities of sugar, and often milk. This mixture is heated, stirred, heated and stirred until it is just the right consistency for the intended confection.
Remember, that this is only a rough description of the process. In order to keep the chocolate cheap enough for your convenience store, many of these steps are shortened, or removed, and often replaced by chemicals or not replaced at all. It's also easy to forgetthat all cheap cocoa, like most clothes, is grown and harvested by families who aren't making enough to survive. I could write an entire show dedicated to how cocoa farmers are being jilted out of fair prices by large multinationals, or how some farmers exploit children as the only means to survive on the meager sum left over after their production costs (including police and military 'safety' bribes) are taken into effect. After reading into it for the last two weeks, I fell confident in saying that cheap chocolate is inherently evil. However, like most habits I try to break here on Your Sustainable Life. It is another one of those things that people often say they can't live without, despite being a luxury.
Basically, if it doesn't say fair trade on it, you can almost guarantee that the person who supplied that cocoa hasn't had a very comfortable life. If cocoa farmers were getting a good deal, I don't think the fair trade cocoa movement would exist. Just like the minimum wage we enjoy today. It took thousands people to notice that not having a minimum wage was a bad idea. So hopefully today, you will see why making some of the changes to your chocolate habits that I present, will sound like a good idea.
Royal City - Is this it? (03:00)
Great Lake Swimmers - Moving Pictures, Silent Films (feat. polmo polpo) (05:31)
Welcome back to YSL on CILU 102.7 and luradio.ca We're on the chocolate show this week. This segment I'm going into more depth with why chocolate needs to become sustainable. So far I haven't gotten into the environmental side of things. First off, most of the environmental damage that could be done by cocoa has already happened. Hundreds of years ago thousands of acres of virgin rain forest were burned to make way for massive cocoa plantations. Most early chocolate was single-source, meaning all the cocoa product in any given bar came from the same region. Today only the finest chocolates even offer single source as an option. This means most chocolate has mixed cocoa from all over the world.
Cocoa is like any other major crop in the sense that most of it is grown with the aid of damaging pesticides, and not in its natural setting. Cocoa in supposed to be grown in the shade for the best taste. Cheap cocoa is often grown in a mono culture, meaning it's the only thing growing.
Just like mono speakers aren't good for music, mono culture is not good for plants. Just like birds that eat bugs off of rhinos, there are many other plants that are beneficial to cacao trees. Carrots love tomatoes, but cacao doesn't love too much sun. Like all other foods grown with pesticides and herbicides, those chemicals eventually find their way into our bodies. Our bodies may not know how to get rid of these strange toxins so they just accumulate. Any good health benefits from the heaping antioxidants in cocoa are automatically countered by the high amounts of refined sugar, hydrogenated or palm oils (which are solid unless melted at a high temperature) that are put into most commercial chocolate. Not to mention the thosands of miles it has to travel from the cocoa farm, to the factory (sometimes back and fourth across oceans) to your mouth.
So if thats not too much to chew, long story short most chocolate is not good for us. Anything that was good in cocoa (with which the aztecs and mayans could hike for days with a small supply of it) has been taken out by the time it reaches the candy shelf. Cocoa mono culture isn't good for the ecosystem, even for the cacao trees themselves. So even if you leave labour issues out of the picture, organic chocolate is still a good way to go for everyone. Especially you, the fervent chocoholic. This leaves us with the alternatives, which are both tricky to navigate and can be pricey if youre not careful. More after our break...
Phish - Talk (03:09)
Band of Horses - The Funeral.mp3 (05:32)
We've moved onto the alternatives to chocolate. Many of these parallel the steak show if you caught that. The first is simply eating less chocolate. Your lifetime demand on the harmful cocoa industry has lessened, the miles the food has traveled will be lessened, you're probably going to be a lot healthier. Its quite satisfying to know that when you DO indulge in chocolate, it will taste that much better, and feel that much more like a celebration. This is a great first step, and something dieters are trying to do already. Perhaps learning more about the cocoa industry might even be a good motivator for staying away from that vending machine. There are many drawback to this in the sustainable eye.
Eating less chocolate does not stop you from eating harmful chocolate. Even if you have one bon bon per year, it is still made with the same chemically aided, and unethically traded ingredients. Children on cacao plantations rarely go to school or have any luxuries, like new shoes. However, there is one special point to make about eating less chocolate. With the extra few dollars each week that you are now saving, there is now enough left over cash to buy finer chocolates, many of which are becoming fair trade.
FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE means that the farmer gets a larger percentage of the world market cost of the cocoa. In many countries that produce chocolate, alot of the profit gets lost to the government, corporations that are capable of manipulating the world price of cocoa from year to year to suit their pockets, and often to corrupt bullies in undeveloped countries who may be in the local government, military, or police force where extortion is a daily reality.
Fair trade bypasses all this misery by operating on land where they will be safe as possible, and pay the farmers up to the 90% of the world market price. This means the producers can afford to send their children to school, or do simple things they never imagined before like making simple improvements to their home or new clothes. Whatever they need is no longer a matter of assuming it can never happen, but something that can be saved for without cutting out other essentials. It works on the premise that these companies don't make as much profit, and puts people first. The rest of the cost of fair trade gets passed onto us, the consumers. And if you already love the finer imported chocolates then you won't notice much of a price difference. The average cost for a 50g bar of pure chocolate (single source) runs for an average of $4-5. And really, for most of us, the difference between 2 and 4 dollars isnt much for dessert if we can afford desert in the first place. The only drawbacks for fair trade chocolate are that it's not always organic (but more often than not, it is), it's more expensive, so the amount you consume might have to change, and it still has all those transportation miles attached to it.
If the average american eats around 12lbs of chocolate year, multiplied by 300 million americans makes billions of pounds of chocolate making its way all over the world to your mouth. Not to mention the rest of the world. Thats alot of fuel. So fair trade chocolate doesn't cover everything, but it certainly makes real difference in the grower's lives. After the break we'll cover strictly organic.
Do Make Say Think - The Apartment Song (03:52)
Bell Orchestre - Les Lumieres Pt. 2 (03:51)
Welcome back, we're talking about alternatives to chocolate. We've covered the many reasons why most commercially available chocolate is not good for us, the people who grow cocoa, or for the environment both here and down in cocoa growing regions. We've explored why Fair-trade chocolate doesn't always mean sustainable (but still a very good idea) and we've moved onto organic chocolate.
Organic Chocolate is going to be the all around favourite here because its pretty much certifiable that organic chocolate is going to also be fair trade. If you're ever not sure about a source of chocolate, always be sure to check up on all the info you cant find on your local chocolate supplier. If they don't mention organic or fair trade anywhere, its guaranteed not to be. There is some fuzzy area in the realm of Ghana where the cocoa industry is regulated by the government. Even then, most chocolatiers don't really know, or want to know the conditions their cocoa are grown in or what chemicals are sprayed on the trees.
A cool fact about organic chocolate is that it hasn't been practiced for a long time. If you are more than 10 years old, then organic chocolate didn't exist when you were born. Like air trade cocoa, the prices are on par with most higher quality chocolate. If you already buy and enjoy fancy chocolate the switch to organic is easy. Organic and fair trade chocolate is also very easy to find here in town. All the health food and bulk stores carry it. Online you can order a vast array of everything from chips, to bon bon boxes to organic fair trade chocolate sauce. Organic hot chocolate mix can now be found in many grocery stores (though grocery chains mark up the prices WAY more than online) so unlike free range steak, ethical chocolate doesn't require a huge change in your routine. Other than to slow down your consumption.
The hard part is resisting easter chocolate, the free stuff at work, the birthday cakes at parties, the mocha in your mochaccino. Chocolate milk everywhere. I can't decide for you where to draw the line. I myself often accept gift chocolate, beef meals, and still eat birthday cake to keep from getting too awkward, but remember your awareness-raising and purchasing power! If buying something containing cocoa (even cosmetics) is on your task list, even of you cant find an organic or fair trade alternative, remember to ask for it! Companies can and have changed their services based on consumer demand. Talk about it. It wont happen all at once, but it will happen just as the demand for organic chocolate didn't exist ten years ago, it is now a thriving niche in the market. It will grow with our love, care, and kind requests.
Theres not really such a thing as LOCAL CHOCOLATE unless you happen to live near a rain forest. None of the ingredients come from the area except for maybe milk, which is going to be bought where ever the chocolate factory is anyway. Local chocolate is really only mixed and moulded locally from all imported materials. Which is great! Support local business all the way, but local chocolate is not necessarily fair trade chocolate. Remember to always ask where the cocoa comes from. And if organic/fair trade isn't available remember to ask for it!
I asked a local choclatier about their product and where it came from. They must have gotten the question a lot because before I even hinted at fair trade, they brought it up. The claim was that fair trade chocolate would cost three times as much. I checked up on that. Their 50g bars cost $3 each. After looking around a couple online fair trade chocolate sellers, I could find 56g single origin bars for $4 a piece plus shipping. Thats a long way from three times the cost, and that was the expensive variety.
Granted, a local chocolateir may not have found the right supplier of organic cocoa yet. I urge them to keep trying! Even if it costs 3 times as much. The demand for it is growing. Those who are passionate about fair trade will go the extra mile for it. The greater the demanded the more common it will become, and the more organic chocolate will become normalized or even expected. Its got to start somewhere. So for now head out to your health food and bulk stores for your organic indulgence. I expect it will taste great.
NEED MORE TIME? TALK ABOUT CAROB!!!!
-grown near the Mediterranean.
-easier to cultivate, less labour intensive
-there are more labour rights in these regions
-not quite as chocolatey, but is darn close! good for baking additives.
-also healthy.
THE ORIGINAL CHOCOLATE POST CAN BE FOUND: HERE.
