BROOKLYN, NY- Growing up in an Indiana Mennonite household, I definitely learned the Biblical passages necessary to believe in the Easter spirit. I would especially look forward to the colorful basket of chocolatey delights that my mother carefully created that would be on full display at each of our Easter brunch table settings.
St. Valentine's Day, although named for a Christian saint (possibly, there are about 3 St. Valentine's), has never been related to any religious Christianity so much as to the spirit of love and lust. While Valentine's Day is the more obvious Hallmark-created holiday, Easter has become a confusing blend of Pagan and Christian rituals centered around telling the most pivotal story in the Bible with chocolate bunnies. One definite sign of either holiday is the onslaught of chocolate candies on the store shelves.
We're eating chocolate the wrong way, too. Due to the conditioning of the industrial chocolate products, our instinct is to chew chocolate. We bite into chocolate bars, chew up the chocolate and swallow the pieces still whole in our mouths. Suck on it. Try sucking on your next piece of solid chocolate by treating it more like a sucker or lozenge. The cocoa butter in chocolate melts conveniently at just above 90 degrees and breaks down inside your mouth, where you can taste it, rather than in your stomach. This also helps you eat fewer calories over a longer period of time, helping you curb your cravings, while maintaining a reasonable diet. Unfortunately, the cheaper the chocolate, the less satisfying the sucking technique becomes. Chocolate companies would rather not have people eat their product more slowly or deliberately. They'd rather you eat them quickly and buy some more to feed your craving.
Since my days with the Mennonites, I've adopted a more open religious philosophy- Cacaoism. Cacaoism is simply the worship of the cacao plant. Whatever life that is in that plant is also shared with every being with life on Earth. Being a Cacaoist means that you hold cacao in a special place in your heart and respect and hold true to the intent of the plant, as you do with all life. Cacao has already been worshiped as a "God of Life" by the Mayans, I'm just bringing it back. I turn my back to the commercialism of the slave-traded chocolate-flavored piles of sugar during the Easter and St. Valentine's Day holidays. I beg people to start buying real chocolate, and enjoying their favorites foods even more than they ever have.
St. Valentine's Day, although named for a Christian saint (possibly, there are about 3 St. Valentine's), has never been related to any religious Christianity so much as to the spirit of love and lust. While Valentine's Day is the more obvious Hallmark-created holiday, Easter has become a confusing blend of Pagan and Christian rituals centered around telling the most pivotal story in the Bible with chocolate bunnies. One definite sign of either holiday is the onslaught of chocolate candies on the store shelves.
I've spent the past 8 years stocking those chocolate-filled shelves at 2 world-renowned chocolatiers and, since November, at my own store, Chocolate Earth. After seeing these seasons from the other side, I've discovered the sad truth behind the chocolate industry- a majority of the chocolate consumed in the world is of the lowest quality, allows the worst working conditions, and is inappropriately labeled or even defined. It is evident that we are eating the wrong chocolate the wrong way.
We, however, are not to blame for eating the wrong chocolate. We've been lied to and deserve the truth. We've been told, for example, that "dark chocolate" doesn't have milk and "milk chocolate" has milk. FALSE! Chocolates can be labeled "dark chocolate" and still contain milk products! There is no actual definition of "dark chocolate" by the FDA. Vegans beware of Ghirardelli's Midnight Reverie 86% Dark and Lindt's Dark bars with Orange or Salt that have milk fat in them... Hershey's Special Dark may be "Special" because of the milk fat, extra milk, and PGPR (Castor Oil). We\'ve recently been told that chocolate may be good for us, mostly because industry professionals annually fund conveniently timed studies (about a dozen a year) to send a press release a week or two before Valentine's Day and Easter to help boost sales under the presupposition of health. Doctors and the reporters of these studies are recklessly neglecting to clearly explain and define the specific type of chocolate used in their studies, leading many to believe that all chocolate can be healthy.
While REAL chocolate CAN be good for you, most of chocolate consumed in the US is grown in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, home to serious political and corporate powers controlling a majority of the cocoa trade from beginning to end. Even Nestle said late last year that they are "sure" that there is some amount of child labor and forced labor in the fields that produce their chocolate. The Harkin-Engel Protocol of 2001 has done apparently little to protect child labor and forced labor conditions in those countries. The worst part is that these chocolate companies will then add so much sugar, milk fat, and PGPR as to make up 70%-90% of the bar. Sadly, only a fraction of the laborer's hard work ever is tasted.
We're eating chocolate the wrong way, too. Due to the conditioning of the industrial chocolate products, our instinct is to chew chocolate. We bite into chocolate bars, chew up the chocolate and swallow the pieces still whole in our mouths. Suck on it. Try sucking on your next piece of solid chocolate by treating it more like a sucker or lozenge. The cocoa butter in chocolate melts conveniently at just above 90 degrees and breaks down inside your mouth, where you can taste it, rather than in your stomach. This also helps you eat fewer calories over a longer period of time, helping you curb your cravings, while maintaining a reasonable diet. Unfortunately, the cheaper the chocolate, the less satisfying the sucking technique becomes. Chocolate companies would rather not have people eat their product more slowly or deliberately. They'd rather you eat them quickly and buy some more to feed your craving.
Since my days with the Mennonites, I've adopted a more open religious philosophy- Cacaoism. Cacaoism is simply the worship of the cacao plant. Whatever life that is in that plant is also shared with every being with life on Earth. Being a Cacaoist means that you hold cacao in a special place in your heart and respect and hold true to the intent of the plant, as you do with all life. Cacao has already been worshiped as a "God of Life" by the Mayans, I'm just bringing it back. I turn my back to the commercialism of the slave-traded chocolate-flavored piles of sugar during the Easter and St. Valentine's Day holidays. I beg people to start buying real chocolate, and enjoying their favorites foods even more than they ever have.
Gone are the shelves filled with guilt. We're ready for the chocolate revolution to begin. Go with cacao, people.
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