Loco for Cocoa

Why fair-trade, organic chocolate is so sweet

by Dag Falck

Oh, chocolate, that sweet indulgence.

Do we love it because we think of it as sinful, slightly forbidden? Because we think it’s bad for us—yet surely a little won’t kill us?

Actually, our fantasy that we are getting away with something when we take a bite of chocolate may be just that—a fantasy. We may like the idea of sneaking a little forbidden pleasure, but in fact this myth is about to be busted: the truth is that chocolate can be very good for you. But not just any chocolate, mind you.

Cheap, mass-produced chocolate is mostly made up of refined sugar, artificial flavours, high-cholesterol polyunsaturated fats, and hydrogenated oils, which offer no health benefits. Even great-tasting milk chocolate will do nothing to enhance your health.

What’s more, cocoa is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world. A pile of pesticides is used on non-organic cocoa plantations, including chemicals that cause cancer, genetic harm, plus developmental and neurological damage (especially significant since kids tend to eat a lot of chocolate).

However, the list of health benefits associated with high-grade, certified organic, dark (more than 70 per cent cocoa) chocolate will have you popping truffles like vitamins—OK, not quite. Chocolate contains vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, vitamin C, copper, calcium, phosphorous, iron, magnesium, zinc, manganese, vitamin E, and, most impressively, high levels of polyphenols and flavonoids—powerful antioxidants that power-charge your health. A cup of dark hot chocolate contains nearly twice the antioxidants of a glass of red wine and up to three times those found in a cup of green tea.

Moreover, dark chocolate has very little caffeine but lots of theobromine, a close cousin of caffeine, which provides the latter’s health benefits—it increases both metabolism and mental alertness—but none of its negative effects. Plus, cocoa stimulates key neurotransmitters like serotonin, tryptophan, and dopamine, nutrients that can suppress appetite and reduce food cravings. Finally, cocoa butter is a good fat—just be sure to reduce other fats in your diet to compensate when you eat chocolate.

So if chocolate really is good for us, then shouldn’t it also be good for those who provide it to us? Unfortunately, a lot of chocolate is produced under harsh and unethical conditions. If we make no special effort to find out which brands of chocolate are produced in such conditions before we buy, there is a big chance that we will be supporting exploitation of farmers.

Buying fair-trade-certified chocolate is one sure way to know what you are and are not supporting. Certified by TransFair Canada (trans fair.ca), fair-trade options assure consumers that farmers are not only treated ethically, but that they receive many other benefits such as clean water, guaranteed fair prices, premiums paid to improve social conditions in producer communities, no forced or child labour, and support for sustainable, healthy communities and habitats (bird friendly, for example). To top it all off, their products are certified organic.

So, if you want to make a difference to the environment, increase biodiversity, treat farmers well, and personally benefit from some amazing, health-boosting, organic, fair-trade chocolate, go right ahead—but you’ll have to keep on searching for that perfect sin.

Dag Falck is a self-declared health nut and a firm believer in karma—but he admits he enjoys rich, luscious, organic, dark chocolate purely for its taste.