Saturday, June 21: I’ve written extensively about the dangers of eating foods made from genetically modified (GMO) crops. You may not be aware of this, but a revolution is taking place in agribusiness, and it’s planting our nation’s breadbasket with genetically modified wheat, corn, and soybeans, which, in my book, is not kosher. When scientists add a gene to a food that wasn’t originally part of that food, that changes the DNA character of the crop.
Now comes word that the Mars candy bar company is spending $10 million on research that will be done at the USDA Agricultural Service labs in Miami to sequence and analyze the entire cocoa genome. In other words, the USDA researchers will be looking to identify the characteristics that make a better cacao tree, then breed the genetically superior specimens to fight drought, disease, and poor harvests.
I’m all for improving the genetic gene pool of cacao trees to improve crop yields, but if the researchers start messin’ with Mother Nature by introducing new genes or different genes or something that doesn’t belong in the DNA character of cocoa, then count me out.
As with anything in the food industry these days, manufacturers can take a perfectly great natural product and completely mess it up. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association, a Washington DC trade organization whose members include Hershey, Nestlé, Guittard, and World’s Finest Chocolate, lobbied the Food and Drug Administration in 2007 for permission to substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter as well as the right to use artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes. (Can you believe it? Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are a major source of dangerous trans fats!)
Currently, the FDA stipulates that candy makers must call their products “chocolate flavored” or “chocolaty” if the product contains any of these ersatz ingredients. They can’t call their confection “chocolate.”
Americans, who eat twelve pounds of chocolate each year—that’s around a bar of chocolate every other day—don’t like the taste of waxy chocolate. They prefer the real stuff: nine of the ten bestselling U.S. chocolate candies, such as Hershey Bars, M&Ms, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, use real chocolate.
I have found a chocolate that’s nutritionally miles ahead of the mass-produced chocolate bars and peanut butter cups found on supermarket store aisles and checkout stands. It’s a dark organic chocolate derived from the seeds of the fruit of cacao trees, which are native to the rainforest regions of South America. When I sampled some of the rich chocolate from this jungle plant, the perfect balance of bitter and sweet as well as cacao’s healthy properties were a rush.
I asked my team at Garden of Life to develop an organic chocolate that was delicious, portable, and would make a great snack or dessert-time treat. The result was Rainforest Cacao Chocolate, which comes from all-natural, roasted cacao beans harvested from the Ecuadorian Amazon region. We purchase fresh-picked cacao beans directly from a village in Ecuador at Fair Trade prices during the March-to-July harvest. After the cacao beans dry out in the sun, they’re slowly roasted and lightly sweetened with a touch of sugar cane syrup.
Rainforest Cacao Chocolate is an awesome snack and comes in three flavors: Raisins & Coconut; Macadamia Nuts; and Brazilian Nuts & Coffee. Just be sure to enjoy in moderation. A small handful—an ounce—contains 100 calories, so it remains a treat, not a cheat.