Chocolate Tasting Party and More

Controversy about the taste of $10 chocolate bars produced by Rick and Michael Mast in the Bronx, USA, suggests kids throughout the globe might enjoy their own chance to sample the world's chocolate.

     Mast's chocolates claim to be made from paste of melted chocolate from Valrhona, a company chef Alberic Guironnet founded in France in 1922. The Mast bars come in three flavors: dark, almond, and goat's milk.

     Other expensive chocolates, often found at airport newspaper shops, are Scharffen Berger Extra Dark and Green & Black's Dark.

     Less expensive chocolates can be found in a bag of Nestle's morsels used to make chocolate chip cookies, Hershey's bars, and Mars bars.

     Serrv (serrv.org/chocolate), a fair trade nonprofit organization, provides a wide variety (dark, dark with mint, dark with raspberries, milk chocolate with hazelnuts, etc.) of Kosher-certified, 3 and a half oz. $3 bars. Serrv bars use cocoa produced by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, which strives to increase the earnings of cocoa farmers and to run programs designed to bolster the confidence of women cocoa farmers.

     While sampling a piece or two of chocolate candy or building replicas of the Leaning Tower of
Pisa or Great Wall of China out of chocolate (like those shown in the February, 2016 issue of National Geographic Kids), there are a few things about chocolate to consider. Chocolate was a popular food of the Maya people who lived in what is now Mexico and Central America over a thousand years ago. The Mast brothers say they learned small-batch chocolate making by studying methods used by Mayans.

     Fast forward to 2015. Ghana and the Cote d' Ivoire account for at least half of the world's cocoa that goes into chocolate. Much of the rest comes from Brazil, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Africa cocoa bean farmers are not being replaced by younger farmers, because the income they earn keeps them below the $2 a day global poverty level. Ghana's cocoa farmers can earn as little as 84 cents a day; in the Ivory Coast, earnings may be 50 cents a day. A video produced in mid-2014 showed how excited cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast were when, for the first time in their lives, they tried chocolate made from the beans they grew and harvested.

     The 2015 Cocoa Barometer report (cocoabarometer.org) issued by non-governmental organizations describes how the concentration of 80% of the cocoa-to-chocolate retail chain in a few companies provides no incentive to raise cocoa farmer incomes, to end child labor, to increase crop diversification, to improve infrastructure, or to provide market information for farmers.

             (Chocolate also is the subject of the earlier post, "Chocolate's Sweet Deals.")

   

Santa's Helpers

As the holiday season approaches, let's find some gifts that help those in need around the world.

You can help the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana that provides the delicious Divine Chocolate in the advent calendars and bags of foil covered coins sold by SERRV (serrv.org). Request a SERRV catalog to find other gifts from less developed countries.

Two organizations give children an opportunity to choose how they would like to help others overseas. With a donation as little as $25, children can go to kiva (kiva.org) to pick out a borrower they would like to help. For a donation of $10 or more to Heifer International (heifer.org) you can send honor cards to children telling them how much they have to contribute to the purchase of an animal for a family in need.

At wwfcatalog.org, when you donate $55 to the World Wildlife Fund, you can choose a plush version of over 100 symbolically adopted animals for a child and become a partner in a global conservation effort that establishes new protected areas for animals, stops wildlife crime, finds innovative ways to safeguard marine life, ensures healthy freshwater systems, and provides a sustainable future for our planet.

Gifts from unicef (unicefusa.org) not only help save and protect the world's most vulnerable children, but unicef's rolling carry-on plastic suitcase (12" tall x 18" long x 8" deep) can start kids thinking about how they can travel to a foreign country some day. Until then, they can ride or pull their durable suitcase, which holds up to 75 lbs.

Speaking of foreign travel, maybe it's time to give a youngster his or her own passport. Many US post offices can help with the process or go to travel.state.government/passports.html for information.

To keep youngsters from getting bored on a trip, American Stationery (americanstationery.com) offers personalized, 100 sheet game pads printed with tic-tac-toe, hangman, and dots you connect to make squares.

Of course books are one of the best ways to help children develop an interest in their world. Entertainment Weekly magazine recently mentioned two new picture books that would help parents and teachers introduce youngsters to adventures around the world: Atlas of Adventures by Rachel Williams and Lucy Letherland and The Safari Set by Madeleine Rogers. Another gift-worthy book, Max, Mia and Toby's Adventures Around the World, from Little Passports (littlepassports,com) comes with 7 souvenirs. This site also offers other global gifts, including a World Coin Collection of 20 real foreign coins and a booklet of coin related activities and trivia for kids 6 and over.

                                             Wishing you all a joyful holiday season!