No, I'm far more concerned that those people who think they're doing something about it are actually playing into the hands of corporate giants, who would absolutely love to have an artificial chocolate substitute, so they can create even worse "chocolate" bars and bypass the (generally poor) farmers. A cacao tree takes about 5 years to produce fruit, and each tree will, on average, produce a mere 9 lbs of cocoa beans - which have to be removed from the pod by hand, dried out in the sun, sorted, and processed before they can even be sold.
The writer also tosses in the Western Universe's horror story of "ecological damage", "deforested land", "pesticides", etc. ( "Climate change!"), which I personally find offensive, considering that Western nations and their industrial revolution pumped billions and billions of junk into the atmosphere, razed huge areas of forest and woodland to build factories, and are now bleating about "climate change" to developing countries which are struggling to produce enough food (or saleable commodities) to increase their GDP or feed the huge majority of their poverty-stricken populations.
Perhaps the writer should have said " Right, it's time for those who sacked and pillaged to pay a just price for an exquisite product".
I’ll be honest your initial response sounded like you hadn’t actually read the article, just saw it was ‘The Guardian’ and just fired off on a tried and tested response befitting a man of a certain age and ethnicity who gets angry with the likes of people like Greta.
Now it sounds like you have actually read it and perhaps read up a little more on the topic and are giving a more considered reasonable response which from my POV is a totally different thing that’s more worthy.
They do have an artificial chocolate substitute and they use it. Recently they announced Penguin and Club bars (remember them?) will no longer be chocolate but “chocolate flavoured coating”
Good and bad chocolate has always existed and always been graded. This way of doing things has been around for eons and people vote with their feet, if it doesn't taste good they buy something else. Connoisseurs will always like the things they like and be prepared to pay a premium and there’s always a market for them. Your average Joe will potentially enjoy a different type of thing, maybe even a chocolate flavoured bar.
The people concerned with environmental damage and the companies doing the damage are not the same thing at all. A white westerner plebeian at the bottom of the pile has nothing to do with corporate giants deciding how to squeeze the bottom line and conflating the two is muddying the waters.
Past feeling offended by the mention of environmental damage what would you suggest people who are concerned about environmental problems like deforestation actually do?
Or does being a Westerner preclude you from being allowed to have an opinion?
“Paying the price” and making a product more valuable will only increase the desire to produce that crop, with the knock on effect of increasing the damage that’s done.
So be quiet, say and do nothing? Keep supporting the status quo because if you don’t you’ll be a whiny person from Surbiton?!
I guess I’m also asking if you do not believe that deforestation and environmental damage occurs for the mass production of crops? Are you a climate change denier? Or perhaps just a fatalist?
Before this thread gets locked (ironically by mods who took it in this direction) I’d like to point out I did not take it down this pathway. My question was would you eat it? I even tried to bring it back on track to a lighter note but bias on other more political topics has taken this far away from its original question.
