Happy Easter: Eat All the Chocolate You Can Get!

Posted by Lesli

Chocolate and lots of it, please...with Easter just around the corner I thought I should revisit the topic of dark chocolate.

There's a lot of good dark chocolate out there these days and just like with coffee, there are the brands that are "fair trade". This means that from the start to the finish of the growing, picking and manufacturing of the cocoa bean fair job practices have been utilized. Often small scale producers in poorer countries have been exploited and underpaid. If a product is labelled fair trade it also means that environmentally sustainable methods have been used in the process of producing the product.

Once you have your chocolate in hand, take a bite and think about the flavours. Yes, believe it or not there are such events as "chocolate tastings". With a few different flavours of chocolate (dark, dark and dark) and a few different percentages of cocoa (50%, 65% and 80%), you and your friends can have a chocolate tasting party. Or you can just do this by yourself. (As anyone not prepared to share their chocolate would do - uh, me...) As with wine tastings you need to cleanse your palate between chocolate samples. A good cleanser is a bit of apple. It is also best to taste your chocolate at room temperature. (I know we've all eaten frozen sweets straight from the freezer, but really, it tastes better a few degrees warmer!)

When you consider the antioxidants that come along with eating dark chocolate you have to wonder if there wasn't a mistake made in the scientific data. How can something that tastes so incredible actually be good for you? I don't know, but I'm not about to lodge a complaint...

Have a Happy Easter and eat all the chocolate you can get!

TAGS: Antioxidants, Chocolate, Cocoa Bean, Coffee, Dark Chocolate, Easter, Environmentally, Fair Trade, Happy Easter, Percentage, Samples, Scientific Data, Sustainable Methods, Tastings
POST TOOLS: