ThinkingShift

Up there with the perfect lipgloss is the perfect chocolate (well, for me anyway). Glossy, dark and with a smooth, yet bitter taste - that’s my idea of perfect chocolate. Preferably Swiss. And if there’s no dark chocolate available, then those cute Cote d’Or white elephant Belgian chocolates will do nicely thanks (yeah, I know that technically speaking white chocolate ‘aint chocolate because it doesn’t contain chocolate liquor - but I still love the ivory coloured stuff that just melts in your mouth).

I’ve had a life-long love affair with chocolate. I don’t want to give you the impression that I scoff bars of it everyday but, certainly once a week, I like to have a few pieces. Nothing I like better than ripping into the silver foil that covers a chocolate bar and peeling the foil back to reveal rich dark squares, perhaps dipped in a little Amaretto or giving off a whiff of orange scented chocolate truffle.

I’ve often secretly admonished myself - you’re a chocoholic. Surely other people go for weeks, months, even years without whipping into Darrell Lea or Haighs chocolate shops for a quick fix? I’ve occasionally met a person who has said they dislike chocolate (clearly something wrong with these people if you ask me!). I come from a family of chocolate lovers. Even my father, after he retired, went into the chocolate shop business and while studying at Uni, I could be found helping out behind the counter and scoffing the occasional Mozartkugel (a ball of marzipan dunked in a dark chocolate coating). I still have a fondness for marzipan :)-

But after reading a Reuters article, I can now admit to you that I am not an addict and need no longer worry that someone will find out about my secret passion for chocolate. I don’t have to enter into rehab or use willpower to deny myself the luxury of a piece of buttery chocolate. A British researcher (love his work) says that certain compounds that exist in chocolate, such as phenylethylamine, produce a buzz when they reach the brain and enhance a person’s mood, causing us to think that chocolate is addictive. But cheese and avocados contain higher amounts of compounds and don’t cause addiction. Yep, don’t think anyone has ever told me they’re an avocado addict.

So my beloved chocolate is off the hook - it doesn’t contain substances that cause your head to spin and turn you into a salivating addict. What’s at play here is our social attitude towards chocolate - it’s a forbidden, naughty pleasure almost up there with the apple in the Garden of Eden. We desire it. It looks so tempting sitting there in the chocolate shop snuggled in a colourful, shiny wrapper. It seems to whisper “eat me”. But social norms and the latest fad diets smack you on the wrist if you reach for a taste - it’s fattening, laden with trans fats, it causes your skin to erupt, too much sugar!

Well, maybe if you scoff a lot every day. Like the dude who ate two bags of buttered popcorn everyday for 10 years and who now suffers from so-called ‘popcorn lung’. If you wolf down lots of chocolate daily, then diabetes might come knocking. But if your indulgence is regular and measured then you’re not an addict. The addiction is trying to fight off or deny the urge to indulge.

As the researcher says: “In other words, chocolate is a highly desirable food, but which according to social norms should be eaten with restraint. However, attempting to resist the desire to eat chocolate only causes thoughts about chocolate to become more prominent, consequently heightening the desire.” Our unfulfilled or ambivalent desire to eat chocolate turns into a craving and you begin to think of yourself as an addict.

So go on…indulge in that bar of chocolate you’ve been thinking about whilst reading this post. Give in to your desires. It’s no longer forbidden. It’s time for the chocoholics to fight back - be seen on the streets proudly eating a nutty bar of chocolate; take out that Mars Bar you’ve been hiding in your briefcase and scoff it in public. No shame! Now….where’s that Mozartkugel I bought the other day?

As regular readers (do I have any?!) of my blog know, I am doggedly against Western consumerist society, the insane pursuit of “beauty” at the hands of today’s witch doctors (aka doctors wielding the botox syringe and scalpels) and disturbed by what we’re doing to this beautiful planet and its many exquisite (and dwindling) species. I have now come across something else that horrifies me - the modern slave trade.

Although I’ve heard of slavery still existing, it wasn’t until I decided to investigate for myself the reality and the scale of things that I stumbled across the fact that modern slavery takes place in so-called democratic countries. Considering that March 25, 2007 is the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade in Britain, you would think that slavery in all its forms is a thing of the past - something we only see in sepia tones. Not so it seems.

Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry in the world today, just behind arms and drugs dealing - but it is the fastest growing. Figures vary, but around 27 million people worldwide are currently slaves. A further breakdown shows an estimated 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year; approximately 50% of all victims are children; there are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers involved in over 30 areas of conflict worldwide, some younger than 10 years old.

Debt bondage is the most common form of slavery today where a person becomes a slave to work off a debt, which might be the cost of having to buy a sick child some medicine. The length and nature of work is not usually defined, so it becomes a never-ending cycle with the debt being passed down to the children thereby enslaving offspring.

Contract slavery is another common form. A contract of employment is offered for a factory, sweatshop or domestic position, but the contract tricks them into slavery usually because the person is unable to read the contract in the first place.

Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (194 states “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms“. And in 2000, the United States unanimously voted 95 to 0 for legislation to protect women from trafficking and domestic violence and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 came into effect. Between 45,000 and 50,000 women are trafficked into the US each year.

So what is the cause of all this suffering and inhumanity? An average slave in the American South in 1850 cost the equivalent of £40,000; today a slave costs only about £60, which means today’s slave is a cheap and disposable resource in the global consumerist market for ever-cheaper goods and luxury brands.

When you pick up that next piece of rich, glossy looking chocolate and can’t wait to scoff it down, consider this statistic - nearly half the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa grown in the Cote D’Ivoire in Africa and 12,000 children have been trafficked into working on these cocoa farms. How many hours of exploited labour went into the block of chocolate we just bought or the Easter chocolates we’re about to give?

We can choose to buy Fair Trade goods, including chocolate. It is estimated though that Fair Trade chocolate represents less than 1% of the world’s roughly $60 billion chocolate market. Chocolate lovers like me can check out Stop Traffik’s Good Chocolate Guide on their MySpace page.

March 25 2007 is Freedom Day and we can all do something to address the shocking fact of modern slavery. Download Stop Traffik’s Freedom Day organiser’s pack. Sign the petition to End Modern Slavery, which will be presented to the US Government and global leaders. Go see the newly released film, The Amazing Grace, based on the life of anti-slavery pioneer William Wilberforce. Read Andrew Crofts’ book, The Little Hero: One Boy’s Fight For Freedom (2006), the story of Iqbal Masih, a 4 year old boy who was sold to a carpet maker by his half-brother, who was getting married and needed money. Or read Kevin Bales’ Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy; or this short story from BBC News.

Watch this video on YouTube to see the many faces affected by modern slavery - but only if you think you can stand it.

In our fast-paced consumer bubble, it’s easy to lose sight of the plight of millions of fellow humans but we can be inspired by 15 year old Zach Hunter, a modern day abolitionist who, at the age of 12, decided his life’s mission was to abolish modern slavery. And when your thoughts next to turn to chocolate, remember Fair Trade and send a message to the chocolate companies who exploit children.