Like many people i love the stuff, and it does tend to scupper my plans to get down to the slim size i used to be - ahem - some years ago.

I've just come across the book Chocolate Busters by Jason Vale, and it is really putting me off the stuff

He explains in detail how we are basically addicted to chocolate and why, and pulls the cover off the industry. There are some not very savoury facts about chocolate manufactureres, such as how they put across stories in the press that chocolate is really good for you as it contains calcium, endorphins etc.

The worst thing however, for me, is that chocolate apparently has a strong link to child slavery. The cocoa beans harvested on the Ivory Coast for example (which has over 600,000 cocoa farms) are harvested by children as young as 9 who are often sold by their parents who believe the children will get paid work and support their families, but they are never paid. They are beaten and starved, locked up each night in barracks, and beaten within an inch of their lives if they try to run away :(

The report originally came from The Institute of Tropical Agriculture, who found 284.000 children being used as slaves by the cocoa farms for up to 100 hours a week. British filmmakers also discovered the same conditions when they went to investigate.

The chocolate industry in 2001  announced a 4 year plan to eliminate child slavery in the cocoa bean producing areas, esp. West Africa. This looks good on the surface but why a 4 year plan? and anyway, half way into the plan, very little headway has been made. The law in the US for example should have stopped this with immediate effect, as it prohibits US imports with forced or indentured labour, yet mass market chocolate companies are still allowed to import cocoa produced with known child slavery.

I'm certainly going off chocolate big time after reading all this, and surprised i hadn't heard of this before. If you want to look at chocolate in a different light, do try to read this book! :)

Lindsay
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You can always buy fair trade chocolate.

Unfortunately child slavery exists in every known manufacturing product and so you may well "go off" clothing, hand made rugs, toys, furniture, fruit etc etc etc.

I often buy Green and Black's milk or milk and almond :) as they are produced with a fair price and no slavery. Just wish Mars and some of the other big ones would agree to buy just 5 per cent of fair trade cocoa beans.....!!!

MInd you, after reading just how emotionally addicted we are to chocolate and why, i think that by the time i have finished the book i may be right off it all anyway :D  I had a Mars bar icecream that was left over in the fridge over the bank holiday and i didn't really enjoy it - all i could think about was the bitter cocoa beans covered in sugar and fat to make them taste nice.... ;) It's not the same once you know more about the production etc.

Lindsay
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I must admit I have studied all this at school for our exam (not that the topic came up!!!!!!) and it didn't put me off chocolate...unfortantly I do LOVE chocolate...why does it taste soooo nice????

Rox