Daniel, thank you for writing about this. I've been involved in the chocolate world since 2016, when I wrote a novel about cacao's history and mythology. The earliest known chocolate made by humans dates to 5300 years ago in Ecuador. We have seen cacao devolve from a sacred relationship with humans to a financial commodity (yes there are cocoa futures traded on the market).
This is a massive and complicated problem that is not going to be solved by any one single thing. But a good start is for us to stop buying Big Chocolate cold turkey. I stay away from Nestle, Mars, Hershey's, Mondelez — they are currently being sued for consumer fraud, and their products contain plenty of unhealthy ingredients. So not only are you supporting child labor and low wages for the farmers, you're also harming your health.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly encourage folks to buy craft chocolate — there are hundreds of small batch chocolate makers all over the US and abroad that make amazing chocolate that is fairly traded. I did a holiday tour in December exploring 25 of those chocolate makers (on the same Cacao Muse substack) :)
Daniel I'd love to cross-post your piece on The Cacao Muse.
Hi Birgitte, thanks for sharing your work on this topic. I’m in the south of France at the moment and stumbled upon this truly incredible artisan chocolatier that also just happens to be a really lovely human being. Passionate about the craft of chocolate making and better world making. Evident by the wonderful experience he provided when visiting his shop in the tiny village of Najac. Anyway I just thought you’d like to know about Benjamin, what he does and taste his creations someday. https://chocolateriedunouveaumonde.com/
We have to overcome this feeling of individual powerlessness and question ourselves and our consume habits (every year a new iPhone? every day a f***ing coffee-to-go? Really?). And we can boycott these multi death cooperations. Nestle is one of the most evil ones, the Nestle CEO is on the same psychopath level than Putin, in fact he is indirectly killing people in Africa buying their spring waters, rebottlling it in plastic bottles and calling it "Pure Life". The tip of the iceberg of moral bankruptcy. At least here in europe there are a lot alternatives to these brands. I can't change the world but i can change myself.
Well said Stefan. Shifting the way we do things can move markets. It's like droplets that form a storm, or ocean waves. I do not buy from Big Chocolate, because I'm a mom and cannot stomach the thought of a child my daughter's age working as a slave on a cacao plantation. If you'd like to learn more about the world of craft chocolate, which is shaping a more holistic relationship with cacao farmers all over the world, there's more information on The Cacao Muse (I've been involved in the chocolate world since 2016) >> Also more about the dark side of chocolate that Daniel's piece has opened up: https://cacaomuse.substack.com/p/how-dark-do-you-like-your-halloween
Thanks Birgitte, will check it out! Because of allergies i startet to quit sugar years ago, was really helping a lot! I loose the need to eat all that stuff, honey and datteln (dates in english?! Crazy) are enough or me. We should invest a little more money into our food! I have lots of discussions which people who always complain about how expensive everything is, food etc but these people buy end-of-year-fireworks for 100€ or are smoking a pack of cigarettes per day but a piece of meat has to be 1€, its really ridiculous...
Thanks for addressing this topic and shedding light on it. It’s one that I haven’t had a context for but just felt a generalized incoherent discomfort stuck between equally distasteful right wing xenophobia and left wing dismissal of the importance of coherent positive cultural roots within a nation.
How wide an audience is this incredibly important observation reaching, Daniel? The linkage seems relevant — esp. if actual data on average amount of chocolate consumed by America/Canada was compared, say Texas, Florida, New York, California and, oh Illinois is getting lots of buses too. Côte d’Ivoire people deserve more. So do the Native American communities who have lost agricultural and drinking water to the voracious pumps of nestle. Love to see you “do David Treuer” next — let’s “return” the Delaware Water Gap to the Lenape migrants who were forced up and over to Stockbridge Munsee, Six Nations, Moravia Town, and Oklahoma (3). Why should protected lands be recreation instead of sovereign forests? Your example of deforestation in Africa is built on the Walking Purchase betrayal of 1737. Pennsylvania has No recognized tribes, state or federal. Jersey has like 2 or 3, including Nanticoke on the lower Delaware River, southeast of Philadelphia.
I just think the comparison of world-wild ripples of “our” consumerism will do little without rigorous attention to our own colonization and settlement of the Eastern Woodlands at al.
Typed from Dinetah, inside the Four Sacred Mountains of the Pueblos (Hopi), on territory seized from a reservation bordering the River (Jicarilla Apache) and signed over to mixed-blood Ute/Spanish descendants. By a whitened American. Love always - Rachel/RBM
Did you ever the movie children of men, where refugees have overwhelmed suburban villages outside of London and the people go about their days worrying about other things. It’s set in 2025.
That movie was prescient (and terrifying) on so many levels. I didn’t realize it was set in 2025. I wish there was some sort of program on offer for the men fleeing unlivable, desperate conditions in their countries of origin - like willing workers on organic farms (WWOOFERS), only the urban infrastructure rebuilding version.
I wish I had a helpful thought on the matter to share but can't even begin to get my head around this. The situation seems so staggeringly bleak. Heartbreaking.
Sam, see my comment here in the thread but two things... yes it's devastating but there is something we can all do about it, and that is two-fold... first step is awareness, through essays like this. Second, action. The more of us who stop buying the brands that are driving this financial dynamic in West Africa, and start supporting the direct/fair trade chocolate makers, the sooner this massive ship will start to change course.
Thanks Birgitte, and great comment below. I will be sure to check out your 'The Cacao Muse' piece linked. Dark chocolate is the last form of sweets I enjoy. My limited research suggests 'Endangered Species' is a good option and that is what I've stuck with for years. I do appreciate your optimism as it helps balance my current despondence on the larger topic.
Yes I do remain very optimistic... I feel we need to get back to the sacred relationship we used to have with cacao. Stopping our enjoyment of chocolate is not the right approach, because that would gut numerous cacao farmers worldwide, and force them to go into other lines of work, such as timber, mining, palm oil, etc. We need to support them with decent market prices, and enabling them to make their own chocolate. There is a lot going on in that sphere that's truly inspiring—the world just doesn't know about it!
I don’t think there is one wise well packaged solution to our current state. There are roles for all of us to play - the need to learn how to feel again comes to mind. To be able to witness, feel and hold the pain and sadness. Breaking the fake barrier between our personal and professional selves also seems like a big one to me. If all these systems are about money - how will we heal them if we allow ourselves to be less human, often do the opposite of what your values are with loved ones, when at work? So much healing to do.
Thank you for this beautiful apocalyptic report from your front. Over the years I started loosing my taste for chocolate and after reading your piece this morning, I'm done for good. There's no better word to describe what is happening nearly everywhere one looks on this troubled planet than the word you used in your recent piece: OVERSWORMED. The migrant crisis is a perfect example of this but really, it has been going on for a long time. We are the "termite people" and we are swarming. In our forests. In our oceans.
I really appreciate your self-reflection on how your compassion is being stretched to the limit tempting politically incorrect thinking . . . not even sure what that is anymore. I can sympathize with Texas sending migrants elsewhere to spread out this huge problem. Is it politically incorrect to see the need to totally close our border? See . . . it's happening to me too!
I founded an eco-community in the hills above the Columbia River in Oregon and am currently snowed in for the next 4 or 5 days in the midst of a raging blizzard . . . loving it actually. It's wild. Coyotes call at night. There's an elk herd nearby. The problems of the world seem unreal at times from this vantage, this bubble. I couldn't survive for long in NYC but am so grateful for the window you provide.
How many times I have heard the saying “chocolate is proof that god loves us!” It’s hard to fully comprehend the pain of the exploitation…and the coming impact
So many Americans come to New Zealand and can’t believe how good the chocolate is. A local family brand , Whittakers, is now outselling the international corporate brands in our supermarkets. So back fair trade, support the people back in Africa and it tastes so much better too. This is a case where we can take action
Great awareness you bring to the table with this, Daniel. Uhh - heavy, hearty, achey. It resonates.
I remember you interviewing Jodorowsky years back, he's 95 yrs young next month. Saw The Holy Mountain, The Dance of Reality and Endless Poetry recently (sadly I fear - no trilogy). If in good health and he's up for the idea, consider reconnecting. You know he's half Ukranian, half Israeli. And with the soul essence he has, for sure he has an opinion on this current realm's wearies, as much as the next. Parlez Vous Anglais, ticket to Paris, croissants and Jodo. Let us know how you get on. Shine On, Daniel, life turns on a dime. We all wait for ourselves.
Quote "Helping the people who are already pouring up North from the Global South could be seen as our moral responsibility — yet we do not have the social structures in place to deal with this situation. We can’t even take care of our own people decently at this point." True. I see it in my country too, Germany, where so many people, mostly young men from Africa, come and seek refuge. Despite the urgent need to help, this is not always - and I mean, no longer - possible. Go to the train station of our neighbour city (I live near Switzerland who sends their refugees to us) and if you are a woman, it is even more likely that you are attacked for no reason, just for walking by. Our structures are already so compromised that I fear they will collapse any minute. Our own people, who have been working their whole life to build this country, collect debris and bottles to earn a few cents for a piece of bread, and if you have an apartment to let you are overrun by thousands of interested persons, even if it is a broom closet. This is not the fault of the people coming, but its also not the fault of those already living here.
I (a therapist) had a patient for trauma treatment, an immigrant who had been attacked with a knife by another immigrant - for no reason. I can understand why people reach their limits with their patience. Distribution battles are just beginning. Because they are so obvious, I can´t understand why a woman from Africa - no matter if she is literate or not - still keeps saying "every mouth that God opens, he also feeds" , while at the same time seeing with her very own eyes that this is not gonna happen because 1. it is not only about food (education, jobs, attitude that women MUST have at least 100 children, 3. our earth is being destroyed-> no food any more). They SEE it. So why don´t they draw their conclusions? Why, on the other side, don´t the industrialized countries resp. businesses think "when there is no one any more who can pay for all that, whom do we sell our millions of tons of shoe cream?" Where do they have their ethics, wits (do they have any)? Can we help all those people by goodheartedness alone? What is it about, control? Power? War? Who do they want to have power over if there is no one left to submit to this “concept”, and why? I also have only questions. This will be very interesting.
It's a Steiner-ism but universal empathy is the direction we are evolving toward in the 6th epoch. By then we will feel empathy so strongly the pain will be so great, we will have no choice but to act on it immediately. Our fraternity with our fellow beings will no longer be just an idea.
Daniel, thank you for writing about this. I've been involved in the chocolate world since 2016, when I wrote a novel about cacao's history and mythology. The earliest known chocolate made by humans dates to 5300 years ago in Ecuador. We have seen cacao devolve from a sacred relationship with humans to a financial commodity (yes there are cocoa futures traded on the market).
For those interested in going in deeper on this topic, this is a piece I wrote on the practice of forced child labor in West Africa: https://cacaomuse.substack.com/p/how-dark-do-you-like-your-halloween
This is a massive and complicated problem that is not going to be solved by any one single thing. But a good start is for us to stop buying Big Chocolate cold turkey. I stay away from Nestle, Mars, Hershey's, Mondelez — they are currently being sued for consumer fraud, and their products contain plenty of unhealthy ingredients. So not only are you supporting child labor and low wages for the farmers, you're also harming your health.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly encourage folks to buy craft chocolate — there are hundreds of small batch chocolate makers all over the US and abroad that make amazing chocolate that is fairly traded. I did a holiday tour in December exploring 25 of those chocolate makers (on the same Cacao Muse substack) :)
Daniel I'd love to cross-post your piece on The Cacao Muse.
Sure feel free! Thanks for all of this info.
Hi Birgitte, thanks for sharing your work on this topic. I’m in the south of France at the moment and stumbled upon this truly incredible artisan chocolatier that also just happens to be a really lovely human being. Passionate about the craft of chocolate making and better world making. Evident by the wonderful experience he provided when visiting his shop in the tiny village of Najac. Anyway I just thought you’d like to know about Benjamin, what he does and taste his creations someday. https://chocolateriedunouveaumonde.com/
We have to overcome this feeling of individual powerlessness and question ourselves and our consume habits (every year a new iPhone? every day a f***ing coffee-to-go? Really?). And we can boycott these multi death cooperations. Nestle is one of the most evil ones, the Nestle CEO is on the same psychopath level than Putin, in fact he is indirectly killing people in Africa buying their spring waters, rebottlling it in plastic bottles and calling it "Pure Life". The tip of the iceberg of moral bankruptcy. At least here in europe there are a lot alternatives to these brands. I can't change the world but i can change myself.
Well said Stefan. Shifting the way we do things can move markets. It's like droplets that form a storm, or ocean waves. I do not buy from Big Chocolate, because I'm a mom and cannot stomach the thought of a child my daughter's age working as a slave on a cacao plantation. If you'd like to learn more about the world of craft chocolate, which is shaping a more holistic relationship with cacao farmers all over the world, there's more information on The Cacao Muse (I've been involved in the chocolate world since 2016) >> Also more about the dark side of chocolate that Daniel's piece has opened up: https://cacaomuse.substack.com/p/how-dark-do-you-like-your-halloween
Thanks Birgitte, will check it out! Because of allergies i startet to quit sugar years ago, was really helping a lot! I loose the need to eat all that stuff, honey and datteln (dates in english?! Crazy) are enough or me. We should invest a little more money into our food! I have lots of discussions which people who always complain about how expensive everything is, food etc but these people buy end-of-year-fireworks for 100€ or are smoking a pack of cigarettes per day but a piece of meat has to be 1€, its really ridiculous...
Thanks for addressing this topic and shedding light on it. It’s one that I haven’t had a context for but just felt a generalized incoherent discomfort stuck between equally distasteful right wing xenophobia and left wing dismissal of the importance of coherent positive cultural roots within a nation.
Thanks for being frank about this.
How wide an audience is this incredibly important observation reaching, Daniel? The linkage seems relevant — esp. if actual data on average amount of chocolate consumed by America/Canada was compared, say Texas, Florida, New York, California and, oh Illinois is getting lots of buses too. Côte d’Ivoire people deserve more. So do the Native American communities who have lost agricultural and drinking water to the voracious pumps of nestle. Love to see you “do David Treuer” next — let’s “return” the Delaware Water Gap to the Lenape migrants who were forced up and over to Stockbridge Munsee, Six Nations, Moravia Town, and Oklahoma (3). Why should protected lands be recreation instead of sovereign forests? Your example of deforestation in Africa is built on the Walking Purchase betrayal of 1737. Pennsylvania has No recognized tribes, state or federal. Jersey has like 2 or 3, including Nanticoke on the lower Delaware River, southeast of Philadelphia.
I just think the comparison of world-wild ripples of “our” consumerism will do little without rigorous attention to our own colonization and settlement of the Eastern Woodlands at al.
Typed from Dinetah, inside the Four Sacred Mountains of the Pueblos (Hopi), on territory seized from a reservation bordering the River (Jicarilla Apache) and signed over to mixed-blood Ute/Spanish descendants. By a whitened American. Love always - Rachel/RBM
Thanks for this info.
Did you ever the movie children of men, where refugees have overwhelmed suburban villages outside of London and the people go about their days worrying about other things. It’s set in 2025.
That movie was prescient (and terrifying) on so many levels. I didn’t realize it was set in 2025. I wish there was some sort of program on offer for the men fleeing unlivable, desperate conditions in their countries of origin - like willing workers on organic farms (WWOOFERS), only the urban infrastructure rebuilding version.
Yes that is exactly my thought too
I will review it
I wish I had a helpful thought on the matter to share but can't even begin to get my head around this. The situation seems so staggeringly bleak. Heartbreaking.
Sam, see my comment here in the thread but two things... yes it's devastating but there is something we can all do about it, and that is two-fold... first step is awareness, through essays like this. Second, action. The more of us who stop buying the brands that are driving this financial dynamic in West Africa, and start supporting the direct/fair trade chocolate makers, the sooner this massive ship will start to change course.
Thanks Birgitte, and great comment below. I will be sure to check out your 'The Cacao Muse' piece linked. Dark chocolate is the last form of sweets I enjoy. My limited research suggests 'Endangered Species' is a good option and that is what I've stuck with for years. I do appreciate your optimism as it helps balance my current despondence on the larger topic.
Yes I do remain very optimistic... I feel we need to get back to the sacred relationship we used to have with cacao. Stopping our enjoyment of chocolate is not the right approach, because that would gut numerous cacao farmers worldwide, and force them to go into other lines of work, such as timber, mining, palm oil, etc. We need to support them with decent market prices, and enabling them to make their own chocolate. There is a lot going on in that sphere that's truly inspiring—the world just doesn't know about it!
Powerful if heart breaking. Phenomenology at its best. thank you for this.
I don’t think there is one wise well packaged solution to our current state. There are roles for all of us to play - the need to learn how to feel again comes to mind. To be able to witness, feel and hold the pain and sadness. Breaking the fake barrier between our personal and professional selves also seems like a big one to me. If all these systems are about money - how will we heal them if we allow ourselves to be less human, often do the opposite of what your values are with loved ones, when at work? So much healing to do.
Thank you for this beautiful apocalyptic report from your front. Over the years I started loosing my taste for chocolate and after reading your piece this morning, I'm done for good. There's no better word to describe what is happening nearly everywhere one looks on this troubled planet than the word you used in your recent piece: OVERSWORMED. The migrant crisis is a perfect example of this but really, it has been going on for a long time. We are the "termite people" and we are swarming. In our forests. In our oceans.
I really appreciate your self-reflection on how your compassion is being stretched to the limit tempting politically incorrect thinking . . . not even sure what that is anymore. I can sympathize with Texas sending migrants elsewhere to spread out this huge problem. Is it politically incorrect to see the need to totally close our border? See . . . it's happening to me too!
I founded an eco-community in the hills above the Columbia River in Oregon and am currently snowed in for the next 4 or 5 days in the midst of a raging blizzard . . . loving it actually. It's wild. Coyotes call at night. There's an elk herd nearby. The problems of the world seem unreal at times from this vantage, this bubble. I couldn't survive for long in NYC but am so grateful for the window you provide.
How many times I have heard the saying “chocolate is proof that god loves us!” It’s hard to fully comprehend the pain of the exploitation…and the coming impact
So many Americans come to New Zealand and can’t believe how good the chocolate is. A local family brand , Whittakers, is now outselling the international corporate brands in our supermarkets. So back fair trade, support the people back in Africa and it tastes so much better too. This is a case where we can take action
Great awareness you bring to the table with this, Daniel. Uhh - heavy, hearty, achey. It resonates.
I remember you interviewing Jodorowsky years back, he's 95 yrs young next month. Saw The Holy Mountain, The Dance of Reality and Endless Poetry recently (sadly I fear - no trilogy). If in good health and he's up for the idea, consider reconnecting. You know he's half Ukranian, half Israeli. And with the soul essence he has, for sure he has an opinion on this current realm's wearies, as much as the next. Parlez Vous Anglais, ticket to Paris, croissants and Jodo. Let us know how you get on. Shine On, Daniel, life turns on a dime. We all wait for ourselves.
Oh amazing on the live podcast event. I love Jon Ronson’s books. If I lived in NYC, I would have def come. Very cool!
Quote "Helping the people who are already pouring up North from the Global South could be seen as our moral responsibility — yet we do not have the social structures in place to deal with this situation. We can’t even take care of our own people decently at this point." True. I see it in my country too, Germany, where so many people, mostly young men from Africa, come and seek refuge. Despite the urgent need to help, this is not always - and I mean, no longer - possible. Go to the train station of our neighbour city (I live near Switzerland who sends their refugees to us) and if you are a woman, it is even more likely that you are attacked for no reason, just for walking by. Our structures are already so compromised that I fear they will collapse any minute. Our own people, who have been working their whole life to build this country, collect debris and bottles to earn a few cents for a piece of bread, and if you have an apartment to let you are overrun by thousands of interested persons, even if it is a broom closet. This is not the fault of the people coming, but its also not the fault of those already living here.
I (a therapist) had a patient for trauma treatment, an immigrant who had been attacked with a knife by another immigrant - for no reason. I can understand why people reach their limits with their patience. Distribution battles are just beginning. Because they are so obvious, I can´t understand why a woman from Africa - no matter if she is literate or not - still keeps saying "every mouth that God opens, he also feeds" , while at the same time seeing with her very own eyes that this is not gonna happen because 1. it is not only about food (education, jobs, attitude that women MUST have at least 100 children, 3. our earth is being destroyed-> no food any more). They SEE it. So why don´t they draw their conclusions? Why, on the other side, don´t the industrialized countries resp. businesses think "when there is no one any more who can pay for all that, whom do we sell our millions of tons of shoe cream?" Where do they have their ethics, wits (do they have any)? Can we help all those people by goodheartedness alone? What is it about, control? Power? War? Who do they want to have power over if there is no one left to submit to this “concept”, and why? I also have only questions. This will be very interesting.
It's a Steiner-ism but universal empathy is the direction we are evolving toward in the 6th epoch. By then we will feel empathy so strongly the pain will be so great, we will have no choice but to act on it immediately. Our fraternity with our fellow beings will no longer be just an idea.