The Dark Side Of Chocolate

Bottling of freshwater from a rare resource in the Fiji Islands, and harvesting of cocoa beans via child slave labor in West Africa, are both ethically questionable. Business practices from both commodities have little regard on damages inflicted during their production. Ethical issues, similarities, and differences with both commodities will be contrasted, a presentation of socially responsible

West African chocolate producers have been at the heart of shocking allegations that they are using children as slaves to work on their plantations. Children (usually ages 12-16) are involved, because they work on the plantations under very poor conditions and with low pay. Many popular chocolate companies are also involved, considering the fact that they buy chocolate from these plantations. The chocolate industry is determined to grow cocoa that profits the government and their country, but in order to gain a larger profit, they distribute below-poverty wages for the farmers who produce it. Low wages mean farmers cannot hire the labor needed to harvest the crop, and encourages the use of child slavery and the worst forms of child labor.

Human trafficking is as described by Wikipedia as the illegal trade in humans for the use of sexual exploitation or forced labor.

This may not be considered disturbing to some with the great strides that Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) have made over the past years, but in 1998, this segment had teenage boys freaking out.

Chocolate is one of the most popular snack in the. Chocolate is made of cacao. And the cacao is produced most quantity in the Ivory Coast. Miklos Mattyasovszky said “The Ivory Coast supplies 1,448,992 tones which are 30 percent of the world’s total cocoa” (2017). 30 percent is huge proportion. But there is a problem with the large amount of cocoa production. The problem is Chocolate Slavery. Chocolate Slavery means labor force to children illegally. They do not get paid for their work. They have been abusing in cacao plantation. Children illegal labor has been discovering in most of chocolate producing countries, including Ivory Coast. The Chocolate Slavery was discovered in the early 1900s first in the West African coast (Doody, 2013).

As mentioned earlier, 70% of cocoa beans come from plantations in western African countries. However, most workers on these plantations are child slaves who are abused, not paid, and confined to grueling labor for years and years. Many of these unfortunate children aren’t over the age of sixteen yet they are forced to work from dusk till dawn. To add to this, there are a great amount of dangerous throughout the plantation. These include exposure to toxic, agricultural chemicals on the cocoa beans, being forced to use dangerous machetes in work, and being crushed by hundred pound bags of packed cocoa beans. The conditions that they live in are no better either. From sleeping on planks of wood as a bed to being fed the bare minimum of the cheapest food, most of these children don’t even receive basic education. One of the worst parts of this tragedy is that chocolate companies know what is happening yet they continue to receive cocoa from child slaves, and then they sell the public this deplorable

Imagine being a young child walking into a chocolate museum where chocolate lines the walls, you can create your own one of a kind candy bar, thousands of different types of chocolates, and chocolate bars line the walls.

Many of the products that are used and consumed in the United States are made in other countries. One of the main reasons for multinational corporations to produce goods in countries other than the United States is the cost of production. It is far cheaper to produce goods such as blue jeans, paper goods, and plastic toys to name a few. In recent years the conditions in sweatshops in China, Japan, and elsewhere have garnered public outcry from Countries like the U.S. and most of Europe. The main contention, child labor in dangerous and horrid conditions. However one often overlooked example of child labor in sweatshop-like conditions exists were many people never thought. The chocolate we eat. “From 2013 to 2014 more than 1.1 million children in the Ivory Coast were engaged in the most common Worst Forms of Child Labor as recognized by the United Nations… up from 791,181 children from 2008 to 2009” (Berman, 2015). The benefactors of this child labor are huge multinational enterprises such as Nestle, Mars Inc., and The Hershey Co.

Human trafficking is the trade of humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual \slavery, and forced labor. Forms of human trafficking dates back to at least to the 1400’s. In the 1400s through the 1600s the first signs of human trafficking were seen. The African slave trade is an example of a form of human trafficking. During the slave trade Africans were captured and sold

I believe you can interpret the chocolate as a metaphor for God in this movie. If the goal of the film is indeed trying to use the chocolate as a metaphor for God, I think that the film is trying to show God in a more spiritual way than religious. This is because each characters experience with the chocolate is different and personal. Every character prefers a different type, and the chocolate affect the characters in diverse, but positive ways. Armande becomes more content with her life, Josephine gets the courage to leave her abusive husband and stay away from him, the mayor eventually accepts Vianne and her differences from the old ways of the village. The religious side of God is shown through the Church, the rules it imposes, and the influence

Human trafficking and child abuse are major problems along the west coast of Africa. Cocoa plantations are so notorious for the use of forced child labor (and forced adult labor) that U.S. Representative Eliot Engel and Senator Tom Harkin created a protocol to end child slavery and initiate labeling for products that are produced “slave free.” A joint committee was formed and called the International Cocoa Initiative, with the aim to have a

Although there are many positives to the social and economic sustainability of chocolate for consumers, those who harvest these commodities may not say so. As we saw in “Chocolate The Bitter Truth”, there are huge amounts of child labour used in the harvest of coca plants. These children are most often taken away from their parents in poor cities, and are forced to work for a man they are sold to. These kids do not attend school, and work with machetes for

Chocolate. Ah, just the word makes one’s mouth water. Sweet, velvety, creamy, delicious. Most of us really only care about the taste, but do we actually know what chocolate is made of? Yes, yes, milk, cocoa, cream, and sugar are all correct answers, but, do most of us know what chocolate is made of on a molecular level? I think not. Do we know why we feel happy after eating it, chocolate tastes the way it does, why some types are creamier and smoother than others, etc. The answer all boils down to chemistry; a simple answer, yet complicated for many reasons.

Taren and Bruinsma’s article focuses on the drug-like characteristics of chocolate. It discusses how chocolate can attribute to addictive behaviors and why this occurs. First, the idea of chocolate being addictive is addressed. The “urgent inner demand overrides all others, undermines reason, resolve, and will…It does not stop until satisfied. And then, it starts again (Bruinsma & Taren, 1999).” This behavior is associated with heavier drugs such as cocaine, alcohol, and heroin but were observed in people who craved chocolate. From observations, researchers gathered that when a person had a craving for chocolate it gave them negative moods and substitutions would not completely satisfy the craving. They used white-chocolate, magnesium supplements, and other fatty sweet foods. White chocolate is used as a substitute because it mimics texture and sweetness while magnesium supplements are used because chocolate is high in magnesium. Other fatty foods were used because fat and sugar are normally associated with human pleasure for food consumption and are key ingredients to chocolate. Though some of the substitutes showed signs of satisfaction, they never completely satisfied the craver. One of the reasons for this phenomena is the chemical nature of chocolate. Chocolate contains a relatively high amount of serotonin which is responsible for the regulation of food-intake and mood. A person who craves chocolate is possibly trying to balance their body’s low level of serotonin the

Information concentrating on the effects that chocolate have on the improving the memory of test takers. Most of the collected works comes from revisions of men and women with excessive high memory levels; in calculation to a few surveys with individuals with memory loss were used. Given that eating chocolate improved test scores considerably many agents and health professionals have speculated if chocolate is a treatment for memory boost. The possibility of memory boost seems likely in short term is a particularly primary treatment for loss of memory. However, a thorough investigation of test were taken to see if men and women memory improves after eating chocolate before taking math test. This is usually done between two and three hours before a test is taken (Jones, Wilson, 2011).Collected works from Wong, et al 2009, have provided us with some perceptions on the effect chocolate have on men and women concerning memory gain.