Vanessa, Your Chocolate Girl, recently spent some time in Grenada getting the feel of a “farm to bar” chocolate company, the Grenada Chocolate Company. Started by a real inspiration, Mott Green, this is a place that is almost ridiculously idealistic, yet it works so very well.

All of the cacao beans are processed and turned into chocolate mere minutes away from where they’ve been harvested. The whole farm is certified organic and is solar-powered. Plus, the company is owned by the co-operative of farmers who nurture the theobroma cacao trees directly reap the benefits of their hard work. It’s worth mentioning too that this is cacao that passes the taste test with flying colors! Check out this page and see a short video clip of Vanessa harvesting cocoa beans. Don’t be frightened of the machete in the back there, it is being wielded by a trained professional.



Some ideas to whet your appetite...

For the lover of all things chewy and crunchy: 2 Lemon Berry Rose, 2 Cashew Goji Berry, 1 Pom Acai and for your freebie, Immune Boost!

Or maybe you want all smooth bars: 2 Simplicity, 2 Cool Peppermint, 1 Fleur de Sel, and for your freebie, SuperChoc!

Go forth and find your nirvana combo!

In response to a recent incident in which a distributor [Essential Living Food]’s purported “raw” chocolate product was found to be not raw at all, the raw food community has spoken! The reaction to this incident parallels that of the organic community decades ago when similar challenges arose. While one may feel outraged at this lack of truth in labeling, history has shown that a mobilized consumer force can result in legislation and procedures that are designed to increase integrity and transparency. Now, thanks to these organic predecessors, we have a blueprint for action.

Even if this was an isolated incident, we cannot ignore the need to work proactively for industry-wide quality, transparency, and Raw Integrity.

Producing raw products in general, keeping low temperatures is not only out of normal production routine, it is also more labor-intensive, time-consuming, and thus, more expensive. In this context, we can easily understand why specifications were not followed in the case of Essential Living Food's Ecuadorian supplier: there was no one on site directly overseeing the operation who was committed to Raw.

It would be so amazing to just trust that we can distinguish amongst the companies and products, but even with the best of intentions a company may unknowingly mislead their customers unless they have the motivation and resources to perform due diligence - performing such extra research and, most importantly - physically visiting farms and facilities.

This is what Raw Integrity is all about. Let's embrace our responsibility as consumers and world citizens to voice our concerns and demands! See much more about the Raw Integrity Project in Vanessa’s article here, and post YOUR comments!

Come by for music, dancing, unlimited Gnosis Chocolate, drinking chocolate with cayenne and chili, raw food, and an elixir bar. What more could you ask for?

Pre-register if you like, nychocolateparty.com. See you there, 9:30pm-1:30am!

Start with the aptly named Deep Blue, which contains Fleur de Sel sea salt for a delicious salty-sweet taste. Second, is North Star, a truffle with Myrrh and Frankinscense essential oils. The third truffle is North Pole, a fresh wintry flavor of peppermint and spearmint. The fourth amazing truffle in the Holiday Collection is Gingerbread, filled with warming spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg). And lastly, the fifth can’t-wait-to-try truffle, is the beautiful green Spruce with spruce and fir tree essential oils.

If the Holiday Collection truffle box isn’t quite enough to lift you out of your winter blahs (impossible, right?), don’t worry because in addition to the previously-blogged seasonal Immune Boost chocolate, there are three limited chocolate bars you can try during these chilly months: the brand new Sugarplum Gingerbread, and  old favorites, Mayan Heat and Almond Fig Spice!!

The Sugarplum Gingerbread chocolate bar screams of the Nutcracker, gingerbread houses, and holiday spirit all in one compact two-ounce package! This bar wows with plums, pecans, ginger, cloves and more! Even better, it is sweetened with low-glycemic palm nectar.

Almond Fig Spice, has cranberries and currants, in addition to almonds, figs and cinnamon. It is antioxidant-packed and full of ingredients that help the digestive track. I should also mention that with all of these sweet fruits and soothing spices, this flavor never fails to hit the spot!

Mayan Heat packs a real punch with cayenne and red pepper flakes. It’s the perfect spicy mix along with chewy, sweet currants and cranberries. The flavor gets its name from chocolate’s first cultivators, the Mayans. They recognized chocolate’s healing properties early on, and even used cacao beans as currency!

Fortified with Gnosis goodies, you won’t ever want winter to be over. Happy Holidays from everyone at Gnosis Chocolate!!

There were two chocolate booths at the show that are really in line with the Gnosis philosophy of caring about the greater good: The Grenada Chocolate Company and Madécasse.

The creators of Madécasse are devoted to sustainable agriculture.  The cacao that makes up the chocolate is from Madagascar. The finished products are also produced in Madagascar, a rarity in the chocolate business. This creates four times more income than Fair Trade.

The Grenada Chocolate Company is one of the only other chocolate companies that creates finished products in the country from which the raw materials originate. Founded in 1999 with the idea of creating an Organic Cocoa Farmers' and Chocolate-Makers' Cooperative, the company now has over 150 acres of organic cocoa farms in their cooperative and operates its own cocoa fermentry, located only one mile from their factory. They perform every activity involved in the production of their chocolate, from the planting and growing of the cocoa trees to the fermenting of the fresh cocoa beans to the processing their chocolate.

 One final booth of note is The Cotton Tree Lodge. Gnosis Chocolate will be cosponsoring (along with TheChocolateLife) a chocolate-themed retreat to the eco lodge from February 20th through February 27th, 2010!! On this trip you will not only get raw chocolate tastings and raw food talks, but you will also tour Mayan ruins, go cave swimming, snorkeling, visit a cacao farm and family, and more! Just a reminder, registration for this trip is closing soon, so be sure to register now if you plan to go!

Gnosis Chocolate honors the value of doing things from scratch. As much as possible, our chocolate is infused with love and intention. Of course, it is not realistic to have a farm in a kitchen in Long Island City, NY; but we are coming as close as we possibly can to making our chocolates from the ground up =)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2009) — The "chocolate cure" for emotional stress is getting new support from a clinical trial published online in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. It found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in the bodies of people feeling highly stressed. Everyone's favorite treat also partially corrected other stress-related biochemical imbalances.

Sunil Kochhar and colleagues note growing scientific evidence that antioxidants and other beneficial substances in dark chocolate may reduce risk factors for heart disease and other physical conditions. Studies also suggest that chocolate may ease emotional stress. Until now, however, there was little evidence from research in humans on exactly how chocolate might have those stress-busting effects.

In the study, scientists identified reductions in stress hormones and other stress-related biochemical changes in volunteers who rated themselves as highly stressed and ate dark chocolate for two weeks. "The study provides strong evidence that a daily consumption of 40 grams [1.4 ounces] during a period of 2 weeks is sufficient to modify the metabolism of healthy human volunteers," the scientists say.

Journal reference:

1. Martin et al. Metabolic Effects of Dark Chocolate Consumption on Energy, Gut Microbiota, and Stress-Related Metabolism in Free-Living Subjects. Journal of Proteome Research, 2009; 091007113151065 DOI: 10.1021/pr900607v

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