Index Pages 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8
* Newspaper Food Columns 
* World News - Daily Points of View
* Food News & Nutrition Headlines

Here's some scary news!  Chocolate-- real chocolate, the kind that has antioxidants, gives you a seratonin high and tastes really great-- is becoming scarcer and costlier.  As mentioned in Chocoholics Anonymous,  funguses have been threatening the world's chocolate supply.   Brazil, which used to be the top cocoa-bean exporter in South America, sold 430,000 tons of the sweet beans to the USA in 1985.  Last year the fungus, called witches' broom, reduced that export to 130,000 tons.  This year it looks like there will be only 80,000 tons imported into the USA from Brazil; the worst year in more than thirty.  Two other funguses, frosty pod rot in Peru and another called black pod rot, are diminishing the harvests in other countries.

Africa and Asia have taken up some of the slack in the world chocolate supply.  But political unrest, old plantings and drought is adversely affecting the African harvest, plus a similar fungus is spreading there.  An insect, the pod borer, threatens the Asian supply. 

Fortunately a good fungus has been discovered which destroys or retards the bad fungus when the trees are sprayed with it. It's still undergoing test runs.   This gives hope to addicts who otherwise might have their supply cut off.

In actuality, many "chocolate" treats in the marketplace have very little of the real, healthy stuff in them.  The only way we can be sure of what we're eating is to prepare them ourselves, using pure cocoa or quality baking chocolate, or read the labels very carefully.    

Read an article about the USDA's efforts to help control these diseases;     Potential Chocolate Shortage May Be Foiled by Beneficial Fungi from the Agricultural Research Service.

An article kids will enjoy is Attack of the Witches' Broom, also from the USDA..

Want to see a map of where chocolate comes from?  Check out the International Cocoa Org's page.

So far there isn't a shortage;  let's hope for the best.  I'd hate to see prices soar until chocolate becomes a luxury like truffles, lobster, caviar and scallops.                
web tool