{"id":33502,"date":"2023-04-08T01:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T01:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=33502"},"modified":"2023-04-09T01:28:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T01:28:05","slug":"easter-bunnies-cacao-beans-and-pollinating-bugs-a-basket-of-6-essential-reads-about-chocolate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/easter-bunnies-cacao-beans-and-pollinating-bugs-a-basket-of-6-essential-reads-about-chocolate\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter bunnies, cacao beans and pollinating bugs: A basket of 6 essential reads about\u00a0chocolate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maggie Villiger<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tens of millions of chocolate bunnies<\/a> get sold in the U.S. every Easter. Here are six articles about chocolate from The Conversation\u2019s archive \u2013 great reading while you\u2019re nibbling the ears off your own bunny (if you\u2019re one of the three-quarters of Americans who start<\/a> at the top).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Food scientist on cocoa chemistry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chocolate bunnies don\u2019t grow on trees \u2013 but cacao pods do. It takes a lot of processing to get from the raw agricultural input to the finished output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food scientist Sheryl Barringer<\/a> from The Ohio State University wrote about various chemical reactions that are part of the transformation of beans into chocolate. One is the Maillard reaction, the same thing that gives the browned bits on roasted meats or a bread\u2019s golden crust their flavor. Barringer also explains that weird white stuff<\/a> \u2013 known as bloom \u2013 that might appear on your Easter chocolates if they hang around for a while. (Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s still edible.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Chocolate is a fermented food<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Food science Ph.D. candidate Caitlin Clark<\/a> from Colorado State University focuses her research on the microbes responsible for much of chocolate\u2019s flavor. As a fermented food, chocolate depends on yeast and bacteria to help turn a raw ingredient into the treat you can recognize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark described how the microorganisms that occur naturally in a given geographical location can give high-end chocolates their \u201cterroir\u201d \u2013 \u201cthe characteristic flair imparted by a place<\/a>\u201d you might be more used to thinking about with regard to wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cacao<\/a>
Tiny flies spread pollen from one cacao tree to another. dimarik\/iStock via Getty Images Plus<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3. Pollinators are important part of process<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cacao growers rely on another tiny ally to pollinate their crop. Entomologist DeWayne Shoemaker<\/a> from the University of Tennessee described the mini flies \u2013 particularly biting midges and gall midges \u2013 that get the job done. \u201cPollinators must pick up pollen from the male parts of a flower of one tree and deposit it on the female parts of a flower on another tree,\u201d Shoemaker wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But up to 90% of cacao flowers don\u2019t get pollinated<\/a> at all. People can hand-pollinate the little flowers, but it remains a mystery which other insects might do the job in the wild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Child labor is chocolate\u2019s bitter secret<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Harvesting and processing cacao is labor-intensive. To meet this need, some farmers turn to child labor. Cultural anthropologist Robert Ulin<\/a> from the Rochester Institute of Technology described how the global chocolate industry is tied to inequality via exploitative labor practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe largest chocolate companies signed a protocol in 2001 that condemned child labor and childhood slavery<\/a>,\u201d Ulin wrote. But he noted that consumers may want more information to make sure their purchase power supports \u201cfair labor practices in the chocolate sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dog<\/a>
Do not share your chocolates with your pooch. F.J. Jimenez\/Moment via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

5. Not safe for furry family members<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Eating a ton of chocolate is probably not a healthy choice for anyone. But even a little bit of chocolate can be deadly for dogs and cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an article about all kinds of holiday foods that are unsafe for pets, veterinarian and researcher Leticia Fanucchi<\/a> from Oklahoma State University explained the chemicals in this human delicacy that can cause fatal \u201cchocolate intoxication<\/a>.\u201d Don\u2019t delay getting veterinary help if your pet does raid your Easter basket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. An enslaved chocolatier in colonial America<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An enslaved cook named Caesar, born in 1732, was one of the first chocolatiers in the American colonies. Historical archaeologist Kelley Fanto Deetz<\/a> from the University of California, Berkeley described how Caesar \u201cwould have had to roast the cocoa beans on the open hearth<\/a>, shell them by hand, grind the nibs on a heated chocolate stone, and then scrape the raw cocoa, add milk or water, cinnamon, nutmeg or vanilla, and serve it piping hot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cocoa was a hot commodity for Virginia\u2019s white elite during this period, when it was a culinary component \u2013 along with pineapples, Madeira wine, port, champagne, coffee and sugar \u2013 of the Columbian Exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation\u2019s archives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie Villiger<\/a>, Senior Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maggie Villiger, The Conversation Tens of millions of chocolate bunnies get sold in the U.S. every Easter. Here are six articles about chocolate from The Conversation\u2019s archive \u2013 great reading while you\u2019re nibbling the ears off your own bunny (if you\u2019re one of the three-quarters of Americans who start at the top). 1. Food scientist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3410],"tags":[9727,13874,4838,8557,1160,7074,13871,8015,4756,5984,13873,5203,2275,9726,582,13875,950,13870,3075,7707,13872,7308],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33504,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33502\/revisions\/33504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}