Summer Reading - Not!

Just finished a good book.
But it is not a summer beach book.
It is a non-fiction page turner by a Canadian journalist, Carol Off. It is entitled:

Bitter Chocolate: The Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet

About 300 pages. Milton Hershey, of relatively local note, and the Mars father and his very secretive son who brought us my personal favorites: Milky Way, Snickers and M & Ms are in it. You can read about the 1946 Children's Strike in Canada for the return of the nickel candy bar. You will come to see how the cocoa tree can grow around the globe near the equator and how it is picked and dried for shipping. You can trace the big names in chocolate from the Cadburys to the multinationals which now dominate the food industry.

But here’s the one thing I didn’t know...since the time of the ancient Mayans, cocoa beans have been grown and harvested using the labor of enslaved, oppressed and ill used people. Yes, up to the present time...those who plant and pick the raw material for chocolate do not get a living wage.

The bathroom scale does not depress my appetite for chocolate. But the information in this book may. Glad I read it.