nosh nook #24 - thursday, april 16, 2009

natural resource (link)
04.15.09 - san diego union tribune - by peter rowe

it's no secret that i like eating foods constructed in a method similar to that of a tonka truck as much as the next guy.  deep down though, i go 10x as crazy for something that's certified organic & actually good for me.  organic veggies?  mmm.  organic cookies?  love em.  organic beers?  i've tried a few and guess what?  they taste just like regular beers.  i just wish organic foods weren't so damn expensive.  i'm not all that low-income myself, but those high prices are definitely a reason behind low-income folks choosing crappy, unhealthy foods over organic foods.

snackwise, my favorite organic pleasure is the organic chocolate bar, with green & black's chocolate bars currently taking my top prize.  as peter rowe's article details, the organic chocolate bar industry is doing pretty well these days.  he visited anaheim & the natural products west expo, where, out of 1,900 vendors, there were "dozens of companies scrapping for limited supplies of organic cacao and for consumers of cacao's scrumptious byproduct, chocolate."

as he goes on to explain, back in the day, chocolate had a bad rep, before there were thousands of studies about the health benefits of dark chocolate.  these days, organic chocolate is "the nation's fastest growing organic snack – u.s. sales leapt 450 percent between 1999 and 2007."  still, most of the organic cacao supply is taken up by two companies--green & black's and dagoba organic (hershey's)--so there's somewhat of a supply problem.  something will have to change there if the organic chocolate industry expects to keep growing as demand does...& if they want more people to be able to afford the organic chocolates, something will definitely have to change.