China outputs gigatons of coal smoke. The US ships goods by individual trucks that could travel by train for a fraction of the fuel usage. We dispose of millions of plastic, floating pieces of trash in our oceans.
But if we slightly decrease the carbon footprint of a Hershey's bar, we'll be OK.
I use a stainless steel straw, so I'm doing my part!
However, it is still a good idea for shortening the supply chain, reducing labor costs, and hedging against climate risks.
Cacao (like coffee) is a crop with structures still reverberating from the colonial period. It is labor intensive (not amenable to mechanization) and low margin for most small holder producers. As a perennial crop it requires long term investment to establish, and the harvest cycle often requires financing to bridge. It is subject to fluctuating global commodity prices. The plants themselves are climate sensitive and the impact of changing temperatures and precipitation are already wreaking havoc. Attempting to expand or relocate production to compensate often means deforestation of threatened ecosystems.
The next generation of cacao and coffee farmers see these problems and want to ditch the fields in favor of city jobs. Why put your life into something so risky?
Sunflowers avoid most of these problems since they are an annual crop that grows in temperate latitudes and can be heavily mechanized. (The problems of monoculture are a separate discussion).
Of course it won't be as good as the real deal. That's fine; use sunflowers for the chocolate covered candy garbage. Let craft chocolate be a luxury good with prices that offer a living wage to producers.
They're not saying it alone will fix it. They also say they:
>created the ChoViva website with an environmentally conscious mindset. This means we use fonts, colours, images and animations in a purposeful way, do without flashy videos and welcome you in the low-energy dark mode by default.
And I doubt you think they're claiming less JavaScript is all we need.
This is all about aesthetics for addicted consumers. What would actually be much better, all around, is if our culture started promoting buying high quality cocoa powder and making our own cookies instead of buying highly processed garbage that pretends to be good for the environment.
As for saving the planet, are we still pretending that reduce/reuse is an option, or have we moved onto white hat underground climate engineering as the only practical solution given current politics and markets.
Instead, people do whatever they can where they can. I can choose to use a stainless steel straw, buy products with recyclable packaging not from single use plastics. I can choose to buy products from companies that spend time and effort to do what they can do to also have less of an environmental impact. It really doesn't bother me to put in that effort, and my effort damn sure has no affect on you. So pound sand for telling me what I can and cannot do because you disagree.
You personally cannot tell MAGA that climate change is not a hoax where they will suddenly listen. You cannot tell current POTUS that action needs to be taken when he's already undone legislation that would have been much more effecting than what type of straws people use. So you go ahead and drive yourself crazy and continue to belittle people that do whatever they can where they can, because you just come across at one of those people, and are promptly ignored
I don't think this sort of hyperbole helps either. We could double down on carbon emissions to double the worst projections and humans would still be in no risk of being wiped out. Sure it would really suck for a lot of people, but our species would survive. We've survived much worse.
I'm simply pointing out it has zero net effect on the problem. It's like trying to stop an island from being flooded by rising sea levels, using a bucket brigade. It's not "better than doing nothing!"; it is doing something that achieves nothing.
Go ahead with your buckets if you want to. Buy them in pretty colors with flowers around the top. Have fun.
But it won't stop the tide.
China have ambitious plans to carbon neutral by 2050 and the US had plans to... ok maybe the US is a bit stuck for the moment but it seems like at least some states seem to care.
What's important is that people show that investing in environmental-friendly companies is worthwhile. Right now that is not usually the case unless there's some kind of state/government incentive. And no, incentives are not bad since the option of polluting also has a cost, the only difference is that the cost of polluting is a long-term loan that it growing and is already hard to pay off.
Now I realise that these things will come to us branded up as desirable and high-status. It isn't ultra-processed pea protein, this is a 'vegan steak'
Human beings evolved to eat whole foods. If you're going to eat something else, you better be very, very sure about the long-term effects.
Of all the things humans in a modern world do, that's the thing you're critical of? Do you use computers, sit all day, drive a car, take medicine, ...?
I think if you apply similar processing to sunflower seeds and cocoa beans, one isn't more of a "whole food" than the other.
I would give this a try. It's probably not exactly the same as chocolate, but that doesn't mean it has to be worse.
I eat a lot of high end single origin chocolate bars, and I simply don’t believe this. Two bars from the same brand at the same percentage of cocoa content using different beans taste completely different. In exactly the same way as wine or coffee. It’s one of the most interesting parts of eating good chocolate. I just don’t believe this approach will ever replace my chocolate consumption, but may have a shot at the larger market of bad chocolate bars.
EDIT: I realize you asked about bars not brands, but I’m in transit and brands was easier than individual bars. I’m a huge fan of the Askinosie orange bar in particular.
Maybe a replacement where chocolate isn't the main ingredient?
If I’m going to eat a Kit Kat or some other gas station candy bar I may as well eat artificial chocolate because it pretty much already is fake chocolate.
However I can’t eat a Beyond BK (do they make those anymore? Or the White Castle beyond burgers?), probably because they cost more than the original product. And I assume this fake chocolate will have the same problem.
They’ll try to sell it as a luxury item because that price point is the only way they can stay in business but it just won’t be that good.
I love chocolate, and while I'm skeptical this will taste like my favorite dark chocolate, I'm open-minded that it could be a viable substitute on some occasions.
Whatever one it was - it has a heme protein extracted from soybean roots which gives it that blood smell and taste that is so satisfying.
At one point they sold "chocolate" made of fish meal.
Process:
Fermentation: The sunflower seeds undergo an innovative fermentation-like process, similar to ancient beer brewing technology, to enhance their flavor.
Roasting: The fermented seeds are then gently roasted. Grinding: The roasted ingredients are ground into a concentrate that resembles cocoa powder.
Mixing and Conching: The concentrate is mixed with additional ingredients, ground further, and conched to achieve a smooth, creamy texture, similar to traditional chocolate
Carob was the old-timey chocolate substitute in the 70s (probably because of inflation back then as well). Carob is kind of chocolate tasting, but it's better to just say it's carob instead of trying to pretend it's chocolate - it definitely didn't have the same smoothness as chocolate.
Go look at the news. A trade war just started, and tariffs are going to drive up the cost of chocolate in the US.
Idk, I feel like it'd be good if people could engage with "looks tasty relative to savings (carbon or monetary)" or something equivalent.
They should be selling upscale, luxury-priced high-end "chocolate" bars, doing taste tests against fancy brands.
Would love to hear from someone who has tried it.
> "Häagen-Dazs" is an invented pseudo-Scandinavian phrase coined by the American Reuben Mattus, in a quest for a brand name that he claimed was Danish-sounding.
If it's cheaper, this could easily be a vanilla/vanillin situation.
