We Heart Chocolate

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2017

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the weeks before Valentine’s Day, U.S. consumers will buy nearly 58 million pounds of chocolate. This love affair is not limited to just one day or one country: chocolate has spread from its native home in Central and South America to conquer the world. But today, cacao cultivation is facing a series of wicked problems—ones that threaten to drastically shrink the supply of chocolate just as global demand grows. If the threats aren’t taken seriously, might we lose one of our favorite treats? And, if so, will we also lose our next wonder drug? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	One bit of trivia about this is even in the present day, women each week of the year
0:07.0	are the biggest buyers of chocolate except for one week and that's the week leading up
0:11.2	to Valentine's Day.
0:12.6	That's right, ever since Richard Cadbury put chocolates in a heart-shaped box for February
0:17.6	14th way back in 1861, this stupid hallmark holiday has been associated with one of my favorite
0:25.0	substances.
0:26.0	Chocolate, one of mine too, although I'm with you Nikki about the holiday.
0:29.1	Still, any excuse to eat chocolate is all good by me.
0:32.3	It might not be Valentine's Day quite yet, but the shelves are already stocked.
0:35.8	And so we at Gastropod are here as always to equip you with all the weird chocolate
0:40.8	signs in history your heart desires.
0:43.6	So heart-shaped boxes are one thing, but is chocolate really good for your actual heart?
0:49.3	And why would you spend $18 on a fancy single origin bar when you can get a chocolate hit
0:54.2	for just a couple of bucks at the supermarket?
0:56.4	And to get to the heart of the story, how did chocolate conquer the world?
0:59.8	And is it true that we might be facing a chocolate-free future?
1:04.1	Please God know.
1:05.7	I need at least one reason to live.
1:08.2	You're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of history
1:11.5	and science, I'm Nicola Twilly, and I'm Cynthia Graber.
1:14.4	The first thing to know is that chocolate grows on trees, which means there's such a thing
1:19.0	as a chocolate forest.
	...

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