SAVE A TREE FOR EASTER

Marion Pellicano Ambrose

Easter is just around the corner and I can’t wait! I love this time of year with the newborn chicks, the little, fluffy- tailed bunnies, the daffodils and tulips, but mostly, I love the

Chocolate!

Some of you may know that I gave up chocolate (my life’s blood) for Lent. I must admit I slipped up once and had a tiny piece of chocolate cake when we were on vacation, but otherwise I’ve been true blue! I was hoping after the first few days it would get easier, but it hasn’t. I crave it each and every day!

Because of my love affair with chocolate, any article I see with that word in it catches my eye. I was browsing and came across Cool Earth’s Blog. A couple years ago my school worked with this organization to save 199,273 acres of rainforest. This year, they’re asking for people to choose one of 12 endangered species of rainforest trees to “adopt” and save. Of course the tree I picked was the Cacao.

The Cacao Tree is where chocolate begins. The fruit of the Cacao is about the size of a pineapple, oval in shape and can be yellow, red or orange in color. It contains seeds usually called beans which are fermented and then sold on as the vital ingredient to chocolate or cocoa.  It grows only near the equator under the shade of the rainforest canopy.

Here are some interesting facts about chocolate from Cool Earth! (I’ll bet Patty knows them all!(  See Sticky Sweet http://delayedreactionlounge.blogspot.com/2011/04/sticky-sweet_14.html )

• Chocolate really is the "Food of the gods" - that's what Theobroma cacao, the scientific name for the Cacao Tree means.

• There are 5-6 million cacao farmers worldwide and a further 45 million people who depend on cacao for their livelihoods

• The crop from one cacao tree over an entire year only produces enough to make half a kilogram of chocolate.

• No rainforest, no chocolate - All cacao grows within a narrow band around the equator and needs 2 meters of rain each year and a temperature of 21ºC to 32ºC - conditions you only get in the shade of a rainforest canopy.

•  The first pod of a cacao is produced after three years and contains 40-45 cacao beans. It takes 135-270 beans to produce one pound of chocolate. 

• Over 1.5 million creme eggs are produced each day in the UK which would use up the entire annual production of 75,000 cacao trees.

• Every year 3.5 million tons of cacao are produced.

• Cacao beans were used as money in ancient times. A horse could be bought for 10 cacao beans.

·         Before 1847 all cacao was made into a chocolate drink.

·         The world's first chocolate bar was made by Joseph Fry in Bristol, England.

·         The world's most expensive chocolate bar was a Wispa that was covered in edible gold.

Save a rainforest cacao tree now! Visit Cool Earth and find out how.

http://www.coolearth.org/store/us/protect-a-tree/cacao.html

Or, Protect a tree. Choose from 12 endangered species of Rainforest Tree!

http://www.coolearth.org/400/category/protect-a-rainforest-tree-181.html#active_exmenu