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Save the Earth! It’s the only known planet with chocolate

On April 22, we celebrate another Earth Day, a tradition which was founded by peace activist John McConnell in 1969. It is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.
It is also a day when environmentalists - both serious and silly - teach, yell and demonstrate about whatever environmental cause is in vogue at the moment. On the first Earth Day in 1970, population was the issue that was going to destroy the planet.

The book The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich was at the top of the bestseller list, and everyone was spouting lots of population poppycock. None of Ehrlich’s dire predictions of mass starvation and war came true.

Within a few years, Global Cooling was the Earth Day cause, followed closely by Al Gore and Global Warming. Today, since we cannot decide what is happening to the Earth, the cause is just called “climate change.” According to the Earth Day Network, this year is all about being “green.”

Once only the purview of the environmental community, Earth Day has been taken over by corporate America. Companies have discovered that a great way to sell products is by making them “green.” Companies are changing their product formulations to make them more environmentally friendly.

Toxic is out, natural is in. Soybeans, corn and other agricultural products are finding their way into consumer products in greater numbers. Not only do they make the products “greener,” consumers feel good about buying these products.

The soccer mom that drives a gas-guzzling SUV to the grocery store feels like she is saving the Earth when she buys green products packaged in recycled wrappings.

Agriculture used to view Earth Day as an attack on modern agriculture, but now farm groups have adopted the day as a chance to stress the contribution made by farmers to the environment.
Bob Stallman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, takes it a bit farther, “Farmers have always been the primary caretakers of the land.

In fact, I would make the argument that farmers and ranchers are the world’s first environmentalists.” Yet, as Stallman laments, farmers get little credit for the environmental work they do.
Today, farmers use far fewer chemicals on the land then they did just a decade ago. This was made possible by biotechnology. Yet, environmentalists remain opposed to biotech food products.
Livestock farmers now keep their animals confined and strictly control animal waste. In the past, these animals wandered the countryside defecating in rivers and streams. Yet, CAFOs are on the “hit list” of most groups who claim to want to protect the earth. Even renewable fuels, which pollute less and have much less of an environmental impact than fossil fuels, face considerable opposition from so called green groups.

Most Earth Day messages stress all the bad things we are doing to the Earth and all the bad chemicals we are putting into the environment. There is however, one product that benefits the Earth and the people who live on it. That product is chocolate which is produced by the Theobroma cacao tree.

Grown in tropical areas, the tree stabilizes soil, produces oxygen and provides habitats for animals. Harvesting the beans provides employment for local workers. As for the consumption of chocolate, it is a healthy food product.

Most notably, chocolate is a champion antioxidant. Antioxidants help rid the body of free radicals, those nasty little molecules running amok in your body which cause aging and disease. According to USDA, chocolate has among the highest levels of antioxidants of any food.

Antioxidant-rich diets have been linked to a lowered risk of heart attacks, stroke, cardiovascular disease, cancer, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, arthritis, asthma, Alzheimer’s, and more.

So, if modern agriculture and food processing can produce a product such as chocolate, then saving the planet to produce more chocolate sounds like the best reason of all to celebrate Earth Day.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.

4/22/2009