Chocolate!

The Sweet Spot In Your Survival Plan.

- Christopher Nyerges

A study conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health indicated that people who eat from one to three chocolate bars a month live almost a year longer than those who do not eat chocolate.

In fact, chocolate is a quickly assimilated, nourishing energy food. Chocolate was taken on all the American and Soviet space flights, onto all modern battlefields and it was taken to Mount Everest on the Hillary expedition. Chocolate goes with many backpackers, hikers and hunters on their field trips.

Talk to anyone who’s lived through hard times, and they’ll tell you that certain basic commodities were hard to get. This usually includes such items as coffee, sugar, tobacco, alcohol and, yes, chocolate. These might seem like “vices,” but chocolate is the best of the batch, and you’d be able to trade chocolate for other items you need. After all, who doesn’t like chocolate?

WHAT CHOCOLATE IS ... AND ISN’T

Chocolate is a valuable energy food for active individuals. As with coffee, tea and even tobacco, chocolate has the ability to enhance our lives when consumed moderately. For a food that is often regarded as a junk food or pleasure food, it’s really pretty good for you.

Chocolate pods are produced on a smallish tree, grown and harvested in a region 20 degrees below and above the Equator. The pods, maybe a foot long, contain white beans. Once picked, these beans are allowed to ferment for a few days or longer, at which point they take on their characteristic chocolate aroma and brown color.

Once dried, the beans are then exported and typically processed with modern machinery. However, it is certainly possible to process your own, as is often done today in Mexico. However, unless you live in the tropics, you won’t be growing your own chocolate.