Day 82: Delicious cacao

Chocolate.  So delicious.  It's one of my favorite things.  Hot chocolate, dark chocolate.  Chocolate covered almonds and craisins and pretzels.  The list could go on infinitely.  Life just wouldn't be quite as sweet if there wasn't chocolate.

It's one of those commodities that changes hands numerous times before it finally ends up in your mouth.  Have you ever thought about how chocolate is processed?  I haven't, but I looked up that information to share with you.  It's a complex process.  If I walked past chocolate in it's purest most basic form, I would have no idea.  I likely would think it was a coconut.  Read below to see how chocolate is processed (information found on Wikipedia.)

Cacao farmers in the Dominican Republic have united, forming a cooperative to obtain the fairest price for their sweets.  No more middle man who will take the largest profit.  No, these farmers are wise, and becoming savvy businessmen and women as well.  Take a look at the video below, "Chocolate Country."

                                        *                               *                                *

"Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree... Cacao pods are harvested by cutting the pods from the tree using a machete, or by knocking them off the tree using a stick. The beans with their surrounding pulp are removed from the pods and placed in piles or bins to ferment. The fermentation process is what gives the beans their familiar chocolate taste... After fermentation, the beans must be quickly dried to prevent mold growth. Climate and weather permitting, this is done by spreading the beans out in the sun from 5 to 7 days.

The dried beans are then transported to a chocolate manufacturing facility. The beans are cleaned (removing twigs, stones, and other debris), roasted, and graded. Next the shells are removed to extract the nib. Finally, the nibs are ground and liquefied, resulting in pure chocolate in fluid form: chocolate liquor. The liquor can be further processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.

Chocolate liquor is blended with the cocoa butter in varying quantities to make different types of chocolate or couvertures. The basic blends of ingredients for the various types of chocolate (in order of highest quantity of cocoa liquor first), are as follows: 

• Dark chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, and (sometimes) vanilla
• Milk chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, milk or milk powder, and vanilla
• White chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, milk or milk powder, and vanilla

The penultimate process is called conching. A conche is a container filled with metal beads, which act as grinders. The refined and blended chocolate mass is kept in a liquid state by frictional heat. Chocolate prior to conching has an uneven and gritty texture. The conching process produces cocoa and sugar particles smaller than the tongue can detect, hence the smooth feel in the mouth. The length of the conching process determines the final smoothness and quality of the chocolate. High-quality chocolate is conched for about 72 hours, lesser grades about four to six hours. After the process is complete, the chocolate mass is stored in tanks heated to approximately 45–50 °C (113–122 °F) until final processing.

The final process is called tempering. Uncontrolled crystallization of cocoa butter typically results in crystals of varying size, some or all large enough to be clearly seen with the naked eye. This causes the surface of the chocolate to appear mottled and matte, and causes the chocolate to crumble rather than snap when broken. The uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate are the result of consistently small cocoa butter crystals produced by the tempering process.  Two classic ways of manually tempering chocolate are:

• Working the molten chocolate on a heat-absorbing surface, such as a stone slab, until thickening indicates the presence of sufficient crystal "seeds"; the chocolate is then gently warmed to working temperature.
• Stirring solid chocolate into molten chocolate to "inoculate" the liquid chocolate with crystals (this method uses the already formed crystals of the solid chocolate to "seed" the molten chocolate)."

Video found at ViewChange.org

Twitter Updates – Follow Good News for Isla on Twitter.

RSS Subscription – Subscribe to Good News for Isla via RSS in a reader.

Email Updates – Sign up for email updates

Day 81: Beauty

Photograph by Florian Schulz.  Thousands of Munk's devil rays crowd the Sea of Cortez off Mexico's Baja California Sur state in 2009. 

Photograph by Bela Nasfay.  Laid by April each year, European common frog tadpoles cluster in clumps of eggs on the bottom of a spring-fed Hungarian mountain lake.

Photograph by Barcroft.  Cavers' headlamps light up the towering walls of Vietnam's Son Doong cave, the largest single cave passage yet found.

All photographs were found at National Geographic.  

Twitter Updates – Follow Good News for Isla on Twitter.

RSS Subscription – Subscribe to Good News for Isla via RSS in a reader.

Email Updates – Sign up for email updates

Day 80: Organic Slap Yo Mama Peaches

I haven't seen the documentary Food, Inc. yet, but I would like to.   Part of me has been avoiding watching it, though, because I know it is going to be hard to watch.  Convicting.  Eye-opening.  Horrifying.  We live in a time where we are pretty disconnected from our food.  Doesn't chicken come from the freezer?  Potato chips aren't a vegetable?

Just last night John and I were having a discussion with our friends about the possibility of joining a co-op.  Split the price and the meat of a cow and pig, and get locally-raised, grass-fed, and free-range meat.  I like the sound of that.  Supporting local farmers.  Knowing where our food is coming from, and that the animals were treated humanely and in the most animal-friendly way.  Grazing on open fields.  Drinking water from a stream.

We have the luxury of making choices about our food.  Not only about where our food comes from, but also being able to choose fresh foods over processed foods.  Choose healthy foods over salty and fatty foods.  An organization in San Francisco, Nextcourse, is looking to make these food choices known in order to tackle problems of obesity and heart disease in communities that need it most.  "By implementing innovative and collaborative educational programs, we hope to inspire people to purchase, cook, and eat healthier, locally produced foods.  We believe we've achieved ultimate program success when the communities in which we work are fully engaged in support of developing their neighborhoods and lifestyles to incorporate fresh, healthy foods."

Here is a Q&A about one of their projects called Soul Food.  This article was found at GOOD.is. 

San Francisco is famous for local, organic, sustainable food, but for all its influence and success, numerous food-related problems still plague the city, from food insecurity to obesity and heart disease.  Nextcourse aims to tackle those problems, especially in poorer communities. One of their more innovative programs is the Soul Food Project, which works with incarcerated women to improve their health and well-being through food. We spoke with Soul Food's Project Coordinator Niyati Desai about how they're using food as a tool for building community connections.

GOOD: How did the Soul Food program originate?

NIYATI DESAI: Through a partnership between the San Francisco Sheriff's Department and Nextcourse, we brought professional chefs into the San Francisco County Jail to teach women how to cook a nutritious meal. Naturally this transitioned to an ongoing, weekly course in nutrition and culinary skills. Classes were well-received but our staff was eager to do more to minimize recidivism and support women post-incarceration. The vision for the Soul Food Project comes from the desire to give women in our community an opportunity to reconnect with their purpose, to identify and define their skills, and to recognize their own desire and ability to thrive in this complex society.

G: Tell me a bit about how you work with the women.

ND: It's important to understand that a typical Soul Food client is likely surviving years of emotional and physical trauma, substance abuse, and isolation from society. Job and family skills are minimal, and access to a fridge, let alone a functional kitchen, is minimal. Understanding that vulnerability, we developed the project components with the following values in mind: affordability, accessibility and sustainability. Each week our nutrition class focuses on issues related to food and addiction, self-image, and illness prevention, while discussing the basics of an affordable, yet nutritious diet.

Our weekly cooking class focuses on doing more with less. Clients learn to prepare recipes at less than $3 per person. Each month, we all take a walk to a market in our local area, which integrates physical activity with knowledge of shopping tips and resources. Last, but certainly not least, the Soul Food Project offers 6-month internships for clients who demonstrate a strong commitment to living a healthier life. This is where clients shine, as they're given an opportunity to tap into another life other than that of crime.

G: What sort of results are you seeing?

ND: My clients fall along a wide spectrum in terms of their readiness and willingness to change. One client told me she only uses olive oil now and her arthritis has improved while another came back to tell me after six months of eliminating soda, refined flours and sugars she's lost 10 pounds and has endless energy. For me, these are all success stories. Just being a witness to these women who, many for the first time, are engaging with the process of change is the greatest gift and a wonderful reminder that a little support goes a long way.

G: Your greatest inspiration so far?

ND: It involves two former clients of mine, both in their late 30's or early 40's with long histories of incarceration. As they describe, they lived a life of gangbanging, hustling, drug dealing – the "fast life." With early release from jail, and on the home detention monitor, they came to the Women's Reentry Center and both participated regularly in the Soul Food Project classes. While deepening their relationship with food and self-care, they told me story after story of how much they loved and missed cooking, reminisced about their favorite recipes, and expressed their desires to open a restaurant and give back to their community.

I hired them both as interns, and now, project assistants. Today, Chiquita has developed nutrition presentations for local in-patient treatment programs, has taken on the role of Childhood Nutrition Educator, and is dedicated to teaching parents the importance of modeling healthy behavior for the next generation. Nicole is completing a Healthy Soul Food cookbook, detailing the history of traditional southern ingredients, describing the health disparities plaguing southern African American communities, and of course, presenting ninety mouth-watering recipes for how to maintain revered food culture, while preserving her people's livelihood.

This post originally appeared on www.refresheverything.com, as part of GOOD's collaboration with the Pepsi Refresh Project, a catalyst for world-changing ideas.

Twitter Updates – Follow Good News for Isla on Twitter.

RSS Subscription – Subscribe to Good News for Isla via RSS in a reader.

Email Updates – Sign up for email updates

Day 79: Jimmy Carter's Mission

ABUYONG, Sudan (Associated Press) — Lily pads and purple flowers dot one corner of the watering hole. Bright green algae covers another. Two women collect water in plastic jugs while a cattle herder bathes nearby.

Samuel Makoy is not interested in the bucolic scenery, though. He has an epidemic to quash.

Makoy points out to the women the fingernail-length worm-like creatures whose tails flick back and forth. Then a pond-side health lesson begins on a spaghetti-like worm that has haunted humans for centuries.

This fight against the guinea worm is a battle former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has waged for more than two decades in some of the poorest countries on earth. It is a battle he's almost won.

In the 1950s the 3-foot-long guinea worm ravaged the bodies of an estimated 50 million people, forcing victims through months of pain while the worm exited through a swollen blister on the leg, making it impossible for them to tend to cows or harvest crops. By 1986, the number dropped to 3.5 million. Last year only 3,190 cases were reported.

Today the worm is even closer to being wiped out. Fewer than 1,700 cases have been found this year in only four countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Sudan, where more than 95 percent of the cases are. The worm's near-eradication is thanks in large part to the efforts of Carter and his foundation.

"I'm still determined to outlive the last guinea worm," Carter told The Associated Press in a phone interview. The 86-year-old set that goal in the 1980s, when his center helped eliminate guinea worm from Pakistan and other Asian nations.

The Carter Center has battled the worm for 24 years through education and the distribution of strainers that purify drinking water. It has helped erase guinea worm in more than 20 countries, and it believes the worm will follow smallpox – which was wiped out in the late 1970s – as the next disease to be eradicated from the human population.

But Carter staff members say ending the disease in Southern Sudan may prove the most difficult, because of how remote the remaining endemic areas are and the fact that the worm is found in semi-nomadic pastoralists who have little education and low sanitation standards.

Another complicating factor: Southern Sudan is scheduled to hold an independence referendum Jan. 9, a vote that is likely to lead to separation from the Khartoum-based north. The process has been peaceful so far, but any conflict that arises would derail eradication efforts.

As Carter put it: "War and good health are incompatible."

"There's no way we can go into an area that is at war," he said.

Although the Carter Center has been fighting guinea worm in Sudan since 1994, its efforts only made significant headway following the signing of a 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of north-south civil war.

The 20 years of fighting prevented the Carter Center and other authorities like the World Health Organization from conducting a comprehensive assessment of guinea worm here until 2006. Since then, eradication programs have reduced the number of yearly cases by about 90 percent.

The few remaining cases exist in off-the-map places. In many sites, the Carter Center is the only outside presence – no other international or Sudanese organizations have set up shop. Even a government presence is rare.

"We are in the most remote places because that's where the guinea worm is," said Doug Tuttle, 31, a technical adviser with the Carter Center who lives in a tent in the village of Abuyong. He oversees a staff of paid field officers and guinea worm volunteers whom he visits on his motorcycle or by walking anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours.

Reaching Abuyong requires abandoning the dirt road for a narrow path hacked through dense woods that was only forged after the Carter Center moved in. On a recent bone-rattling ride to Abuyong in the center's hulking, Russian-made truck, the vehicle forded flooded ravines as the occasional baboon scampered away.

At the picturesque pond outside Abuyong, Makoy explains to the women that if someone enters the pond with a guinea worm hanging out of a blister, the worm will dump larvae that will mate with the white worm-like creatures – copepods – and render the pond endemic with guinea worm.

Makoy doesn't use the words "endemic" or "copepods" with the women. His aim is to deliver a more pragmatic message: that filtering water is the key way to avoid contracting the disease.

"This work requires a passion inside you to keep you going day after day. Even if you must repeat the same things 100 times to the same person – education, education, education," said Makoy, who works for the Southern Sudanese government's Ministry of Health and has collaborated with the Carter Center since 1996.

Makoy hands both women mesh filters and explains how to use them. Then he repeats a message he has delivered thousands of times – that even one person with a hanging worm who enters a water source can trigger scores of cases in the next transmission season, roughly a year after someone drinks tainted water.

Change is difficult here. As someone who comes from a pastoralist tribe, Makoy knows that cattle herders on the move don't think twice about drinking from a brown puddle. In a place like Abuyong, where the few water hand pumps each cost thousands of dollars because water lies so deep under ground, accessing any water – infected or clean – is a blessing.

By January, the cattle camp next to Abuyong will have cleared out and the large pond dry. The 500-plus cattle and their keepers will move to the Nile River, where they will remain for the blisteringly hot dry season.

It won't be until May that some begin to notice red puffy blisters developing on their legs and feet, the sign of a soon-to-emerge guinea worm.

That's what 7-year-old Ajak Kuol Nyamchiek had to deal with a couple weeks ago as a worm exited her foot at a Carter Center clinic in Abuyong, where worm victims stay while the worms make their painful exits. Nurse John Lotiki slowly pulled the thin, white worm out of the girl as Ajak looked on with pain – and appreciation.

Pulling a worm out is a weekslong process of rolling out the worm by coiling it on a pinkie-length stick, about an inch (2.5 centimeters) a day. Aside from surgery, this centuries-old extraction method is the only way the guinea worm can be removed safely.

Carter, whose center began working in Sudan in 1987, said he knows the people appreciate the work his team does.

"They know we're working for freedom and they know we're working for peace," Carter said. "And they know that we are there to end the plight of diseases that they should not still have." The Huffington Post

Twitter Updates – Follow Good News for Isla on Twitter.

RSS Subscription – Subscribe to Good News for Isla via RSS in a reader.

Email Updates – Sign up for email updates

Day 78: Super Powers

What kid doesn't dream of being a superhero with super powers?  Super powers can help you escape from your pesky little brother.  To travel to a castle in a far away land.   Fly.  See through walls.  Rescue your friend from the grips of a bully.  The possibilities are endless.

Amy Pankratz may have seen the healing power a superhero can possess, as well.  What started as a gift for her daughter, has become a job fit for someone with super-sewing-powers.    During a hospital stay, her daughter let other children borrow her cape.  Those sick children began to fly through the halls, forgetting at that moment the fatigue and pain.  What a gift, to be able to forget your current circumstance, even just briefly, and fly.  Here is Amy's story, found on Yahoo's Top 10 Inspiring Acts of 2010.  

The catalyst: Are superheroes for real? Amy Pankratz just might qualify.

Like many superheroes, the stay-at-home mother from Sioux Falls, South Dakota,  discovered her powers by accident. One cold winter day, her then four-year-old daughter Isabella said, "Mommy, I want a superhero cape."  Pankratz says, "I told her OK." But then she couldn't find capes for little girls at the store, so she sewed her own.

Months later, when Isabella fell ill with a double virus and had to be hospitalized, the power of the cape multiplied and transformed into Wonder Capes.

The act: During a brief hospital stay, her daughter begged Pankratz to pack her pink princess cape. "On the third day, Isabella asked if she could flit into the hallway with her cape. And to us, that means skip." Pankratz says. Kids with IV poles watched in awe. "That's when Isabella put the cape on another hospitalized child." Every other pediatric patient on that hospital floor wanted to soar through the halls. Pankratz started creating, sewing, and donating customized superhero capes: more than 4,000 and counting.

The mother of three powers through her days juggling schedules, taking her "love bugs" to preschool and kindergarten, and checking off routine to-dos from her lengthy list. By night she sews capes. After the kids are tucked in, you can hear her secret weapon –- her Brother sewing machine -- whirring away.

Bolts of cheery, bright fabric (animal, floral, and polka-dot patterns) line one wall of her sewing room. It takes Pankratz three or four hours to customize a cape, and she considers each child and gives their capes a special blessing. "I read their stories, think about them, their hobbies, favorite colors; I pray over them," she says. "If, even for a moment, the cape brings some relief, comfort, and hope to them, it's worth it," she says.

It has for many. One parent who lost her 4-year-old daughter to cancer took the time to send a heartfelt email to Pankratz: "Her cape was the one constant in her life. It was her security, and honestly, our security too. We are so grateful for someone like you; we felt your prayers in her cape."

Five-year-old Brooke Mulford is fighting stage-four, high-risk neuroblastoma, childhood cancer of the nervous system. Countless procedures -- chemotherapy, harvesting stem cells, radiation, clinical trials -- have become routine. In a pink cape and special floral-designed hearing aids, Brooke says, "It makes me brave." Her mother, Amy Mulford, says she's witnessed the power of the cape. "It gives her strength. Always at the hospital, she would pull her blanket up, and she would have the cape running on top of it, so she was pretending being protected by her cape."

The ripple: Supermom Pankratz has sparked others' hidden powers to think about what they could do to give.

The Wonder Capes project inspired Angie Kappenman, a mother from Madison, South Dakota. "The cape made [my son] Nicholas feel strong. He would fly through the hospital halls to receive his treatments. He would be tired from the treatments, but when he puts it on, he gets his energy and truly believes he is a superhero," says Kappenman. The cape inspired the Kappenhams' backpack donation program, Stay Strong, Carry On, at the local hospital. The backpacks include coloring books, toys, and activities and can be used as organizational tool for the formidable amount of hospital paperwork.

A mother-daughter duo, Art-Moms, is teaming up with Pankratz to make superhero keychains for their Together We Can All Make a Difference campaign. One hundred percent of proceeds will go to childhood cancer research.

Church and community members were also inspired to ride the ripple. Extra fabric scraps are donated to a local church group and are used to make quilts for the homeless.

In Norway, Olea's Cupcakes joined forces with Pankratz to whip up a Cupcakes for a Cure benefit. Proceeds will go to a local hospital. Other partnerships are in the works: The Make-A-Wish Foundation, Children's Miracle Network, and St. Baldrick's Hospital are teaming up with the supermom to give her special capes to sick, injured, or disabled children and their siblings around the world.

Donate a cape.

Twitter Updates – Follow Good News for Isla on Twitter.

RSS Subscription – Subscribe to Good News for Isla via RSS in a reader.

Email Updates – Sign up for email updates