[YRP Students' Essays] Calling for Chocolate - Projects

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[YRP Students' Essays] Calling for Chocolate

I love chocolate. I cannot live without chocolate. If cacao beans disappeared from the earth, my life would be in danger. Every time I visit a foreign country, I buy a lot of chocolate just for myself. When I went to Los Angels this summer, I bought many kinds of chocolate.

I think almost all people love chocolate, because it is very sweet and tasty. In America, some families often prepare M&M's in the house for visitors and for themselves. Maybe it's because most people like or love M&M's and it's an easy way to welcome visitors.

There are so many kinds of chocolate in the world. This could be because people love chocolate and they want new kinds. There are many kinds of chocolate in Japan. Children love it, adults love it, aged people love it. It seems like cacao is so popular that a farm could be anywhere near us, but we have never seen a cacao farm!

If we eat a lot of chocolate we will get fat. Fat is one of the most detestable enemies for women. So women try to lose weight to show their slender style. Men also try to lose weight! It is because people eat too much. In advanced nations and some developing nations, people eat until their stomachs get full. I love to eat too. I love to drink, I especially love to drink soda pop and to eat sweets. Almost all women love to eat and drink just like me. There are so many kinds of diet food in the world, and also there are many kinds of exercise to lose weight.

Eat a lot and move a lot. This is the best way to health. People often try to quit eating chocolate when they are on a diet. It is because chocolate has a lot of calories, but the reason they need to diet is that they have eaten too much chocolate. Fat people often try to reduce their weight for their own health! Their excess fat has been stocked up by their overeating. That is outrageous!!!

In Ghana, there are so many cacao farms. People might think that those who grow cacao love chocolate. However, it is not true. The reason that they grow cacao is that they have great growing conditions, such as temperature, weather, land and a low wage, that's it!! Most cacao farmers have never eaten chocolate and they will probably never eat chocolate. It is because they do not have enough money to buy chocolate from foreign countries. Cacao is just a staple food, so they cannot earn big money from it. Chocolate is processed in foreign countries that are richer than Ghana. If a cacao farmer bought chocolate from those countries, it would cost more than twice the regular price. This is why cacao farmers have never eaten chocolate. Chocolate is too expensive for staple food farmers.

We eat chocolate made from cacao that was grown by the farmers who have never eaten chocolate. I think it is important that the maker, cook and farmer taste the stuff that they grow. In some poor developing nations, skinny children make a long line to get a few meals from volunteers. There are many reasons why innocent people are afraid of hunger. On the earth, many people are trying to lose weight, while many people are dying from hunger. Many trees are cut down by large machines with no emotion while other people forest many trees step by step. In some developing nations, people destroy very important forests to sell the trees to the richer countries that already have many trees.

21 children and 7 adults die every minute from hunger. Too many people die in cacao exporting countries. Cacao is the raw material of chocolate that we eat between meals. We eat chocolate vainly even though we have enough food. Not only with cacao, the same problem happens in other poor countries. The economy differential makes it impossible for cacao farmers to eat chocolate, and also results in starvation. We study about starvation a little in school, but we waste many foods.

Before we bite a piece of chocolate, we have to think about the material. Where is the material from? Who grew the material? If the people who grew the material had children who died of hunger, and the people have almost no money to buy enough food to live, even though they are growing the material to eat, what must we do for them? There are many ways that we can save dying lives. We can do many things for people who are dying before we eat unnecessary food or sweets.

We Japanese have to see and know what is happening in the world. We live in such a safe and rich country and must save our earth and future.
Look around you. Where are the cacao farms?


Child Research Net would like to thank the Doshisha International Junior/Senior High School and Kie Takashima, student and author, for permitting reproduction of this article on the CRN web site.

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