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GOURMET NEWS www.gourmetnews.com n JANUARY 2018 n GOURMET NEWS 1 1 2 Loving Earth Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Grows Independence for Peruvian Communities By Lorrie Baumann Loving Earth is a brand of bean-to-bar chocolate that's built around the idea that its products should be healthy, sustainable and fair. All of the company's chocolate bars are made in small batches using cacao sourced in indigenous communities who make their homes in the Peruvian headwaters of the Amazon basin. Growing cacao is part of the cultural her- itage of communities that have been terror- ized by Shining Path, a guerrilla group known for trafficking coca obtained by the forced labor of indigenous communities and ultimately processed into cocaine for sale on the world market. Giving the people of the Ashaninka community a market for cacao will also give them the ability to sup- port themselves without being forced to grow coca, according to Scott Fry, Loving Earth Managing Director and co-Founder along with his partner, Martha Butler. Lov- ing Earth has helped the Ashaninka estab- lish a certified organic cooperative and has committed to buy all of the enterprise's cacao at a fair trade price that's significantly higher than they'd been able to get locally in Peru. "They produced 10 tons the first year, second year 40 tons, this year hoping to get 75 tons," Fry said. "We're hoping to get to 200 tons in a few years, and at that point, they'll be self-sufficient and have a financially viable enterprise. They'll be able to have enough cash flow, based on projec- tions we've done. You need a certain level of scale to be able to run an operation like that." Fry and Butler began making bean-to-bar chocolate bars in 2007, working in their home in Melbourne, Australia, making the bars and wrapping them by hand. From the beginning, demand for their bars outstripped supply, and the enterprise quickly outgrew that apartment kitchen. Fry has been sourcing cacao in Peru for the past decade, but four years ago, he be- came involved with Rainforest Foundation UK, which was involved with helping in- digenous communities in Peru establish land rights as a first step towards establishing a local economy that could provide the kind of self-sufficiency that would allow them to make their own decisions about the crops they'd cultivate. "Their funding has run out over the last couple of years, producing new pressure to generate a source of income for the community," Fry said. With its funding in jeopardy, the organ- ization was looking for a partner to help the Ashaninka community figure out how to turn the cacao they already knew how to grow into a product that could be marketed internationally. "They'd been selling cacao locally, not getting a good price, quality not good," Fry said. "We pay a signifi- cantly higher price than they would get lo- cally." "We make chocolate out of the cacao beans, bean to bar, process the beans and make it into chocolate. We don't roast the beans because the beans are quite a special heirloom variety and they have a wonderful flavor profile. This also maintains the an- tioxidants and nutrients with all the aro- matic complexity of the natural cacao," he added. "We sweeten it with coconut nectar, or coconut sugar, produced in Java, Indone- sia, which harvests the nectar from coconut trees and processes it into coconut sugar." The result of that process is a unique chocolate with a complex flavor profile that blends perfectly with the caramel flavor of the coconut sugar to make a whole food plant-based bar. Loving Earth produces the bars in several flavors: 85% Dark, 72% Dark Chocolate, Crunchy Mint Dark Chocolate, Creamy Coconut Mylk Chocolate, Rasp- berry Cashew Mylk Chocolate, Lemon Cheesecake Caramel Chocolate, Salted Caramel Chocolate, Turkish Delight Choco- late and Berry Crunch Hazelnut Mylk Chocolate. None of the bars includes dairy or cane sugar, and they're all certified or- ganic and non-GMO, gluten and soy free and raw. "We use the nuts rather than dairy, with the nuts ground into the chocolate to approx- imate a milk chocolate, except without the dairy," Fry said. "We call ourselves a 360 degree brand. We look at every aspect of the product. com- postable packaging, post-consumer recycled packaging," he added. "We aspire to look at every aspect of the product in terms of mak- ing it sustainable, ethical beautiful and deli- cious." Scientists Studying Health Promoting Potential of Mangos According to a comprehensive review of the available scientific literature published in the May issue of Food & Function magazine, mangos and their individual components have anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative properties, which may help to reduce risk for chronic disease. In addition to being associ- ated with better nutrient intake and diet qual- ity, research suggests eating mangos may be important for glycemic control, the micro- biome, as well as vascular, brain, skin and intestinal health. Mangos contribute a number of valuable nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin A, and fiber for only 100 calories per one cup serving. Mangos are also a source of phyto- chemicals – including phenolic acids, mangiferin, carotenoids, and gallotannins – which are associated with a number of health promoting activities including anti-inflam- mation, antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-obe- sity and anti-cancer. "Not only are mangos one of the popular fruits in the world, they contain a variety of essential nutrients and distinctive bioac- tive components that may play a role in supporting key metabolic functions includ- ing anti-inflammatory activity," said Britt M. Burton-Freeman, PhD, MS, of the Cen- ter for Nutrition Research, Institute for Food Safety and Health, Illinois Institute of Technology, and lead author of the paper. Obesity and Diabetes Over the past two decades, the prevalence of obesity and diabetes has increased sharply; diet plays a critical role in reducing risk of both outcomes. Seven human trials, in which mango fruit or puree was fed to individuals, have measured obesity or diabetes endpoints; five studies looked at people with type 2 di- abetes, and two studies looked at people who were obese or generally healthy. Collec- tively, research suggests that mango con- sumption may modulate glucose response in people with diabetes mellitus. Less well un- derstood is the impact of mango consump- tion on those at risk for diabetes, and further research is warranted. Although the effects in humans are not known, in animal studies, mango supple- mentation was observed to reduce important risk factors of cardiovascular disease and di- abetes, such as total cholesterol (TC), TC to high density cholesterol (HDL) ratio, triglyc- erides (TG) and glucose concentrations. In addition, in one study, daily intake of mango favorably modulated the gut bacteria of ani- mals in favor of bacteria that have been as- sociated with reduced obesity and improved metabolic outcomes. While animal studies report mangos may support glycemic con- trol, further research particularly in well- characterized human populations with pre-diabetes will be important for revealing the health value of mangos in diabetes con- trol. Cardiovascular Disease Obesity and diabetes contribute to cardiovas- cular disease, which accounts for 17.5 mil- lion deaths per year, or 31 percent of all deaths globally. Mango phytochemicals and other components, such as fiber and organic acids, may play a role in cardiovascular health. Brain Health Collectively, data from animal studies sug- gest that compounds in mangos may support brain health, given the potential neuroprotec- tive activities of mango's components, in- cluding mangiferin and gallotannin, and their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. While no human data are currently available on the topic, one study on tests done in the laboratory showed that mango extracts inhib- ited amyloid beta peptide-induced mitochon- drial toxicity in rat brain cells; mitochondrial toxicity may lead to mitochondrial dysfunc- tion, which is an early event in the pathogen- esis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although the effects in humans are not known, animal studies suggest that mango intake may im- prove memory based on improvements in cognitive performance in models of cogni- tive impairment. Old Fashioned Cola Peanuts Discovering regional food flavors has been a popular trend and food- ies all around the country continue to search for those unique flavors and tastes that define a region. Putting peanuts into an ice cold bottle of cola is no ex- ception. From Texas to the Carolinas, people have been partakers in this sweet, salty tradition for generations. Combining the sweet, ice-cold good- ness of the cola with the salty crunch of peanuts is a practice that brings back fond memories for Southerners of all ages. The Virginia Diner has tried to reproduce this flavor by introducing Old Fashioned Cola Peanuts. They are Virginia Diner's fa- mous super extra large Vir- ginia peanuts with a salted cola flavor, packaged in a can decorated with one of Nor- man Rockwell's most famous paintings. The result cele- brates the history of this re- gional flavor with the hope of inspiring a new generation to the sweet and salty goodness of cola and peanuts. For more information, call 888.823.4637 or go to www.vadiner.com. Meat Sticks to Save Virginia Family Farms Landcrafted Food is a new brand of smoked meat sticks offered by founders Gary Mitchell and Brantley Ivey, who are raising cattle in Grayson County, Virginia. They've been in the business of supplying fresh beef to Washington, D.C. restaurateurs for the past decade, and the new meat sticks, offered in two flavors — Original Smoked Beef Stick and Sweet Smoked Beef Stick — are a new venture in vertical integration of their grass-fed cattle farming operations. They're buying humanely-raised grass-fed cattle for a premium price from their neigh- boring small family farmers and turning the meat into premium meat snacks in a new fa- cility on their farm. The premium prices they're paying for beef that's raised accord- ing to their quality stan- dards are an im- portant means of providing extra income to help those farm- ers stay afloat when commodity beef prices have slid to the low points of cyclic price swings. For more information, go to www.land craftedfood.com.

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