Where I get my food from is extremely important to me. That translates to effort on my part to find things that I can feel good about in my kitchen.
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What you see here is the result of my latest bout of research. The cacao beans at the bottom are organic and come from a co-operative of farmers in Nicaragua. The solid-looking stuff at the top is cacao liquor (fermented, roasted and ground nibs) from family-run farms in Ecuador.
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It’s not been easy for me to find ‘transparent’ cacao; cacao where I can see the growers, the makers, the co-operatives. I am just little me in my apartment kitchen, I’m not an expert and I can’t buy 75kg bags of beans (the normal size of a bag of cacao!). But I care about it *greatly*.
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What’s most exciting about these two cacao options (which I’ll use to make ancestral drinks and 100% cacao chocolate for my family) is that I can buy them in smaller packages (yes!) and also the top one, the liquor, was processed in country, not by a company in the US or Amsterdam. The more value-added processes that can be done by the communities who grow the produce, the more wealth stays where it should; with the experts and the ones who work hard to produce the product.
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I’d love for everyone to buy their chocolate like this.
![](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/185409081_1119503551886745_6723085307755504244_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=8ae9d6&_nc_ohc=Mj7qjIhjxJ8AX9KuA4C&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&oh=7ee2fd6467b1e8d40a61fc166d73e6f4&oe=60C27793)