It’s a little lame, but I love advent calendars. Especially chocolate advent calendars so I was delighted when I found this Divine 70% dark chocolate fair trade (that’s a mouthful!) advent calender in Wholefoods in London.
The calender only contains 85g of chocolate so spread out over 24 days I won’t be eating much refined sugar at all. It’s a good option if you don’t want to binge on too much sugar, and you can always share.
Each day up until Christmas opens up to a small heart shape 70% dark chocolate with a Christmas message. I would have preferred a different Christmas themed shape on each day, but the heart is my favorite chocolate shape so I’m not complaining.
Why Divine chocolate is better
It’s not that Divine chocolate is healthier, because it isn’t - it still contains refined sugar. It’s better because they’re one of the few fair trade chocolate manufacturers.
What does that mean?
It means that when Divine buys the cacao bean off the farmers in Ghana, West Africa, they offer them a fair and reliable price which means the farmers can plan for a better future. And the cooperative in Africa co-owns the cacao farms with Divine which means they can equally share in the profits too. So each Divine product that you buy, is helping the cacao farmers in West Africa.
With the money recieved in profits, the farmers can sink water wells, build schools, arrange healthcare and fund other real improvements to their living standards. The kind of stuff we take for granted in the developed world.
When I was reading up about Divine today on their website and looking at the pictures of the village and the farmers, it made me stop and think how self centered and vain I can sometimes be worrying about every tiny blackhead or minute mark on my skin. It’s a huge world out there and I’m very lucky to have what I have. Today I’m very grateful for loving organizations like Divine popping up who are inspired enough to go that one step further and reach out and help others instead of just helping themselves.
Wow, that’s a very Christmas moment. I guess the advent calendar has done it’s job!
Next time you’re browsing the chocolate aisle in Wholefoods or your local health store, check out Divine if it’s in store. Even if you don’t care about the ethical stuff, it’s one tasty chocolate! (But buy the dark, it’s not as bad for your health ..)
Fran Kerr is the founding editor of High on Health. To cure your acne, sign up to Fran's FREE acne cure mini-course or download her latest how to guide, Eat Away Your Acne.
3 responses ↓
Thanks for that Fran, my daughter was just saying yesterday how she hasn’t got an advent calendar yet - she is 16 though! I’ll have to keep a look out for these and both she and I prefer dark 70% chocolate anyway so this sound like a real find.
the thing you said about being self centered is kinda ironic because today i saw this video about the universe and how incredible huge it is and the fact that we are so tiny kinda makes me stop and think, should i really be worried about how look each and every second of the day? no! there are issues and causes so much bigger that me and my little pimple i have on my face
Nice article.Its different from your usual niche of skincare products.Its great to know you have ethical views on even chocolate.
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