Alter Eco Dark Blackout Organic Chocolate 2.82Oz Bar

(Price issues aside..) The bar has a good snap, melts well (especially for an 85% bar), with notes of red fruit (similar to other Ecuadorian chocolate I’ve tried) that add character but don’t overpower the delicious chocolaty taste. Outstanding for the lack of bitterness for such a dark bar, it pairs well with coffee and red wine such as cabernet sauvignon. The Alter Eco website has nice graphics showing tasting notes for each of for their bars, and also a pdf with nutritional info that’s handy for quick comparisons. The Blackout bar is notable for its low sugar (6 g per serving), decent protein (3 g), and very high iron (39% of daily value) and fiber (19% dv) content.In addition to being organic and fair trade certified, Alter Eco is carbon-neutral and aims to be carbon-positive eventually by planting trees through the Pur project. Overall, this product fully deserves 5/5 gold stars for quality of the product and also 5/5 green stars based on the social-ethical-environmental aspects of producing it.There can be a huge difference in impact between buying chocolate that is fair trade certified and that which is not. Fair Trade chocolate ensure that workers get a fair wage and also supports the community in which the cacao is grown. Cheaper chocolate (like Reese’s) may come at the price of a very poor standard of life for workers, and even child slavery. Nestle and Hershey have issued statements that their cacao will be child-slavery-free by 2020 while other companies such as Alter Eco and Equal Exchange can ensure that today.Organic certification is important for chocolate since more pesticide is used to grow conventional cacao than almost any other crop. For example, lindane (a neurotoxic organochlorine pesticide that bioaccumulates through the food chain) is commonly used on Cacao and has been detected in many conventional chocolate bars. Besides the risk to the consumer, conventional (non-organic, non-shade-grown) cacao farming can be very bad news for tropical rainforests and the local wildlife.