Chocolate, Virtuous Chocolate
Despite all those authoritative warnings about cutting rich foods from our diets for our health's sake, nearly every American still cherishes two days on which self-indulgence is not only permitted, but expected.
What Thanksgiving is to turkey and all the trimmings, Valentine's Day is to chocolate and a good thing, too. Or at least so I believe, because I love chocolate. Which, I'm told by a generally reliable source (the radio-physics expert who works upstairs in Elvey is very, very smart, believe me), is the correct reaction, because ingesting chocolate releases chemicals in the brain identical to those produced by falling in love.
I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but we chocoholics are always keen to share good news about our favorite substance. Thus, I share the results of some research reported in the British journal New Scientist.
The British take their chocolate seriously, not only as civilized people who appreciate the finer things, but also as the folks who formalized capitalism. Chocolate is big business, and so the British research establishment has recently committed the equivalent of $6 million to investigating the genetics of cacao trees, the source for cocoa pods and thus the mother of all chocolate.
Now, one serious problem confronting cocoa farmers and hence the chocolate industry in general is that humans aren't the only organisms deliriously fond of the stuff. Apparently, nearly a third of all cocoa pods grown never even make it to harvest; they get gobbled up right off the tree by rats and squirrels.
It turns out that these rodents like cocoa pods that ripen with hard, crunchy walls. (Wait, I think there's a slogan here: "Melts in your mouth, not on your paws." Something like that). Anyway, this result surprised the scientists of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad who did the study, because most mammals prefer soft fruit. Since the fruit of cacao trees hardens as it ripens, it could be that the rodents simply had learned that the best food likely was to be found within the crunchiest shells. The cocoa farmers were not likely to want to grow squishy-shelled pods simply to foil rodents, so the scientists needed to find another way to discourage the four-footed pod pickers.
Patiently observing finicky squirrels pick and choose among cocoa pods, the researchers were able to gather up and analyze some ripe pods the furry thieves rejected. Eventually they were able to grow a cacao tree with pods that squirrels and rats will not touch.
By means of vegetative propagation---that is, no messing about with the random variation accompanying seed-making---the West Indies group now has a clone of cacao trees immune to rodents. The effect, they report, seems to be due to an odor undetectable to human noses but repellent to rodent olfactories.
I'm rather taken with the image of scattering chocolate bonbons among the sunflower seeds to keep squirrels out of the bird feeder; at least it makes a good excuse to explain buying quantities of candy. The possible ramifications of other findings from the Trinidad work conjure up images that are maybe not so pleasant, however. You see, in attempting to identify the substance responsible for repelling rodents, the scientists found another useful and naturally occurring chemical. It's an antibiotic that develops in ripe cocoa pods that is particularly effective against some kinds of fungus. The immediate benefit of this is to confer disease resistance to the cacao trees that are well-endowed with the antibiotic. But a possible secondary benefit . . . Well, consider that humans too are plagued by some fungal diseases. Athletes foot, for example. Maybe soon the appropriate Valentine's Day gift will be hand-knit chocolate socks.
