Munchie Mondays!

I am devoting all of today to food, partly because I'm sitting here kind of craving a chocolate bar or something sweet. Or as 50 cent tells me in one of his songs, he loves me like a fat kid loves cake! Forget 50 cent, I just want the cake!

Xango
You know the old adage that says if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. Well have I got a product for you! Xango is a fruit juice company that bottles the juice of the Mangosteen fruit found in Malaysia. At $40 for a 750 milliliter bottle you'd expect this juice to cure cancer or something. Its big selling point is all about the antioxidants that are present in the juice to kill all them terrorizin free radicals.

I have not tried the juice, but at $40 a pop I don't think I will be doing it anytime soon. In lab studies, Xango contains about the same amount of antioxidants as cranberry juice but only half of that found in blueberry juice. I'm a big believe in killin them free radicals, but I believe that the power of the fruits come in the fruit themselves, not the processed and refined juices that most people consume. Pass me an orange...

Chocolate Room
The chocolatier Godiva is offering up a stay in an all chocolate room this Valentines day. For only $23 dollars or more you can buy a shot at winning a chance to spend a weekend in the all chocolate room in May. This really is a chocoholic (or a fat kid who likes cake) dream come true. Books do not contain words, but mounds of chocolate, chandelier and candles are all made of chocolate, even the artwork is edible. Sorry though, any thoughts of a romantic night by the fireplace (included) is off limits. The logs and mantle work are all made of chocolate.
The promotion is limited to just North America, so I apologize for all the international folks that were hoping for a chance at this. But hey, you still have Hershey Bars, oh wait, they are raising their prices by 13% this year...scratch that.

Bananas and the Caribbean

And finally I end with Dominica yet again. If you are unfamiliar with Dominica the economy of late has been decimated by the collapse of the banana industry. The short end of the story is that Chiquita (the US Banana company) decided that the small Caribbean banana market imposed on free trade laws.

Dominica and other small banana growing nations enjoyed preferential trading agreements with the EU and this provided a steady income for the majority of the population. I believe (I may be wrong) that around 2004-2005 the ruling was passed that the EU trading practice ran against the laws of the WTO and therefore the banana industry must be brought under the free trade agreements. This essentially allowed the industrial agriculture plantations on mainland central and south America to destroy, literally overnight, the banana industry on Dominica and in the Windward islands.

The latest appeal by the EU has failed and the EU is running out of options as it looks to maintain it tarrif policy and preferential trading agreements with the Caribbean. The damage is largely done however and unemployment on Dominica skyrocketed and the island is still trying to recover from this latest economic shock. It is unfortunate that the small farmers that free trade was "supposed" to help are the ones that suffer the most from the subsidized industrial farm machine. In a way you can blame the cheap Chiquita banana for bringing the possible oil refinery. Is it me or does this banana taste like gasoline?
Cheers