Wow! What a pleasure to be featured on NOTCOT.COM, not kidding, NOTCOT is one of our absolute favorite websites.
It wouldn’t be hard to spend an enjoyable vacation digging through their rich blog archives. In the pantheon of cool culture blogs, NOTCOT is one the the best, one of the most viewed, and most consistent. Jean and her staff are amazing writers and, clearly, they have impeccable taste
They did a truly lovely photo display of our chocolate and some of our kitschy promotional swag, check out a few of the images
Many of you have been kind enough to participate in our Giving program this year and years past. For those unfamiliar, Fearless devotes a percentage of its annual profit to changemaking individuals and organizations suggested by our customers.
Essentially, you might purchase a Fearless bar in a store or on our webstore and, with the product code printed on the inner-wrap, you write to us through the Giving section of our website about the changemaker you believe in. Each december we contact those who have made contributions to collaboratively vote on who gets this year’s FEARLESS Grant.
This holiday season we’re soft-launching a new program to recognize Fearless Individuals and Organizations on a year round basis. People write to us about the people who inspire them all the time and we often try to track down these amazing individuals to send them a nice chocolate bar and a short letter that says “Thank you, for being you” in so many words.
And this holiday season we’re upping (is that a word?) the ante. We’ve developed this FEARLESS Award and we want you to help us give them out…
This frame worthy certificate commemorates outstanding people/organiztions and their inspiring work. From now on all worthy changemakers who are submitted are eligible for the Fearless Award. Those awarded will also get to vote on who receives the Fearless Grant at the end of each year.
One of our wonderful customers sent us an amazing article this week that I just have to share. Its a short read telling the inspiring story of Eric Fair on Good.Is. Once a homeless addict, Eric now runs as a way of turning around his life.
“I think a lot about my past,” Fair says. “But that’s the most peaceful time that I have, when I’m running. I’m in another world.”
Eric was introduced to running by an organization called Back On My Feet, an innovative non-profit organization that promotes the self-sufficiency of homeless populations by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem. Wow. Simply brilliant.
The circumstances of homelessness come in all shapes and sizes yet the psychological effects are often similar. While some programs honorably seek to provide the basic necessities of food and shelter, I see Back On My Feet as a rare program addressing those personal challenges which so often portend to be insurmountable obstacles for change. Members like Eric participate in a comprehensive program that offers connections to job training, employment and housing. These benefits are earned by maintaining 90 percent attendance at the morning runs three days a week for our six to nine month program.
We get to hear about amazing programs like Back On My Feet through our giving program where our customers collaborate with us to suggest and annually vote on changemakers that FEARLESS will support with a gift of chocolate and portion of yearly earnings. We gather these stories throughout the year and each December we invite those who have made suggestions to vote among us choosing a single champion to offer our primary support.
If you know of an amazing changemaking individual or organization and you’ve purchased a FEARLESS chocolate bar please write us about it through the Giving section of our website.
An article posted today on Tree Hugger surmised that we may very well indeed be entering a period of cacao scarcity in coming decades, which is a good reason to start stocking up on Fearless Chocolate NOW!
While we do work very hard with our suppliers to ensure that our bean sourcing is managed sustainably, it’s entirely possible that all of the climate change deniers about to take office in the house could have a previously unforeseen effect on our favorite food. Luckily our bars are “shelf-stable” i.e. “last” for 2 years from their production date, so we have bought ourselves a little time in that department
Food is a drug. This is point I’ve often made in many discussions regarding nutrition. Each bite of food contains chemical information that can affect our bodies in myriad ways, albeit some more dramatic than others.
THIS article explores how the foods we eat often leave digestive remainders which mirror or mimic the neurotransmitters in our brain:
The chemicals in the food that you eat will only act upon your brain if in some way those chemicals resemble an actual neurotransmitter or otherwise interact with a biochemical process in your brain that influences the production, release, or inactivation of a neurotransmitter. These “active†ingredients deserve close scrutiny.
How is it possible that plants and humans use such similar chemicals for normal, everyday functions? Plants produce chemicals that are capable of affecting our brain because they share an evolutionary history with us on this planet. Even primitive one-celled organisms produce many of the same chemicals that are in our brains.
Also, the last word in the article is “chocolate”, so that got our attention
THIS article explains some of the basic principles of molecular gastronomy within one scientists study of reproducing the orange flavor (one of natures most distinct flavors) using foods that are not actually oranges:
“Orange is quite difficult to make,†Lahousse told me. “First we said, ‘Which are the flavor components? What are the key odorants? What other products could we use to replace those key odorants? What products do we have locally to recreate the orange?’†This may sound like conceptual cooking, but bioengineering an orange was not a theoretical project. Lahousse says it’s possible to replicate some of the flavor-packing that OJ makers do in the confines of your own home.
