Genetically Manipulating Cocoa: Is Chocolate Born That Way, Or Is It Raised To Taste Good?

The fine, fine folks over at Mars (makers of such happiness devices like M&Ms and Snickers) have decided that Cocoa, in its native form, just isn't good enough. No, they want more of it and better versions of it. Being a person that finds most chocolate to be absolutely wonderful (although I rarely eat it anymore… a gurl does have her figure to worry about), I'm not sure I can fathom a better chocolate, but Mars thinks its absolutely a possibility.

So much so that they've teamed with U.S. Department of Agriculture and I.B.M computers to completely map the cocoa genome in hopes of finding out what makes it tick. They want to find ways of making more cocoa, but most importantly, they want to enhance the natural flavors of the cocoa to make a better chocolate. And who can blame them?

While the Whole-Foods Shoppers of the world, who probably crying at this point and arrogantly purchasing over-priced "organic" foods to show their superiority, are sure not to buy into genetically manipulated cocoa, it sounds like nothing but delicious to me! The only thing I'm worried about is if they find the gene that makes some cocoa, you know, "that way," will they wipe out the naturally fabulous strain?

If you're interested in the study and its progress, you can track it over at the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture. For the rest of us, we can expect to start seeing results from this research in about five years.

A Genetic Quest for Better Chocolate [NY Times]