The truth about how cocoa beans are grown, harvested and sold can make a box of Valentine's Day chocolates a guilty pleasure–regardless of calories:

• 90 percent of the world's cocoa–the main ingredient in our favorite indulgence–comes from farms of 12 acres or less, mostly in poor Third World countries in West Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America
• 200,000 children in West Africa alone are sold into slavery to work on cocoa farms, according to the United Nations Children's Fund
• Family farms scrape by on about $30-$110 per family member per year–the kids, working alongside their parents, rarely attend school
• Tens of thousands of child laborers on West African cocoa farms work in dangerous conditions, clearing fields with machetes and applying pesticides. No one has been looking out for these children or their families–until the past few years.

But today, thanks to a loose coalition of international, largely nongovernmental organizations, the lives of many cocoa farmers are beginning to improve. The tasty twist is that these improvements are being financed through the sale of "fair trade" chocolate–and not just any chocolate. The products whose sales are easing the burden of these farmers contain a higher percentage of cocoa than that of better-known rivals, giving them a seductively rich flavor. (See "Our Picks," p. 54.)