SG Atlantis Light ([info]sgatlantislight) wrote,
2007-04-20 12:45:00

Chocolate

In the worldwide scheme of things, not a big issue, but the Grocery Manufacturers Association has petitioned the FDA to loosen its standards on what is considered chocolate, to include vegetable oils in the place of cocoa butter and milk proteins in place of milk in milk chocolate. The FDA is taking public comments only until April 25, 2007.

Here's a news article from the Seattle Times: http://tinyurl.com/2xd6yu

http://DontMessWithOurChocolate.com is website devoted to keeping chocolate standards high (note, it's run by Guittard Chocolate Company, not a comsumer group).

And http://tinyurl.com/38d35c is the FDA site where you can comment on the petition.

I'm including the tinyurls I created, so if you want to email this to folks, you don't have to deal with URLs splitting in the middle (the FDA site URL is especially huge).
Tags: political idiocy, real life, recipes

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  • 8 comments

[info]westdean

April 20 2007, 17:23:24 UTC 5 years ago

This is interesting - the use of vegetable oils and milk protein is quite common in brands of chocolate in Britain. Hated by purists but it gives a different flavour to chocolate and allows the creation of some original chocolate products.
I like both - the British stuff that enables stuff like Quality Street and the pure choc by the best swiss and european manufacturers - I have no trouble getting hold of best quality pure chocolate and the market for both products seems equally strong here.
It is impossible for one product to be substituted for the other - no-one could get away with that!

[info]sgatlantislight

April 20 2007, 18:46:07 UTC 5 years ago

Ah, the trick is that the British stuff allows *some* substitution-- up to 5%. The proposal on the table now is that the manufacturers could replace *all* the cocoa butter with vegetable fat and still call it "chocolate" (I'd like to know how it qualifies).

I mean, we have things like Tootsie Rolls, which don't qualify as "chocolate" that are chocolate flavoured and do quite well. If someone wants to make a candy bar without any cocoa butter and label it "chocolate flavoured"? More power to them. If they want to call it "chocolate"? Nope. Sorry. That ain't chocolate.

[info]westdean

April 20 2007, 21:11:27 UTC 5 years ago

Oh! That's abominable - real chocolate would just disappear from products - what a swizz!

[info]sgatlantislight

April 22 2007, 03:19:43 UTC 5 years ago

Yup. And I fully expect that the label would read "Cocoa butter and/or hydrogenated vegetable oil" so you wouldn't know.

[info]ravenlaughing

April 20 2007, 20:54:20 UTC 5 years ago

already did this. How dare they mess with the definition of chocolate...

[info]sgatlantislight

April 22 2007, 03:22:44 UTC 5 years ago

Yup. As a friend who is into organic foods commented, cocoa products are about 80% organic simply by virtue of the inaccessibility of where it is grown, so someone like her could buy a chocolate bar with less guilt or concern. But hydrogenated fats and the other requested replacements are highly processed and extremely unnatural. So much for that.

[info]witch_in_winter

April 22 2007, 01:27:33 UTC 5 years ago

Having never met a chocolate that I didn't like, this is nothing short of scary...but then TPTB tend to mess around with everything from what we eat to how we are allowed to view our bodies. Shame the FDA was not worried about the pet food that killed so many of our furred friends. Thanks for the warning. And I shall comment on the petition.

[info]sgatlantislight

April 22 2007, 03:29:03 UTC 5 years ago

Yeah. Got an email just a couple days ago that a friend who'd given her dog all of *3* packets of the stuff just lost a faithful companion of 15+ years. And she'd just had a kidney function test done shortly before, so she knows it was the food.

I really honestly think the sudden epidemic of obesity and rise in Asperger's, ADHD, autism, etc., etc. can partially be linked to how much wholly unnatural *stuff* we shove down our throats nowadays. Sure, this stuff is supposedly safe individually, but what's the effect when you consider the sheer scope and variety? We have no idea.
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