Tuesday, September 18, 2007

To All Chocolate Lovers

Here's an issue that's dear to my heart. I work for a very high end chocolate manufacturer...and we are leading the fight to protect the ingredient standards of chocolate in America.

The current legal standard to call something "Chocolate" is that it be made of:

1) Chocolate Liquor*
2) Cocoa Butter**
3) Real Sugar
4) Real Milk solids (for Milk Chocolate)

*Chocolate Liquor (or unsweetened baking chocolate) is the meat or nib of the cocoa bean which has been ground into a smooth paste. It contains more than 50% cocoa butter.

**Cocoa Butter is the vegetable fat found in cocoa beans which is released when Chocolate Liquor is pressed.

(Cocoa Powder is the solid portion that remains after the cocoa butter has been pressed out of the Chocolate Liquor)

Today, whenever you see the ingredient "chocolate" on a package, it MUST be made of these, and only these ingredients.

The proposed, lower standards would allow for cheaper, non-cocoa-bean vegetable fats to be substituted for cocoa butter, and still allow manufacturers to call the resulting brown stuff "Chocolate".

The purity and flavor of the chocolate we know and love would be compromised, and we would not be able to tell which manufacturers used pure cocoa butter and which ones used cheap oils by reading the ingredient statement. This is a BAD thing for all chocolate lovers.

Basically, they want to make the chocolate equivalent of Velveeta...but not be required to call it "processed cheese food".

By today's standards, such items may be called "chocolate-flavored"...but not "Chocolate".

And we want very much to keep it that way.

There is more information here. It will tell you what to do to help. Your voice counts. Make it heard.

7 comments:

  1. NOOOO!!! Save the chocolate! Holy cats - I love good chocolate - this is blasphemy!

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  2. I am laughing so hard right now because I thought I was the only person on the planet who actually says "Holy cats."

    :-)

    Hooray, chocolate! I'm a supporter of the real deal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Make sure you let the "powers that be" know how you feel...follow the link.


    See 9/19/07 post for update!

    ReplyDelete
  4. To right and all! Chocolate is good how It is. If they use chemicals as substitutes then that’s bound to have an impact on our health. Your job rules! Do they ever let you take a box home? By the way I think I am going to buy a bar today and see what the ingredients are.

    www.IanMacNb.net

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, Ian...

    The stuff is everywhere. It's very hard staying trim.

    Re: looking for ingredients. That's the whole point, you see. Because there is a legal Standard that requires that chocolate be made of only chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, sugar (and real milk solids, if milk chocolate), the individual ingredients need not be listed.

    Today the ingredient statement for a "real" chocolate bar with almonds can simply say:

    "Ingredients: Chocolate, almonds."

    If they change the Standard to allow cheap vegetable oil as a substitution for cocoa butter, the individual ingredients still won't have to be listed, but you won't know which "chocolate" you're getting. Even with the "fake" chocolate, that ingredient statement will still be able to say:

    "Ingredients: Chocolate, almonds."

    That's why we're fighting to prevent them changing the Standard.

    Under the law today, anyone can make a confection with chocolate liquor and palm kernel oil, for example, but they must call it "chocolate flavored", and list the individual ingredients because it's not legally "Chocolate" as defined by the Standard. It's fake chocolate...faux chocolate, processed chocolate-like food...

    The current rule doesn't stop anybody from making fake chocolate, it just stops them from passing it off as the real thing.

    We'd like to keep it that way.

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  6. Yes but if its in the shop wont people just pick up the one with chocolate rather than faux chocolate? The answers in the label right? Still its not on anyway! You got a petition going?

    www.IanMacNb.net

    ReplyDelete
  7. No, that's the point. There will be no way to distinguish between them. With an expanded "Standard", both will be called simply "Chocolate".

    They will both, legally, BE chocolate. No ingredient listing required.

    Again...that's the POINT!

    ReplyDelete