Wednesday, 1/2

Let's start the final year of the teens by writing about the greatest of all subjects—chocolate! Specifically, this question--when is chocolate really not chocolate? Is it when there isn’t any chocolate in the chocolate?

No, I’m not (deliberately) trying to be confusing, and no, this isn’t some kind of Zen exercise. This is a real question that deserves real pondering, and here’s why--odds are, you received some kind of chocolate product for Christmas or as a gift for hosting a New Year's Eve party, right? I mean, chocolate products are everywhere during the season, and odds are one or two of them ended up in your hands. If you have still have a chocolate gift or two lying around, look at the container in which they came.

Because your chocolate may really not be chocolate.

I’m not kidding. If you received anything from Palmer, or a little box of Andes mints, or perhaps even a giant Nestlé’s Crunch Bar, you’ll see one of two things on the box. You’ll either see that they’re described as “chocolate-flavored products” or if you look at the ingredients you’ll see that they don’t have cocoa butter and/or chocolate liquor, the two things that make up actual, real chocolate.

That’s right--your chocolate may not have any chocolate in it. THAT’S why I posed the Zen-like question!

This has been going on for a couple of years now. Some manufactures, in order to squeeze every cent they can out of their products, have replaced the actual chocolate they buy and use with a mix of partially hydrogenated soybean oil and chocolate “flavoring”, and then pass it off as ‘chocolate”. Now I know I may come across occasionally as a chocolate snob, but in an instance like this, my snobbery may be justified. I mean, if you eat this stuff, you’re not eating chocolate. You’re eating artery-clogging saturated fat that tastes like chocolate. And, at least to me, it doesn’t even taste like real chocolate; it tastes like, I dunno, brown-flavored wax. If you don’t believe me, try a taste test. Take a piece of real chocolate, and eat it. Then take a chocolate-flavored candy product, and do the same.

You may find yourself becoming a chocolate snob, too.

The sad thing is most people probably don’t even realize what’s going on. I mean, how many people read the labels or the ingredient lists on the food they eat? That’s probably why the candy companies figured they could get away with it; after all, if no one paid attention, they could probably also replace any nuts in their bars with “nut-like pieces” of tree bark and no one would be the wiser. It’s sad, but it’s true, and it seems to be a fact of modern life.

I’ll quit complaining about it now; after all, there are SO many things in life that are more important than and deserve more discussion than “chocolate” that it’s not even funny. I just figured I’d point it out, and maybe open a few eyes in the process. Besides, you guys know how I love chocolate. . .at least when it actually IS chocolate.

Caveat emptor, I guess.

(jim@wmqt.com)