I've got some sawdust: can I call it chocolate?
Terrible things afoot across the pond
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Bad news from the US. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association wants to change how chocolate is defined so that crappy imitation chocolate-flavoured stuff can be reclassified as actual chocolate.
It has asked the Food and Drug Administration if the much cheaper vegetable oil may be substituted for cocoa butter, and whey protein for dry whole milk, and still be called chocolate.
Clearly, we at El Reg could never support such a ludicrous notion. Chocolate is a wonderful thing: it can be used to prise (possibly fake) passwords from the secretive minds of sys admins, and makes you brainy and young.*
The proposals are part of a wider petition by various food industry groups which declares itself in favour of "modernising food standards".
Fortunately, a sturdy defence is being mounted, with the Guittard Chocolate Company eager as any to get into the fray.
In a press release, fourth generation chocolatier Gary Guittard (great job title) says the changes would short change the consumer and lower the "gold standard" for chocolate.
"There are no clear consumer benefits associated with the proposed changes," he adds. "No one can afford to sit back and eat bon-bons while America's great passion for chocolate is threatened. We're asking the public to sign/send an email petition or to phone or email the Food and Drug Administration."
Point your browser here to join the fight. ®
*Er, not really. But some people would like to think so.
COMMENTS
Merely greedy, or actually evil?
Granted, Hershey's is as low as one can sink here in the USA and have it be called "chocolate" - like admitting a Yugo is a car.
Cadbury's is not THAT much better - it already tastes like it's made with lard or tallow.
But either one is VASTLY better than the waxy dirtlike substance passed of as, say "chocolatey coating".
But this is STUPID, and it's not just about chocolate. They would like to "modernize" the definition of LOTS of foodstuffs. And there's no legitimate reason for it whatsoever. Objectivity has a social value beyond questions of personal taste in chocolate flavor.
As it is, we have to memorize bizarre qualifications, like the word "process" in something like "pastuerized process cheese" as meaning "cheeselike substance with only a distant chemical relationship to actual cheese". If you see the word "process" in a "cheese" name, you can rely on it tasting like aged smegma.
The same bunch of corporate bozos tried to take over the definition of "organic" food to include an astoundingly large list of inappropriate ingredients and additives, from a large list of purely manufactured chemicals to toxic sewage sludge - really - showing either no understanding at all, or a deliberate contempt, for the concept and the amount of work a large number of farmers, middlemen, and consumers put into coming up with reasonable definitions.
A mockery of chocolate
This is just another example of companies not being truthful about their products. If this substitute product tastes so good why can't it sell without a name change? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has extended the time it's accepting public comment to June 25, so put in your two cents now!
deLaney
www.chocolatecandymaker.com
Food n Drink
Ok if we are going to bash the Americans over their food standards shouldn't we start at the bottom and work our way up ?
Budweiser "King of Beers"..
Beer it is not !
Larger it is barely !
Yellow, fizzy, sugared & flavored water (similar to coke but with less colour and flavor)
with a dash of added alcohol.. yum yum !!
Perhaps "carbonated alcoholic beverage" is nearer the truth.
As for American chocolate
Brown, sweet tasting , gritty.. full of animal goodness.. sounds like dog doo.. (not sure about the sweet tasting bit tho.. never eaten dog doo)..
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