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Not just matter of taste

ANDREW BRIDGES

Associated Press

Latest comment posted at 10:16 AM EDT 07/08/07

U.S. industry, consumers at odds over what constitutes chocolate ...Read the full article

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  1. Fred B from Toronto, Canada writes: The food industry wants to pull the wool over our eyes just like tobacco.
  2. always right from Toronto, Canada writes: 'Ms. Hildwine said those savings could be passed along to consumers. '

    'Could be?' - this industry shill knows it won't be so why insult our intelligence? GREED!

    Will Canada follow suit? Do we have any sovereign authority over how chocolate is defined within our borders if this measure passes in the US - or will we be sucked in the wake, helpless to define our own sweets?

    What will happen to the President's Choice Decadent chocolate chips and cookies? Can the President issue an edict to veto this move? Will GWB stand for pure chocolate or some bastardized version? I think Cheney is behind this - since Loblaw's refused to produce 'Vice-President's Choice Bitter Scorn Cookies - with extra burnt butter, coffee and garlic'
  3. Thumb Sucker from Toronto, Canada writes: always right from Toronto, Canada writes: 'Ms. Hildwine said those savings could be passed along to consumers. '

    'Could be?' - this industry shill knows it won't be so why insult our intelligence? GREED!

    You are off base. If there is more than one company producing chocolate then a lowered cost in ingredients would result in a lower cost for consumers because companies will lower their prices to gain a larger share of the market.
  4. Velma from Burlington from Etobicoke, Canada writes: I prefer a small quantity of really good quality dark chocolate to a large amount of cheap chocolate bars. The health benefits of chocolate will be largely negated by a change to other vegetable fats. Resist this attempt to cheapen chocolate!!!
  5. Rollo Tomasi from Belgium writes: Insist on Belgian chocolate 70% pure (I like 85% with cane sugar and fresh tahitian vanilla, but that's me), unless you like candy and candy bars.
  6. Michele K from Ottawa, Canada writes: Oh, come on (as I sit here indulging in a square of 70% dark) - have the big US companies like Hershey not already completely ruined 'chocolate' for the masses, many of which wouldn't know real chocolate if they were dipped in it?

    Not that Canada is that much better - a decent everyday chocolate bar can still be found here, but it just doesn't compare with what one can buy at any corner store in Europe - how sad.

    Another thing - haven't we all recently happily discovered that chocolate - real, cocoa-butter-based dark chocolate - is actually good for us (in reasonable doses)? I very much doubt that veggie-oil chocolate will taste as good or offer the health benefit of the real thing.
  7. F H from Canada writes: Oh great. In this age of obese children and adults do we really want to make 'chocolate-flavor' candies even cheaper?

    Far better to have a really good, rich piece of actual chocolate on occassion than a daily piece of chocolate-wannabe both gastronomically and in regards to health.
  8. John M. Ayres from Ottawa, Canada writes: Can't we just have pure foods & food products as a matter of course without having to bend, always & everywhere, to arguments involving efficiencies, economies or 'improvements' ?
    In the final analysis, adulteration is adulteration no matter what & our civilized cultures are replete with the adverse effects, at all levels, of not understanding this. To hide these behind a regulatory facade of acceptable variations of what constitutes purity is inappropriate & abnegatious at best.
    At the very least when eating fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, fish, etc, I hope that what I see is what it is. If a food item or product is manufactured, engineered or GMO'd I'd expect an accompanying description, label or otherwise, to inform me of what it is or what it contains so that I can choose what to do, or not do, with it.
  9. Sam G from Toronto, Canada writes: There is no such thing as chocolate made by large companies. Real chocolate is either made in Europe (Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Germany - even Sweden) or it is hand-made here in North America. Compare Cadbury and any European brand and you will wonder how Cadbury is even allowed to call its product chocolate.
  10. Yves Farges from Vancouver, Canada writes: At a time when people are flocking to Organic foods to escape the fundamental loss of confidence in mass market processed foods, here is an opportunity for government to make good, by drafting strict regulations on a QUALITATIVE basis, rather than on a "profit for the manufacturer" basis. The public does not want their food adulterated, diluted, or compromised in order to allow a multinational's profit margin to soar. The tend of government flexibility to loosened their standards allowed substitutes. We ended up with virtually all processed foods containing trans-fats, now widely recognized as unhealthy and dangerous to a person's health ... yet it was "allowed" in order to provide manufacturers with "flexibility". Today government has moved towards quality and against additives. Regulations should be supporting purity and high qualitative standards, rather than providing loopholes for industry to improve their profits at the cost of their customer's general health.
  11. Gardiner Westbound from Canada writes: .

    The manufacturers purpose is to deceive consumers into paying the same for not-chocolate.

    The Canadian metric rip-off comes to mind. Government and industry promised reduced prices to reflect smaller metric package sizes. Anybody who remembers prices decreasing put your hand up. Didn't think so.
    .
  12. Brett Tremblay from Canada writes: Gardiner Westbound -- also what about prices dropping when the 15% manufacturer's tax was replaced with the 7% GST? Where did the 8% savings go? If the industry lived up to the spirit of the legislation, many bad acts (of Parliament) might actually have been good. But, sadly, they just keep reinforcing the notion that everyone's just out for themself.
  13. Robyn Tidd from Canada writes: I don't see why they can't just make whatever it is they want to make with vegetable oil and give it a different name? If people like it they'll buy it. Leave our chocolate alone.
  14. bongo bongo from hicktown, United States writes: Another attempt for regulations designed directly against me and my health. I don’t want to be fed with mix of chemicals, substitutes and genetically modified inventions. I don&8217;t want artificial light and artificial air. I don&8217;t want colon cancer from chemical food; as a matter of fact I do not want any other cancer. I don&8217;t want hospitals, chemotherapy and daily drug prescriptions. DO YOU?
  15. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: All that will happen is that the product descriptor "chocolate" will be further debased, as it already is in just about all "chocolate" ice creams, for example, and if the product contains something better than a brown chemical goo the label will tell us. I'm not too worried about what price the market will bear for what the goo manufacturers want to sell.
  16. Bill Smith from Ottawa, Canada writes: What a bunch of self-serving losers. Flexibility? The only issue here is greed and deception, plain and simple. These manufacturers can already produce whatever the hell they want, they just can't call it chocolate. Seems fair to me. What next? Do we allow margerine to be called butter? Tap water to be called spring water (wait a minute, at last report they were getting away with this one). Anyway, you get my drift. Let's have a little truth in advertising.
  17. Catherine Prickett from Ottawa, Canada writes: I'm not a chocoholic, but I understand that one reason why so many people love chocolate is because it contains chemicals which trigger the release of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. Faux-chocolate would likely not have the same effect, so people's mood wouldn't improve upon eating it.
  18. Some Guy from Canada writes: I have no problem with the change so long as there are labeling requirements put in place. Product which does not substitute for cocoa butter would be labeled 'Real Chocolate' and product with other vegetable oils added must be labeled 'Fake Chocolate' with the words real and fake required to be as large as the product name. That way the free market would truly be free to operate with consumers able to make informed choices.
  19. Austin Powers from Canada writes: It's bad enough that "chocolate-flavoured confections" (easter bunnies and Santas) and candies with "chocolaty" centres are sold now to unwary consumers. Now they want to debase what real chocolate is too.

    Geez, next thing you know, Coke and Pepsi are going to try and redefine pure spring water as water containing up to X% tap water...
  20. Michele K from Ottawa, Canada writes: Good one, Austin Powers.

    Say 'no' to mocklate.
  21. Hugh Dillon from Kingston, Canada writes: American chocolate......BARF!!
  22. Diane Schweik from EDMONTON, Canada writes: US chocolate tastes of sugar and some sort of waxy ingredient.Different soft centres have an identical taste.Yechh.

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