I indulge in chocolate. Not much, mind you. Just a few ounces with lunch every day. My family stocks our larder with one-pound bars of the 72% cocoa stuff, buying it whenever we’re in Boston or New York near a Trader Joe's store.
With due respect to women in the audience (many of whom seem to wax wacky over the mere mention of the word chocolate), I enjoy good dark chocolate both for its taste and its purported health benefits. I don't think I make a big deal when eating it, though. Not too much ceremony. No sighing and protracted mmmm sounds.
It is good stuff, though, I admit. In addition to its taste and texture, chocolate is a source of essential nutrients, including calcium, zinc, iron, niacin, magnesium, and riboflavin. Cocoa butter in chocolate is also believed to be an antioxidant, like the procyanidins in red wine (which I also drink daily with meals). Cocoa also contains fats that are essentially neutral, so they don't adversely affect blood cholesterol.
Research also shows that chocolate triggers the release of endorphins in the brain. Yes, eating chocolate makes me feel good.
Now it seems there are folks opposed to that. Like so many other things in America these days, there's a movement afoot to mess with my chocolate and dumb it down.
A group called the Grocery Manufacturers Association is advocating lowering the standards by which chocolate is defined. The GMA proposes to lower the bar by substituting cheap oil for prized cocoa butter.
The GMA is petitioning the US Food and Drug Administration to modernize the standards presently in place that regulate the ingredients in chocolate and other foods. The GMA proposal would reduce, or even eliminate cocoa butter in chocolate altogether. GMA wants to replace cocoa with nasty ol' vegetable oil. Why am I not convinced veggie oil-based chocolate will taste the same as cocoa butter chocolate?
It gets worse. The FDA's legal definition of chocolate would remain the same as it is now. Any product containing at least 10% cacao would still legally be called chocolate. Tricky, tricky.
If adopted, these FDA changes could affect 300 other foodstuffs as well as chocolate. Yogurt, for example, could be adulterated with powdered milk.
Isn't anything sacred? It's bad enough we're subject to ersatz ingredients and questionable additives in foods coming in from China. Why are North American food purveyors so willing to follow suit?
