Hands off my chocolate, FDA!
The FDA may allow Big Chocolate to pass off a waxy substitute as the
real thing.

By Cybele May, CYBELE MAY is a writer who reviews candy on her blog,
candyblog.net.

Los Angeles Times
April 19, 2007

THE AVERAGE American eats 12 pounds of chocolate a year. That's about
a chocolate bar every other day. (I am above average, judging by the
fact that I eat enough chocolate to deduct it as a line item on my tax
return.)

To sum up so far: Americans eat a lot of chocolate.

That's cool, because we also make a lot of it. We make everything from
the inexpensive milk chocolate bars that you buy at the supermarket
checkout counter to the decadent, limited-edition chocolate bars made
from "handpicked beans from a single hillside in Venezuela," for which
there's a waiting list.

It's all basically made the same way: cacao pods are fermented and
then roasted and ground into a fine paste that can be separated into
two components: cacao solids (commonly called cocoa powder) and cocoa
butter. Each chocolatier uses different proportions but generally
blends sugar, cocoa solids and cocoa butter plus the optional
ingredients - emulsifiers, flavors (typically vanilla) and milk solids
(to make milk chocolate) - and molds that into a chocolate bar.

A little over 100 years ago, Milton Hershey created the nickel bar,
the first American chocolate bar for the masses. Today, these small
purchases of chocolate products add up to an $18-billion business.
Like all foods in the United States, chocolate is regulated by the
Food and Drug Administration to ensure that consumers get a safe and
consistent product.

But perhaps no longer. The FDA is entertaining a "citizen's petition"
to allow manufacturers to substitute vegetable fats and oils for cocoa
butter.

The "citizens" who created this petition represent groups that would
benefit most from this degradation of the current standards. They are
the Chocolate Manufacturers Assn., the Grocery Manufacturers Assn.,
the Snack Food Assn. and the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. (OK, I'm
not sure what's in it for them), along with seven other food producing
associations.

This is what they think of us chocolate eaters, according to their
petition on file at the FDA:

"Consumer expectations still define the basic nature of a food. There
are, however, no generally held consumer expectations today concerning
the precise technical elements by which commonly recognized,
standardized foods are produced. Consumers, therefore, are not likely
to have formed expectations as to production methods, aging time or
specific ingredients used for technical improvements, including
manufacturing efficiencies."

Let me translate: "Consumers won't know the difference."

I can tell you right now - we will notice the difference. How do I
know? Because the product they're trying to rename "chocolate" already
exists. It's called "chocolate flavored" or "chocolaty" or
"cocoalicious." You can find it on the shelves right now at your local
stores in the 75% Easter sale bin, those waxy/greasy mock-chocolate
bunnies and foil-wrapped eggs that sit even in the most sugar-obsessed
child's Easter basket well into July.

It may be cocoa powder that gives chocolate its taste, but it is the
cocoa butter that gives it that inimitable texture. It is one of the
rare, naturally occurring vegetable fats that is solid at room
temperature and melts as it hits body temperature - that is to say, it
melts in your mouth. Cocoa butter also protects the antioxidant
properties of the cocoa solids and gives well-made chocolate its
excellent shelf life.

Because it's already perfectly legal to sell choco-products made with
cheaper oils and fats, what the groups are asking the FDA for is
permission to call these waxy impostors "chocolate." Because we
"haven't formed any expectations."

I'd say we've already demonstrated our preference for true chocolate.
That's why real chocolate outsells fake chocolate. Nine of the 10
bestselling U.S. chocolate candies are made with the real stuff. M&Ms,
Hershey Bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups -- all real chocolate.
Butterfinger is the outlier.

Granted, a change to the "food standards of identity" won't require
makers to remove some or all of the cocoa butter, it would just allow
them to. But really, why else would they ask?

But as long as they're asking, the FDA does have a way for other
citizens to voice their expectations. It's buried deep in its website.
Until April 25, the agency is accepting comments -- by fax, mail or
online -- on a docket with the benign-sounding name of "2007P-0085:
Adopt Regulations of General Applicability to All Food Standards that
Would Permit, Within Stated Boundaries, Deviations from the
Requirements of the Individual Food Standards of Identity."

I'm telling them to keep it real.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,2342362.story

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hands off my chocolate, FDA!
> The FDA may allow Big Chocolate to pass off a waxy substitute as the
> real thing.
>
> By Cybele May, CYBELE MAY is a writer who reviews candy on her blog,
> candyblog.net.
>
> Los Angeles Times
> April 19, 2007
>
> THE AVERAGE American eats 12 pounds of chocolate a year. That's about
> a chocolate bar every other day. (I am above average, judging by the
> fact that I eat enough chocolate to deduct it as a line item on my tax
> return.)
>
> To sum up so far: Americans eat a lot of chocolate.
>
> That's cool, because we also make a lot of it. We make everything from
> the inexpensive milk chocolate bars that you buy at the supermarket
> checkout counter to the decadent, limited-edition chocolate bars made
> from "handpicked beans from a single hillside in Venezuela," for which
> there's a waiting list.
>
> It's all basically made the same way: cacao pods are fermented and
> then roasted and ground into a fine paste that can be separated into
> two components: cacao solids (commonly called cocoa powder) and cocoa
> butter. Each chocolatier uses different proportions but generally
> blends sugar, cocoa solids and cocoa butter plus the optional
> ingredients - emulsifiers, flavors (typically vanilla) and milk solids
> (to make milk chocolate) - and molds that into a chocolate bar.
>
> A little over 100 years ago, Milton Hershey created the nickel bar,
> the first American chocolate bar for the masses. Today, these small
> purchases of chocolate products add up to an $18-billion business.
> Like all foods in the United States, chocolate is regulated by the
> Food and Drug Administration to ensure that consumers get a safe and
> consistent product.
>
> But perhaps no longer. The FDA is entertaining a "citizen's petition"
> to allow manufacturers to substitute vegetable fats and oils for cocoa
> butter.
>
> The "citizens" who created this petition represent groups that would
> benefit most from this degradation of the current standards. They are
> the Chocolate Manufacturers Assn., the Grocery Manufacturers Assn.,
> the Snack Food Assn. and the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. (OK, I'm
> not sure what's in it for them), along with seven other food producing
> associations.
>
> This is what they think of us chocolate eaters, according to their
> petition on file at the FDA:
>
> "Consumer expectations still define the basic nature of a food. There
> are, however, no generally held consumer expectations today concerning
> the precise technical elements by which commonly recognized,
> standardized foods are produced. Consumers, therefore, are not likely
> to have formed expectations as to production methods, aging time or
> specific ingredients used for technical improvements, including
> manufacturing efficiencies."
>
> Let me translate: "Consumers won't know the difference."
>
> I can tell you right now - we will notice the difference. How do I
> know? Because the product they're trying to rename "chocolate" already
> exists. It's called "chocolate flavored" or "chocolaty" or
> "cocoalicious." You can find it on the shelves right now at your local
> stores in the 75% Easter sale bin, those waxy/greasy mock-chocolate
> bunnies and foil-wrapped eggs that sit even in the most sugar-obsessed
> child's Easter basket well into July.
>
> It may be cocoa powder that gives chocolate its taste, but it is the
> cocoa butter that gives it that inimitable texture. It is one of the
> rare, naturally occurring vegetable fats that is solid at room
> temperature and melts as it hits body temperature - that is to say, it
> melts in your mouth. Cocoa butter also protects the antioxidant
> properties of the cocoa solids and gives well-made chocolate its
> excellent shelf life.
>
> Because it's already perfectly legal to sell choco-products made with
> cheaper oils and fats, what the groups are asking the FDA for is
> permission to call these waxy impostors "chocolate." Because we
> "haven't formed any expectations."
>
> I'd say we've already demonstrated our preference for true chocolate.
> That's why real chocolate outsells fake chocolate. Nine of the 10
> bestselling U.S. chocolate candies are made with the real stuff. M&Ms,
> Hershey Bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups -- all real chocolate.
> Butterfinger is the outlier.
>
> Granted, a change to the "food standards of identity" won't require
> makers to remove some or all of the cocoa butter, it would just allow
> them to. But really, why else would they ask?
>
> But as long as they're asking, the FDA does have a way for other
> citizens to voice their expectations. It's buried deep in its website.
> Until April 25, the agency is accepting comments -- by fax, mail or
> online -- on a docket with the benign-sounding name of "2007P-0085:
> Adopt Regulations of General Applicability to All Food Standards that
> Would Permit, Within Stated Boundaries, Deviations from the
> Requirements of the Individual Food Standards of Identity."
>
> I'm telling them to keep it real.
>
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,2342362.story

National Cattleman's Association: dairy, milk, and my guess is probably not
all the fat will be vegetable.

Chaviva wrote:
>
> National Cattleman's Association: dairy, milk, and my guess is
> probably not all the fat will be vegetable.

Nor will it necessarily be milk derived. Fats
as by-products of slaughtering operations were
widely used in cheap margarines. That stuff
has to find a market somewhere.

On 19 Apr 2007 00:30:28 -0700, wrote:

>Hands off my chocolate, FDA!
>The FDA may allow Big Chocolate to pass off a waxy substitute as the
>real thing.
>
>By Cybele May, CYBELE MAY is a writer who reviews candy on her blog,
>candyblog.net.
>
>Los Angeles Times
>April 19, 2007
>
>
>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,2342362.story

thanks, um, mail1606808. i will forward this to some folks who
unaccountably prefer chocolate to beer.

your pal,
blake

Anyone interested in sending a comment to the FDA on this subject
AGAINST the proposed rule change can go to the following page:

http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guit.../howtohelp.asp

Guittard is a CMA member but is helping fight the proposed rule
changes. In addition to the personal integrity of Gary Guittard, the
current president of the company, Guittard is the only private company
among the CMA members fighting it. Says a lot about the motivation of
the CMA, irrespective of what else is written.

Clay Gordon
Editor and publisher of chocophile.com
Author "Discover Chocolate" (release date October 18, 2007)

I doubt that those who make "chocolate" out of crap will affect the
chocolate I buy. Lindt, and the other fine chocolate makers will always
produce a smooth and superior tasting chocolate and I don't believe they do
so because they are required to by government regulations.

Our taxes will no longer be protecting people who can't taste the difference
between good food and bars-o-crud...a good result certainly. This should be
done for other foods as well.

Mitch