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07 Aug 08 - 10:41 PM (#2408115) Subject: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator I accidentally stumbled across this website: Don't Mess With Our Chocolate! Corporate America is at it again; this time they want to relax the standards for defining the product that can be legally sold as "chocolate." They want to cut back on cocoa butter by substituting trans-fat vegetable oils, and also use some kind of non-dairy substitute for the milk in milk chocolate. Yuk! Sign the petition! Or mail in a letter; whatever they ask for... |
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07 Aug 08 - 10:44 PM (#2408118) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Peace Ranks up there with new and improved ******* with real artificial flavour added. |
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07 Aug 08 - 11:03 PM (#2408126) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Sorcha Just wait til Liz sees this....there may be an explosion over east London even if it IS American chocolate. HELL, we already have 'Imitation chocolate' and Carob 'chocolate'! WHAT are they thinking? Oh, right...they aren't cause they can't. |
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08 Aug 08 - 12:43 AM (#2408158) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator Oh, they're thinking all right ~ thinking about how much money they'll save. I understand that cocoa beans are becoming more expensive, even more quickly and drastically than everything else is becoming more expensive. In addition to the increased price of shipping, thanks to high oil prices, supply is shrinking. I don't know exactly why, but I think it's safe to assume that environmental factors are involved. The ecology/environment down there in those tropical regions seems to be deteriorating faster than anything up here in the temperate zones. If chocolate ("even American chocolate") is to remain unadulterated, it is just about certain to become more expensive. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that any new cheaper formula is clearly identified as such and not passed off as the genuine article. People ~ some people ~ will undoubtedly be willing to pay premium prices for quality "gourmet" (i.e., actual) chocolate. But the mass market for vending-machine candy bars might well prefer paying today's prices for tomorrow's imitation/processed/chocolate-like concoction. (Vending machines are certainly capable of housing small bars of real chocolate alongside much larger portions of the cheaper stuff, either at the same prices or at different prices.) It may become something like today's "processed cheese food," which isn't exactly cheese. Some folks literally and figuratively eat that shit up, while others of more refined taste insist upon real cheese and willingly pay for it. A word in defense of carob: it's not chocolate, it's something else entirely, and some folks prefer it, or are better able to digest it, thanks to allergies or some other kind of heightened sensitivity. Carob is actually sweet, and therefore does not require a lot of added sugar to make it palatable, unlike chocolate, which by itself is donwnright bitter. The taste of carob is disappointing only to those who want and expect chocolate and are given something different as a substitute ~ because it is, after all, different. When you understand that "it is what it is," you should be better able to enjoy it. |
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08 Aug 08 - 12:53 AM (#2408161) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: CarolC Who's Chocolate Freud, what is he about to begin, and why do we need to stop him before he does? |
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08 Aug 08 - 12:54 AM (#2408162) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Stilly River Sage I was sure Liz must have started this thread. |
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08 Aug 08 - 04:35 AM (#2408232) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: manitas_at_work WE had some fuss about this a few years ago, the EU wanted to ban vegetable fat from chocolate which would have meant British chocolate was no longer chocolate. I don't know how it was resolved. |
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08 Aug 08 - 11:48 AM (#2408461) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator British chocolate already subsititutes vegetable fat for cocoa butter? That stuff wouldn't pass muster as genuine chocolate in the US under current law ~ and you Brits have the nerve to look down your nose at American chocolate! The EU attempt to strictly define chocolate probably indicates that the Swiss and the Dutch, etc., stick to cocoa butter and don't want to compete with cheaper mixtures. Interesting fact: both chocolate and vanilla were first discovered/cultivated/used in pre-Columbian Mexico. The Aztecs were definitely the first chocolate drinkers (it was a beverage at first, never processed as a solid). I'm not sure, but I think I remember reading that vanilla was first used by the Mayans, a bit further south, and that the vanilla plant (a variety of orchid) is native to the Yucatan/Guatamala area. |
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08 Aug 08 - 11:57 AM (#2408471) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: manitas_at_work From the Cadbury website: In the United Kingdom, up to 5% vegetable fat is added to compensate for variations in cocoa butter so that the melting properties of the chocolate are controlled to a precise standard. This preserves the full taste and ideal texture of the chocolate |
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08 Aug 08 - 12:03 PM (#2408479) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Bill D Want YOUR product to fit an already useful and popular word? Just redefine the word... VOILA! Why, next they'll be saying all sorts of things are 'folk'..... |
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08 Aug 08 - 01:14 PM (#2408548) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: GUEST,Jayto OMG I hope my girlfriend doesn't read this. She is 4 months pregnant and will flip out if she thinks they are messing with her chocolate. I had to drive to the store the other day at 4am to get her chocolate fix. Yep she ran out and had a bad craving. If I brought back fake chocolate yeesh lol. If they do it I hope they wait at least 6 more months. I am adding a slight safety cushion there. |
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08 Aug 08 - 01:19 PM (#2408554) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator Nice corollary, Bill D... |
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08 Aug 08 - 02:36 PM (#2408618) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Well,, knowing what's in the wind, could be a boom for you, out there.. Start a company making high grade chocolate, and charge accordingly. once people t5aste the difference, and make decisions with health concerns, that business will take off! Often corporations cut their overhead, by doing stuff as cheap and shoddy as possible to replace a good product, which gave them their reputation in the first place! Why not?.."Hell is filled with unemployed musicians"--Robert Heinlien |
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08 Aug 08 - 03:20 PM (#2408654) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator There are already several very large and well-established high-end chocolatiers ~ Dove, Godiva, See's, Russell Stover, etc. ~ who will be hard to complete with even after any future change in the marketing environment. I would certainly hope that heaven, as well as hell, might house a sizable complement of unemployed musicians. |
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08 Aug 08 - 03:40 PM (#2408679) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Liz the Squeak I don't know where people get this idea that I'm a chocoholic from... Oh wait.. maybe I do.... The only answer is to buy chocolate from chocolatiers who don't mess with the real thing. Buy Fair Trade, Green and Blacks, Godiva, Hotel Chocolat or one of the other small companies. LTS |
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08 Aug 08 - 03:58 PM (#2408711) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: SINSULL Fake chocolate (or chocolate flavored crap) has been available for years. It is sickenly sweet, full of fake vanilla flavor, grainy and in short disgusting. Usually it's molded into cutesy little cartoon rabbits and pigs. It even smells bad. Yuck! |
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08 Aug 08 - 05:30 PM (#2408831) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Q (Frank Staplin) Lindt, Cadbury, Hershey(Canada) and most other chocolates I looked at, have some soya, vegetable fat and about 1% trans-fat, for the reason stated by Manitas. In Canada, ingredients must be listed, with amounts and nutritive value, on the label. I looked at several of the high chocolate content bars (70%) and they had higher fat content. |
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08 Aug 08 - 05:51 PM (#2408841) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator The "Dont Mess..." website explains that current US regulations require 100% cocoa butter as the only allowable fat ingredient, except for the milk-fat that naturally occurs in the milk used to produce milk chocolate. Most other countries allow small proportions of other vegetable fats, but never more than 5%. The proposed change being "considered" by the FDA would allow unlimited amounts of subsituite fats to replace cocoa butter, even 100%. I would have copied-and-pasted the pertinent phrases, but the webpage in question is in the form of a lengthy PDF, from which it is impossible to highlight and copy excerpts. To read the whole thing, refer to the link in the opening post and click on the button at the top of the page marked something like "More Information." (I'd look up the exact wording, but I'd lose THIS page trying to do so.) |
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08 Aug 08 - 06:00 PM (#2408848) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Don Firth I respectfully submit for your approval the text of the speech I am prepared to make to the Food and Drug Administration: Ladies and gentlemen, you may tear down the honored pictures from the halls of the United States Senate, desecrate the grave of George Washington, haul down the Stars and Stripes, bulldoze the Lincoln Memorial, and rape the Statue of Liberty in broad daylight, but your crime would in no way compare in enormity with that of giving minuscule thought-room to the merest notion of meddling with the composition of CHOCOLATE! Mess with CHOCOLATE? Hell, NO!Don Firth |
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08 Aug 08 - 06:27 PM (#2408873) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity GREAT SPEECH, DON!!.. if only they would leave the constitution alone..but they won't..I guess we'll have to settle for chocolate...Sorta reminds me of '...let them eat cake'..from the French revolution... As to the Heaven and Hell comment..I plan on being in the former, myself, playing......just remember, earth is located in Heaven:-) |
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08 Aug 08 - 10:27 PM (#2409004) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Don Firth In the interest of full disclosure and of giving credit where credit is due, I must come clean. The original speech, as I understand it, was delivered in the Arkansas State Legislature, and attributed to one of a number of other state legislators, in response to the suggestion sometime in the late 1800s that the pronunciation of "Arkansas" (ARK-in-saw) be changed to reflect the way it is spelled (are-KANS-us). The idea didn't go over too well. "Change the name of Arkansas? Hell, NO!" I first ran across it years ago in the notes in Folk Song U.S.A by John and Alan Lomax (notes to a song called "The State of Arkansas," if I remember correctly), and have since seen several versions of it. It seems the speech is a genuine piece of American folklore. Anyway, I found a couple of versions on a web site, cut-and-pasted them into an MS Word document, did a bit of editing, up-dating, and modifying to fit the situation, then added a lick or two of my own. Modern political speeches are pretty bland compared to some of the impassioned oratory of yesteryear! The Gods of Mount Olympus (Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite, and that crowd) may have had their nectar and ambrosia, but Chalchihuihtotolin, Itzpapalotl, Quetzalcoatl, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, and the other Gods of the Aztecs had ChocolateDon Firth |
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08 Aug 08 - 11:27 PM (#2409028) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: The Fooles Troupe I do believe that Mr Sprüngli first did the heresy of making the solid product in about 1845 - he was later bought out by Mr Lindt. |
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09 Aug 08 - 02:25 PM (#2409416) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Rasener Just got back from Brugge in Belgiium. No buggering about with their chocolate. They make fine chocolate in Belgium. For those chocoholic Americans, who have nevr been to bruges9Brugge). Its a beautiful city and one that you should visit. |
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09 Aug 08 - 02:48 PM (#2409432) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Q (Frank Staplin) For Belgian chocolates made in Canada and, now, the U. S., look up Bernard Callebaut: Chocolate Bernard, a member of the famous chocolate importing family, emigrated to Canada and is doing well. Three concerns import most of the chocolate used by chocolatiers, Barry Callebaut, Archer, Daniels Midland, and Cargill. In the UK, they account for almost all of it. Although Central American in origin, most chocolate is grown in Africa, about half comes from Ivory Coast. |
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09 Aug 08 - 06:16 PM (#2409539) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Liz the Squeak Oddly enough, Manitas and I, on a visit to Sint Nikklaas - where they make Guylian chocolate praline seashells - were informed that most Belgians wouldn't touch the stuff and prefer Cadburys'... they don't understand why Brits go batty over Belgian chocolate. LTS |
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09 Aug 08 - 06:24 PM (#2409545) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Don Firth I live just a very few blocks from a Dilettante Chocolate shop and restaurant. All sizes, shapes, and varieties of chocolate. The finest quality. Gloriously decadent! It's an almost religious experience just to stand in front of the place and inhale. Nirvana must smell like that.... Don Firth |
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10 Aug 08 - 06:04 PM (#2410077) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Liz the Squeak Hotel Chocolat, ginger and lemon ganache in dark chocolate. Surely heaven tastes of that... They also make a 100% cocoa mass bar... I've not dared try it yet. LTS |
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10 Aug 08 - 07:03 PM (#2410106) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: The Fooles Troupe "100% cocoa mass bar." Thud! He's fainted, stand back, give him chocolate... |
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11 Aug 08 - 07:46 AM (#2410432) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: manitas_at_work "They also make a 100% cocoa mass bar... I've not dared try it yet." Get your hands off,that's mine! You don't even like dark chocolate! |
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11 Aug 08 - 08:34 AM (#2410463) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Donuel I boot up . I open mudcat for my weeekly dose of outrage and discovery and what do I see first?. Orwellian Chocolate If the corporate greed cretins keep it up, US cholcolate will be as crappy as Cadbury brown wax. I went to Hershey Park (its worth going twice) and did not eat a single piece of chocolate. The only commercial chocolate I like is Dove. |
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11 Aug 08 - 12:12 PM (#2410637) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Liz the Squeak Who says I don't like dark chocolate? Donuel - If Cadbury's is brown wax then Hersheys can only be pressed and foil wrapped dog poo. There simply is no comparison - and yes, I've eaten both. LTS |
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11 Aug 08 - 01:00 PM (#2410698) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator I was always told that Hershey bars were among the most desirable commodities in Europe during and immediately after WWII, comparable in value to nylon stockings and real coffee on every nation's black market. All you east-of-the-pond chocolate snobs may turn your noses up at this iconic American product nowadays, but your parents and grandparents had a different perspective entirely. Hershey invented milk chocolate ~ or, to be more precise, was the first to develop a workable method for mass-producing it ~ and perhaps being first was not tantamount to being best. Other concerns (arguably) made improvements as they devised their own methods. Taste is basically personal, anyway. Hershey's milk chocolate has a distinct flavor that some people actually prefer. That's what they're used to, what they associate with their childhood, or whatever. As for me, I'm not wild about anyone's milk chocolate, anyway ~ much prefer the darker stuff. |
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11 Aug 08 - 01:31 PM (#2410749) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Q (Frank Staplin) Dove sold here is soap. Cadbury's varies, depending on where it is made. Chocolates sold in Canada, are made in Canada. They have manufacturing sites in 20 countries and numerous regional brands. YOWIE in New Zealand. Cadbury Schweppes is a mass producer of all kinds of candies of average quality. |
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11 Aug 08 - 04:40 PM (#2410939) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Liz the Squeak Cadbury Schweppes owns Hersheys, as well as Green and Blacks, Dr Peppers, Snapple, Trebor, Dentyne, Bubblicious and Bassett amongst others. LTS |
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11 Aug 08 - 05:47 PM (#2410982) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: PoppaGator I read a very interesting book about Milton Hershey and his company a year or two ago. (Got it from the public library.) I think it's this one: http://www.amazon.com/Hershey-Milton-Hersheys-Extraordinary-Utopian/dp/0743264096/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product Assuming that this is the same book I read, there's a lot of interesting detail about the mass-production of chocolate, the history thereof, Mr Hershey himself (an interesting character featuring more internal contracdictions than most of us), and his company and unique little company town, a near-Utopia that eventually went just a little bit sour. |
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11 Aug 08 - 06:57 PM (#2411038) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: The Fooles Troupe "The only commercial chocolate I like is Dove." "Dove sold here is soap. " Yup, in Oz, it is a genuine sickly spew bar, full of vegetable oil. "Hershey bars were among the most desirable commodities in Europe during and immediately after WWII" I think you will find that like Coke, it was a 'political promotion' product. Hershey's founded 1894 Lindt - 1845 :-P to Yankee Pseudo-Imperialism! |
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11 Aug 08 - 07:57 PM (#2411076) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Mrrzy And they sell all kinds of stuff they call Water here, that isn't... |
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11 Aug 08 - 08:10 PM (#2411082) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Q (Frank Staplin) Cadbury Schweppes does not own Hershey's. Hershey's is independent, President and CEO David J. West, listed on the NYSE as HSY. Annual revenues c. $5 billion, with 13,000 on its payroll. Its premium chocolate is Cacao Reserve, and Artisan Confection which markets Scharffen Berger, etc. Company profile: www.thehersheycompany.com/about/profile.asp |
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02 Mar 21 - 10:46 PM (#4095761) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: robomatic This is my first time adding to and reviving an ancient run of texts, but I thought I'd seen a reference in BS: Mudcat to American chocolate tasting 'like sick' to British taste buds. I did a search and this thread came up. Clearly not what I remember, BUT: I just ate a Hershey chocolate bar and totally tasted what the Brits are talking about. It is rank, and I can't get the taste out of my mouth. I don't know at this moment whether I'll be able to eat another Hershey bar. It's the damnedest thing. Right now I'm trying to flush the taste with tea. Any advice will be welcomed if not tried. |
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03 Mar 21 - 01:51 AM (#4095768) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Manitas_at_home Try a spoonful of Marmite. |
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03 Mar 21 - 04:08 AM (#4095787) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Doug Chadwick The other, more recent, thread about chocolate DC |
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03 Mar 21 - 08:24 PM (#4095932) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: robomatic I love Marmite too much to use it as a mere bad taste suppresant. I think a fizzy drink was most helpful, a fruity one. I have three more candy bars that I can't bear to think of at this moment. The other more recent thread about chocolate was what I was thinking of, thank you, but it didn't really refer to the specifics of the difference in chocolate taste between U.K. and America. But there are some interesting internet articles on the difference which I may get to when I can get the memory of the taste out of my mouth. |
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04 Mar 21 - 04:40 AM (#4095965) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Thompson A more important point about chocolate is that child slaves are used by several of the large companies to harvest it. |
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04 Mar 21 - 06:20 AM (#4095970) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: JHW 'A more important point about chocolate is that child slaves are used by several of the large companies to harvest it. ' That's what I heard too but if we know about it is it fraud? |
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04 Mar 21 - 06:31 AM (#4095972) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Donuel 100% genuine artificial chocolate flavor should be on certain labels. |
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04 Mar 21 - 11:44 AM (#4096021) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: Mrrzy Other labelings here in Murrica smack of fraud to me: I already mentioned the chemicals-and-sugar stuff we are allowed to call Water. But all the fake meat stuff, too - instead of calling veggie things burgers and sausage, why not call them veggies? Don't pretend it is meat when it isn't. The whole point is to not be meat, after all. |
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06 Mar 21 - 10:19 PM (#4096409) Subject: RE: BS: Stop Chocolate Fraud Before It Begins! From: keberoxu Yes, I too snacked on a Hershey bar and I thought it tasted like wax, glue, and high-concentrate sugar syrup, and not much like chocolate. Is that really the same stuff that I gobbled up every Halloween back in the day? |