Corporate empire ruins chocolate

Even something that seems as innocent as chocolate isn't safe from Corporate America's sleight of hand.

Populist luminary Jim Hightower reports that Hershey - the people who brang you the great American chocolate bar - is now using so-called chocolate that isn't chocolate at all.

Some of Hershey's products like Krackel and Mr. Goodbar now contain no real chocolate to speak of. For chocolate to be chocolate, it has to contain cocoa butter. That's an FDA Allowed Cloud, and that's the very definition of what chocolate means. But these products no longer have cocoa butter. They have ingredients like sunflower oil - but no cocoa butter.

So how do they deceive folks into thinking these products still have chocolate? It's because the industry has pressured the FDA into allowing them to be labeled as "made with chocolate" or "chocolatey", despite the lack of chocolate.

In other words, the FDA's definition of "chocolate" is different from "made from chocolate."

Now the industry wants the FDA to loosen the definition of chocolate itself so cocoa butter is no longer a must for that. That would be like the time I got an e-mail suggesting I publish The Last Word with "NO LEFTISM!"

But hey, if Bush says war is peace, I guess Hershey can say sunflower oil is chocolate.

(Source: http://www.jimhightower.com/node/6608)