FDA Considers Redefining Chocolate

shewfig writes "The US Food and Drug Administration is considering redefining 'chocolate' to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb.) for cocoa butter ($2.30/lb.), and whey protein for dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as 'chocolatey' and 'chocolate-flavored.' The change was requested by the industry group Chocolate Manufacturers of America. Leading the resistance to this change is high-end chocolate maker Guittard, with significant grass-roots support from the Candyblog. The FDA is taking consumer comments until April 25. Here is the FDA page on the proposed change, which oddly enough does not say what the proposed change is."

Comments

Re: There is already crud in the chocolate.

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Also, among the already mentioned items, there is a lot of pesticides in it:

News Flash! Source: AllAfrica News (West Africa Business)

"Cocoa Production, Employment, Shot Up By Mass Spraying - Jun 12 2003 Available data convincingly proves that Ghana's Cocoa Diseases and Pests Control project (CODAPEC), commonly known as the Mass Spraying Exercise, has tremendously improved the yield of cocoa, which remains one of the most important foreign exchange earners."1

[P]esticide residues routinely turn up in chocolate products sold in the USA5 and Europe.6 For as long as the leaders in the chocolate industry refuse to acknowledge that a pesticide problem exists, we have no hope of finding (or even looking for) a realistic solution to that problem.

see: http://www.tava.com.au/article_chemicals.html

I first ran into this in the book Diet for a Poisoned Planet. Peanuts and Chocolate were among the most contaminated foods in the American diet. Chocolate was high because it is imported from a lot of countries that do not have as tough of laws as we do (and ironically, they buy a lot of the chemicals from us!).

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