Here I am, the true believer in markets and free enterprise, alarm-sounder over government intervention and over-involvement, praying that the FDA nips this heresy in the bud:
Like many battles, this one's being fought block by block. Victory, for whoever prevails, will be sweet. Or bitter — or even bittersweet. It all depends on how you like your chocolate.
At stake is the very definition of chocolate, and whether cheaper vegetable oils can be substituted for what many consider the very quintessence of every block, bar and square of chocolate: cocoa butter.
[. . .]
The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Chocolate Manufacturers Association and 10 other food industry groups want more flexibility in those rigid standards. They seek broad permission to add ingredients, use different techniques, employ new shapes and substitute ingredients — something the standards currently don't allow.
I mean, this is chocolate, one of nature's perfect foods. Of all the good food rules -- there's no such thing as too much garlic, cheese is wonderful, more bacon helps everything -- perhaps the top one is "there's no such thing as too chocolate." But it must be real chocolate, with cocoa butter instead of some namby-pamby vegetable oil. I'll drink your lite beer and eat your state fair fried-without-trans-fat elephant ears, but, please, leave me this. Dark, semi-sweet chocolate is preferred over milk chocolate by true connoisseurs, by the way.
Now, figure out what I think about the possibility of the FDA taking charge of tobacco.
