chocolate

[Millymollymandy]

Don't think that France necessarily makes nice chocolate. You should try the cheap easter eggs - they shouldn't even be labelled as chocolate.

They are the same as that 'chocolate flavoured candy' that you sometimes see in England. I could say exactly the same for some Belgian chocolate - I bought some very expensive ones from a posh chocolate shop for my husband's birthday, and they were really tasteless and horrible! Cost me €16 for a smallish box too!!! Did you know that you can only buy boxes of chocolates in France at Christmas? It's bloody ridiculous and infuriates me no end. Grrrrr.

My favourite chocolate is Lindt, or if I could get it, Suchard. They are Swiss. Other than that I eat bars of Milka, which is sometimes made in France and sometimes in Germany.

I did have a bar of Cadbury's about 4 years ago and was expecting it to taste of nothing (after all these years of continental choc) but it was really yummy!

[mrsflibble]

I can't stand dark chocolate; but I really like the co-op fairtrade milk choc, that's lovely. the divne stuff is ok too. My mum runs a fairtrade tuckshop in the school she works in and they do some really nice things, but all the chocolate tastes like someone stirred catsick into it.

[johnhcrf]

I love all chocolate but when you remove the sweeteners, including sugar, from chocolate, coffee, tea, juice? etc you are left with the true taste. As a child everything is sweet tasting to help their eating. You do not need sugar added food as an adult.

[ocailleagh]

As I mentioned, the stuff I've bought in fair trade shops and at church sales is pretty good - can't remember the make at the moment. (There's not just Divine - they aren't organic - there's another one which is better, I think. I shall try to find out...)

We don't have any fair trade shops around here (although my town is supposed to be a 'fair trade town', whatever that means lol) so thats out, and even if I knew of any church sales, as a Pagan (and I'm not speaking for all Pagans here, just myself), I'd be unwilling to give money to the Church. I feel pretty much the same about it as I do about multinationals! Its not that I'm anti-Christian (I consider all religion to be valid), just anti-Church.

But Lidl do do a faretrade bar - and it's nice! It has cardboard packaging that can be recycled too!

I find it hard to believe Lidl on things like fairtrade and vegetarian stuff...I don't know why lol. Its just a gut feeling. Also, in my local one at least, they never seem to open more than one checkout, or two at Christmas! Shopping there takes days lol! I might give it a bash though. Ideally I need to find a nice dark one that's good for cooking with. I make a chocolate tree at Yule, and it takes a lot of chocolate!

[ina]

Strange. That's one of the good things at Lidl's - they are never terribly busy! Just bought the fairtrade chocs; if they weren't "fair trade", I'm sure they wouldn't get the certificate for it. These things do get checked, you know...

I just find it annoying that they have a special "fair trade" section, rather than selling the chocolates in the chocolate section, the coffee in the coffee section etc. I'm sure they'd sell more of it if people could actually find it. But maybe that's the point: maybe they are losing money on it and don't want to sell more - but they want to be able to say they are offering it!

[johnhcrf]

You're right, Ina, Lidl does have a fairtrade section. Most folk just are not well enough informed about the subject.

[ocailleagh]

Our Lidl is almost always busy, though I do live in quite a low-income area, so maybe that has something to do with it.
I know there is certification and stuff, but who awards these certificates? Is it an independant body or can stores and other businesses just award it to themselves/say they aim to be fairtrade? I'm thinking here of many occasions I've seen things marked as vegetarian (not by the Vegetarian Society though) yet containing non-veggie cheese or battery eggs or whatever. And also of the Freedom Foods thing, which a vegan friend of mine was telling me is all hype and PR.
I wish there was just one awarding body that governed all these things, with the pertinent info/rating displayed next to the nutritional table or something.
Actually, since I'm making wishes, I wish there was an ethical supermarket chain with a store near me!

[ina]

If it has the official fair trade logo on it, then it's awarded by that (independent) body. They do have a website somewhere, where they explain how it works. Even the Freedom Food label does have standards - maybe your vegan friend thinks they aren't strict enough (quite possibly I would think that, too, if I knew more about them). There are so many "quality assurance" schemes nowadays, it's difficult to keep up. But standards do get checked, and they add a lot of work to the producers' work burden - but without a series of awards/certifications etc, nobody can sell their stuff nowadays, at least not in quantity! It's OK without them if you are just selling locally, and your customers know and trust you.

To add to my suggestion re church sales: I'm an atheist myself; but I do see an important role for the church in these rural areas. They are the main system of social care, especially for the elderly, and those living on their own; so I do go to their "soup and sweet" lunches, and their coffee mornings - if only to meet the rest of the population, because just about everybody goes! And they always have a fair trade stall.

[Clara]

The problem with the Freedom Foods mark is that it is awarded to non-battery eggs even if there are battery hens on the same farm (though of course these eggs are not entitled to be labelled as such themselves). So whilst technically being free range, there is an ethical question over whether these farmers should be entitled to benefit from such a scheme (by higher prices commanded for the eggs) when they are clearly not commited to the cause.

[ina]

The problem with the Freedom Foods mark is that it is awarded to non-battery eggs even if there are battery hens on the same farm (though of course these eggs are not entitled to be labelled as such themselves). So whilst technically being free range, there is an ethical question over whether these farmers should be entitled to benefit from such a scheme (by higher prices commanded for the eggs) when they are clearly not commited to the cause.

Ah thanks - that's a detail worth knowing! Not that I've ever been in danger of buying those eggs - I get mine locally... Definitely free range. But that's the problem with these certifications: Nestle, for example, has fair trade coffee, too - I still wouldn't buy it, because I would be supporting the entire company with that. I don't like those farms that are partly organic, either; I could understand it in the conversion period, but not long term.

[Clara]

Exactly...and it´s just the same buying G&Bs now they are owned by Cadbury´s I watched a program once that reckoned 90% of cocoa produced on the ivory coast was from bonded labour (slavery bascially), now the trade from there accounts for 40% of world cocoa production. So unless I have my maths wrong, this means that more than 1/3 of all chocolate consumed in the world is produced off the backs of slaves. It makes me wanna scream.

Now don´t get me wrong, I like chocolate as much as anyone, but jeez.....and whilst fair trade is definitely, well, fairer. I can´t help but feel we´d be better off leaving people to farm their landbase for themselves instead of producing luxury cashcrops for the likes of us.

ETA just looked it up to find out my facts this:

http://www.newgreenbasics.com/article/s ... a-children

is an interesting article, worse than I thought, it is mainly child slaves.

[johnhcrf]

Is there any brand of chocolate you would recommend to the uninformed?

[Clara]

I think that as someone mentioned before, Oxfam have their own brand "Divine", obviously such organisations are not part of multinational conglomerates and so haven´t got their other grubby fingers in other grubby pies.

Personally, the more I think about all of this stuff the more I´m inclined to say that the only answer is not to buy cocoa products at all.

[johnhcrf]

I've suddenly lost my taste for chocolate. Maybe in a just future such distorted situations will disappear. What else should I stop eating?

[Stonehead]

disgust disgust

Damned multinationals! Is there a chocolate that isn't owned by some evil, universe-destroying conglomerate? One as good as G&B?

I used to frequent a small chocolatier in London, who used to supply me with the most sublime, hand-made truffles in a lovely wooden box. Prime GF bait!! (Yes, it worked — the Other Half is still hanging around in hope of another box.) Sadly, the chocolatier closed a few years back.