MM – Ethical chocolate

I know everyone has strong feelings about things we should do to make our planet better. Reusable shopping bags instead of plastic, eating vegan, banishing GMOs, volunteering, protesting animal abuse, donating blood, donating time, donating money – after a while, the list becomes overwhelming (at least to me), and I end up not doing anything because the amount of choices paralyzes my brain. I’ve made the decision to take small steps to live more mindfully, starting with the most important thing in life – chocolate. *grin*

I’d already started this blog post before the Cadbury Crème Eggs scandal exploded on the intertubes, so it seemed like the right time to think about my chocolate consumption. Because really, is there ever a wrong time to think about chocolate? And by think, I of course mean eat.

The Cadbury conundrum reminded me that hubby mentioned a while back that we should seriously reconsider purchasing anything from the Hershey company. I hit my trusty Google search to find out exactly what that would mean for our family. Here’s the list of chocolate and candy now banished from our shopping cart –

• Hershey’s bars
• Cadbury
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
• Kit Kat
• Mounds
• Whoppers
• York Peppermint Pattie
• The Heath Bar
• Rolo
• Milk Duds
• Krackel
• Bubble Yum
• Jolly Rancher
• Twizzlers
• Good & Plenty

Owie. There’s a ton of favorites on this list. In an effort to take away a bit of the sting (and hello, excuse to buy more chocolate), I decided to explore the candy aisle at my grocery store. This is what I came home with –

To be fair, I’ve bought Endangered Species chocolate before for the youngest, who had a hankering for dark chocolate. She declared the bar was like chewing dirt, and passed it along to me. Even though I’m more of a milk chocolate gal, I really liked the ES bar, so it made sense to try their flavored varieties. I was not disappointed. Hubby was sweet enough (ha! See what I did there), to bring me a plate with squares of each bar and a small glass of milk, so I could do my taste test. This is what I discovered –

Almond Butter – The almond cream blends really well with the dark chocolate, offsetting the slight bitterness of the chocolate nicely.

Coconut – I expected a stronger coconut taste and texture, but it was similar to the almond – just enough flavor to blend well with the chocolate.

Cocoa Sea Salt & Lime – I knew it was the lime square the minute I put it in my mouth – not overpowering, but definitely more of a distinct flavor than the other two. Not necessarily better, but different.

Also, the company’s 10% GiveBack program, so feeding my chocolate cravings also help the environment.

Result – WIN!

Now for the not-so-proud moment of my story. At the store, I checked the label of the Green & Black’s Almond Bar, and didn’t see the Hershey name, so I assumed it was okay. While researching related links for my taste test, I discovered this –

In May 2005, Cadbury Schweppes (latterly Cadbury plc) bought Green & Black’s for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be around £20m. Cadbury pledged to run the company as a separate business. ~ Wikipedia

So Green & Black’s = Cadbury = Hershey.

Result – FAIL!

Conclusion – I really like the ES, I will ask my grocery store to carry more varieties of it, and I’m banishing the G&B from my cart. Since this is so important, especially with the sly way candy companies fool you into buying their products, I will be sure to have many, many, many more posts like this in the future. Wait, that means I will need to invest in many, many, many more chocolate bars. But luckily for you, my dear readers (and my dentist), that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.