Dark Chocolate May Contain Milk Says FDA

This is your Valentine's Day nightmare. You indulge yourself in a pricey bar of sumptuous dark chocolate. Dairy-free is on the label. But the palpitations you feel aren't from Cupid's arrow but from anaphylactic shock.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently ran a study on 100 dark chocolate products. Many of them contained milk, some in levels high enough to be a serious problem to many who are allergic to milk proteins.

Labeling on the chocolates was inconsistent. Some did say that they "main contain traces of milk." Others, however, said definitively that they were "dairy-free" or even "allergen-free." Many had no warning labeling of any kind.

What the FDA Study Found

“First of all, milk-allergic consumers should be aware that a high proportion of the dark chocolates we tested contained milk, even when the label failed to list milk as an ingredient,” [Binaifer Bedford, M.S., an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellow at FDA] says. Of greatest concern are chocolate samples that have no statement regarding milk on the label or have inconsistencies in the label. Several of the chocolates labeled “dairy free” were also found to contain milk.

Results included:

• While dark chocolates labeled “dairy free or allergen-free” were the least likely to contain milk, two out of 17 of these products were found to contain milk.
• All seven bars that declared the presence of milk on the label contained milk; however, 55 (59%) of 93 bars without any clear indication of the presence of milk also were found to contain milk.
• Six out of the eleven chocolate products labeled “traces of milk” contained milk at detectable levels high enough to potentially cause severe reactions in some individuals.

What can you as a consumer do when a manufacturer lies to or misleads you? The FDA has a few recommendations, which are far less than perfect yet may make a difference in the long run.

[C]onsumers can find out what products have been recalled recently at FDA’s website and at the Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) website.Consumers can also inform FDA about undeclared allergens by contacting the agency’s consumer complaint coordinator for your state or by reporting food-allergic reactions online.

Research, read, complain. Three little words not quite as romantic as I Love You, but they may change your life just as dramatically.

UPDATE: May 29, 2015

Good news for Jeff Bezos. Old media apparently is still powerful, driving news on the Internet. This three-month-old announcement has suddenly spawned articles on numerous sites. The only possible reason I can find is that Roberto A. Ferdman of the Washington Post's Wonkblog just put out an article about it. Always glad to see important findings reach a larger public, but this is a tiny bit scary. A consumer-friendly handout from the FDA takes three months to go the ten miles from the FDA compound to the Washington Post building? Really? Are there other things in that pipeline that Ferdman should be getting to? I'm an old-line print advocate and newspaper reader but this is an example of the superiority of a Google News feed.

Chocolates Truffles. Have One. Just One. Ok, Two.

Email from Jennifer, about a problem almost too good to be true.

My question concerns gourmet chocolates, like truffles and other filled chocolates. I have always loved those, and do try to steer clear of cream-filled chocolates, but sometimes I'm too tempted, and have one or two. I don't seem to have a problem digesting them, even though just about everything else with dairy (muffins, ice cream, milk, etc.) causes problems. I've joked that I've somehow been lucky to get a chocolate exception to LI. Is there something to that (more than a joke)? Is there something about cream-filled chocolates that would cause less of a reaction than other dairy items?

What a wonderful question to get to answer the very same week that the headline "Chocoholics may have an edge in heart health" appeared in the Washington Post.

I normally have the dismal job of reminding people that most headlines they see in newspapers about the latest miraculous report about foods or medicines are literally not worth the paper they're printed on. The studies are too small, or too short, or too conflicted to rely on. This study rises to a much higher standard. It's what's known as a meta-study, one that analyzes the medical literature and tries to form a conclusion based on all the best and largest studies. This one looked at 114,009 adults from seven studies, with different methodologies. Here come the science.

Chocolate consumption and cardiometabolic disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis. Adriana Buitrago-Lopez et al. BMJ 2011; 343:d4488 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d4488 (Published 29 August 2011)

Abstract

Objective
To evaluate the association of chocolate consumption with the risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders.

Design
Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials and observational studies.

Data sources
Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, PubMed, CINAHL, IPA, Web of Science, Scopus, Pascal, reference lists of relevant studies to October 2010, and email contact with authors.

Study selection
Randomised trials and cohort, case-control, and cross sectional studies carried out in human adults, in which the association between chocolate consumption and the risk of outcomes related to cardiometabolic disorders were reported.

Data extraction
Data were extracted by two independent investigators, and a consensus was reached with the involvement of a third. The primary outcome was cardiometabolic disorders, including cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease and stroke), diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. A meta-analysis assessed the risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders by comparing the highest and lowest level of chocolate consumption.

Results
From 4576 references seven studies met the inclusion criteria (including 114 009 participants). None of the studies was a randomised trial, six were cohort studies, and one a cross sectional study. Large variation was observed between these seven studies for measurement of chocolate consumption, methods, and outcomes evaluated. Five of the seven studies reported a beneficial association between higher levels of chocolate consumption and the risk of cardiometabolic disorders. The highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease (relative risk 0.63 (95% confidence interval 0.44 to 0.90)) and a 29% reduction in stroke compared with the lowest levels.

Conclusions
Based on observational evidence, levels of chocolate consumption seem to be associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of cardiometabolic disorders. Further experimental studies are required to confirm a potentially beneficial effect of chocolate consumption.

Or as the Washington Post boiled it down:

People who ate the most chocolate — dark or light and in such forms as bars, drinks, desserts, snacks and nutritional supplements — were 37 percent less likely to have developed cardiovascular disease and 29 percent less likely to have had a stroke than were those who ate the least amount of chocolate.

More chocolate for everyone!

Yes, that includes you, readers who are lactose intolerant. There are two parts to this answer, and both of them are good news.

Personally, I'm a dark chocolate fanatic. That doesn't mean that the higher the cocoa content the better. Truthfully, those 85% cocoa super-intense bars go over the edge into bitterness. I'll stick with 70-72% cocoa for the best experience. Adding fruit doesn't hurt, either for flavor or health. I found a supplier of dark chocolate-coated black currents, an intense rush that satisfies even when I have just one or two raisin-sized pieces. I substitute that for dessert, part of an overall purge of excess sugar from my diet. I've gone down a pants size in the past few months, losing about one pound a week, a good recommended amount.

And all that dark chocolate? It's milk free. So the lactose content is zero.

That's not what Jennifer asked about, though. Chocolate truffles may be dark chocolate or milk chocolate. Either way, they're likely to have some sort of cream-filled interiors that kiss each taste bud and send them flying. And cream means milk. Which means lactose.

The secret? A truffle is tiny. All that intense flavor is packed into a tiny volume, a neutron star for calories. I checked a number of brands and found that truffles seem to run from 10 to 20 grams, much less than an ounce, which is 28.375 grams. An ounce of pure milk contains less than a gram and a half of lactose. Truffles are half that size and are mostly not milk. Therefore the fraction of a gram of lactose in any given truffle is probably too small to matter.

As long as you don't gobble down (or it is gobble up) the whole carton of truffles at a sitting, the vast majority of us with lactose intolerance don't have to worry about symptoms. Think of it as the indulgence it's supposed to be, and have one, just as some better restaurants offer at the end of a meal. Just remember that a truffle is an indulgence and stop at one. I'll allow two. I mean, we're talking truffles here.

If you want to up your chocolate content to get some of that heart-healthy goodness, though, I'd recommend sticking to a good dark chocolate with less fat and fewer calories. In place of dessert, not in addition to it. Then you can go shopping for new jeans. Three pair, including tax, $36 at the VF outlet store. Talk about indulgence.

UK Dairy Free Chocolate

Neandra Etienne taste-tested a variety of dairy-free chocolates available in stores or on line in the UK for The Collective Review.

I'm not going to give you the whole reviews, because that would be copying too much. However, here are the chocolates cited and their websites. For Etienne's opinions, visit the page linked above.

Dairy Free
www.dairy-free.co.uk


Rococo Chocolates
www.rococochocolates.com


Seed Stacked Flapjack
www.seedstacked.com



Chocolala
www.chocolala.co.uk







Freefrom
www.sainsburys.co.uk/freefrom

Chocolate World Expo

Chocolate. More chocolate. Even more chocolate.

Sound good?

With over 50 vendors, Chocolate World Expo is one of the largest retail chocolate shows in the U.S. Let's pretend that this article from the Hudson Valley Press is something other than a press release masquerading as news.

Record numbers of chocolate lovers and foodies from near and far are expected at the upcoming Chocolate World Expo, which returns to the Westchester County Center in White Plains, on Sunday, November 7th, from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. Visitors will have a chance to taste, purchase, celebrate and otherwise indulge in delicious gourmet chocolates, as well as a wonderful array of baked goods, specialty foods, ice cream, cheeses, wines and much more at the show. ...

To suit a variety of other dietary needs and tastes, certain vendors will also feature all-natural, organic, raw, vegan, fair trade, dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, low-glycemic, kosher and/or ethnic-style choices.

Chocolate.

New UK Dairy-Free Chocolates

Just yesterday I posted about the Barry Callebaut chocolate site and today I have an announcement about a new dairy-free chocolate that the firm is making. Coincidence? I think not.

The press release can be found at the Food Ingredients First site.

Barry Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality cocoa and chocolate products, says it brought the world’s first 100% dairy free alternative to milk chocolate to the market to add to the increasingly popular “Freefrom” food category. Due to the increased awareness of allergies and food intolerances on the one hand and continuous improvements in taste and quality of “Free-from” products on the other, the market grew strongly over the recent years. In 2010, the world market will grow 8.1%, according to Euromonitor. And the growth is expected to continue: from +9.4% (2011) up to +21.5% (2014).

The newly formulated guaranteed 100% dairy free alternative developed by Barry Callebaut offers the same color and smooth taste of milk chocolate, yet without any milk ingredients. This is extremely important for adults and children suffering from milk allergy. In addition, this innovation is a valuable alternative for those being lactose intolerant as well as for the increasing number of people excluding dairy or dairy ingredients like lactose from their diet out of personal belief or because of following specific lifestyle choices such as vegans or vegetarians.

With Celtic Chocolates, one of Ireland’s leading chocolatiers and long-term provider of gourmet chocolate for people with allergies and food intolerances, Barry Callebaut found an ideal partner to further develop and bring the 100% dairy free alternative to milk chocolate into the market.

Check out Celtic Chocolates for more information.

Celtic Chocolates Limited
Summerhill
Co Meath
Tel: +353 (0) 4695 57077
Fax: + 353 (0) 4695 57591
E mail: info@celticchocolates.eu

Chocophilia

Barry Callebaut claims to be the "world’s leading supplier of high-quality cocoa and chocolate product." That's quite a claim. Europeans know the company through its personal brands - Sarotti in Germany, Jacques in Belgium, and Alprose in Switzerland - but it has partnerships with chocolate companies all over the world. And it has chocolate museums in Belgium and Switzerland. Now that's dedication.

If you've wanted to learn more about chocolate, from its history, to manufacturing, to the many health claims being put forward today for chocolate, click over to the site's Chocophilia section.

There's also a large page of chocolate recipes. Most use at least butter if not other dairy products, so you will have to experiment with substitutes if you try them.

Hain Dreams - Dairy-Free Multitudes

The Hain-Celestial Group is so gigantic that they're almost too big to see. I talk about new firms that enter the non-dairy and dairy alternative market because they're easy to spot when I walk by the shelves. Hain products are always there and it's hard to keep track of what's new. I've had them on my website product list forever, of course.

How big are they? Gape at this list:

Hain Celestial participates in almost all natural food categories with well-known brands that include Celestial Seasonings®, Terra®, Garden of Eatin’®, Health Valley®, WestSoy®, Earth’s Best®, Arrowhead Mills®, DeBoles®, Hain Pure Foods®, FreeBird™, Hollywood®, Spectrum Naturals®, Spectrum Essentials®, Walnut Acres Organic™, Imagine Foods™, Rice Dream®, Soy Dream®, Rosetto®, Ethnic Gourmet®, Yves Veggie Cuisine®, Linda McCartney®, Realeat®, Lima®, Grains Noirs®, Natumi®, JASON®, Zia® Natural Skincare, Avalon Organics®, Alba Botanica® and Queen Helene®.

The one, or ones, I want to talk about today are the Dream lines of dairy-free drinks and frozen desserts. They are all found at Taste the Dream.

There are four Dreams, Rice, Soy, Hemp, and Almond, each obviously named after the ingredient that is used as the base. Kidz Dream is soymilk and fruit juice smoothies.

The newest line is Chocolate Dream bars.

New Chocolate Dream dairy free candy bars are premium all-natural, solid chocolate bars crafted from cocoa that will satisfy everyone’s chocolate dream.

Available in five decadent varieties, they contain no artificial colors, flavors, preservatives or refined sugars making them truly a dairy free and gluten free dream come true.

The five flavors are Dark Chocolate in Almond, Pure Dark, Rice Crunch, and Raspberry, and Sweet Chocolate in Creamy Sweet.

If you think you remember the Dream lines under another name, you're right.

The roots of RICE DREAM and SOY DREAM go back to 1971, when Robert Nissenbaum, one of the original founders, had opened Morning Dew Organic Food Market in St. Louis, MO. It was one of the first organic/natural food stores in the United States. Robert was very passionate about the relationship between diet, health and well being, as well as very concerned for the environment. He explored the natural vegetarian diet, macrobiotics, yoga, and organic gardening. He used his store as the vehicle to share his ideas and inform others about the benefits of this new way of living.

In 1982, Robert and another partner founded Imagine Foods in the Missouri countryside. Things really took off when he and his partner took some of their products including soy tempeh, an early version of RICE DREAM beverage, and RICE DREAM Frozen Dessert to a natural food industry trade show. The distributors were crazy about the RICE DREAM Frozen Dessert. The orders kept coming, and the company kept growing and changing, to offer the highest quality, most delicious all-natural foods.

In December of 2002, Imagine foods was made part of The Hain Celestial Group- the country’s largest and most respected natural and organic foods company. Imagine Foods is proud to be part of The Hain Celestial Group’s family of brands that provide delicious “better for you” foods loved by people of all ages.

Taste The Dream Consumer Relations
The Hain Celestial Group, Inc.
4600 Sleepytime Dr.
Boulder, CO 80301

Or call us at:
1-800-434-4246, Monday-Friday, 7am-5pm Mountain Time

If you would like more information about The Hain Celestial Group, go to www.hain-celestial.com

Rescue Chocolate's Vegan Egg

With Easter and Passover approaching (don't look at me: the only holidays whose dates I know are the Fourth of July and Cinco de Mayo), a company that brags about vegan Easter eggs and Passover Bark has to get my attention. Mostly because I don't know what Passover Bark is. (If you don't either, the picture is below.)



The news comes from a handy press release telling us the story behind Rescue Chocolate.

The newest do-good gourmet chocolate company, Rescue Chocolate, recently launched two boundary-breaking sweets for the spring holidays.

Candy Easter eggs are a dime a dozen, sometimes literally. The Good Egg from Rescue Chocolate changes that notion. This is a dairy-free "cream"- filled chocolate egg perfect for the Easter basket or Passover table. It breaks bounds in the dairy-free confection world in that it's the country's only vegan chocolate egg actually made with a creamy filling. Those who no longer eat a diet with milk or egg products can now relive that traditional holiday treat from Easters past. This writer was able to try a taste, and the egg did not disappoint. The chocolate cream filling tasted sweet, airy and light; while the chocolate egg shell was dark and smooth as can be.

As with all of the Rescue Chocolate products, this egg has its own mission. The company emphasizes that an unruly pet is not a "bad egg," and instead of giving up said animal, a person needs only to seek out no-cost or low-cost solutions from a vet or animal shelter professional. The egg's presentation, nestled in a cozy wood nest, makes The Good Egg a shoo-in gift for the spring holidays.

As Passover approaches, many observant Jews find themselves dreading the bland food which they annually resign themselves to in the name of tradition. "It's only eight days," they tell themselves, "you can go without the good stuff for eight days." No longer. Rescue Chocolate is offering a limited edition Kosher for Passover-certified chocolate bark. Called Don't Passover Me Bark, it features a matzoh-textured slab of Belgian chocolate with a sprinkling of whole almonds. It's the perfect finish for any Seder meal, and it would make quite a welcome Passover hostess gift.

Both products are cruelty-free, vegan, and certified as Kosher Pareve (with the bark only certified for Passover). And, as with all of their products, consumers feel good shopping because 100% of the net proceeds are donated to non-profit organizations working on animal rescue issues. For the month of March, the United Animal Nations is the beneficiary group for their international animal welfare programs.

Contact information:

Rescue Chocolate
Sarah Gross
917-767-7283
info@rescuechocolate.com
www.rescuechocolate.com

High Quality Dairy? Still a No.

Using local foods for baking? Fine with me. Finding only the best ingredients? Great. Saying that high-quality makes dairy okay? Whoa. That's just not so.

Lea Calderon-Guthe wrote an article on a new Vermont chocolate shop in the Middlebury College student weekly. She quoted Stephanie and Andy Jackson about their store.

The simplicity of Middlebury Chocolates' truffles stems mainly from its all-natural, mostly local ingredients.

The Jacksons use no refined sugar — only Vermont maple syrup and honey as sweeteners, and most of the truffles are made with coconut milk for a smoother texture and a lower dairy content so that they are more agreeable with dairy-sensitive diets like Andy and Stephanie's. Most truffles need butter, however, so the Jacksons still pay homage to the local dairy industry.

"They're not completely dairy-free, but the dairy quality up here is so high that we can handle it a lot better, actually," Andy said. "We also want to keep everything incredibly fresh and just nurture the natural flavors, and the best way to do that is to keep things as local as possible."

This is what I hope they meant. Butter is naturally low in lactose. If you use a dairy substitute to take most of the lactose out of the recipe, what remains in any given truffle would be low enough so that most people with lactose intolerance could undoubtedly have one with no symptoms. That would be true no matter what the quality of the dairy. (And how many chocolate gourmet truffles are made with low-quality butter in the first place?)

For those with dairy allergies, butter remains off limits, period. Same for vegans.

Quality is a good thing. I'm all for it. Quality is more an issue for our taste buds than for our intestines, however, which stubbornly persist in reacting to individual molecules. I'd have a truffle made with no dairy except lactose. I just wouldn't advice someone with an allergy to do the same.

Dairy-Free Chocolates Are Healthier

Chocolate has sometimes been mentioned as a healthy food. Turns out it's not all chocolates. They have to be... Dairy-Free.

That's the claim made by this Premium Health News Service story by Lisa Tsakos of NaturallySavvy.com. I found it on the website of an Arkansas television station.

Q. Is chocolate actually healthy? I've heard a lot about the antioxidant properties of chocolate.

A: The antioxidants (polyphenols) in chocolate are very powerful -- as long as no dairy has been added. Research shows the health benefits of chocolate (or cacao) are negated with the addition of dairy. Bottom line: Yes, dairy-free chocolate can be healthy (the more antioxidants the better), however, those same nutrients can be found in tea and red grapes. So as much as we'd like to think of chocolate as an "essential" food ... oh, go ahead, eat it anyway.

Is this true? Are there any studies on this?

Who cares? I love dark chocolate! (70-72% cocoa powder content is best.) Do you think I'm going to even try to disprove such a wonderful report? Facts that you want to hear are always true!

Fortunately for my morals and ethics, Lisa Tsakos' contention is backed up by some scientific research.

A story by Daniel J. DeNoon on WebMD in 2003 reported on an Italian study.

Dark chocolate -- but not milk chocolate or dark chocolate eaten with milk -- is a potent antioxidant, report Mauro Serafini, PhD, of Italy's National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research in Rome, and colleagues. Their report appears in the Aug. 28 [2003] issue of Nature. Antioxidants gobble up free radicals, destructive molecules that are implicated in heart disease and other ailments.

"Our findings indicate that milk may interfere with the absorption of antioxidants from chocolate ... and may therefore negate the potential health benefits that can be derived from eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate."

Nature is one of the world's premier science journals. Did I mention that they printed a story of mine on their back page "Futures" section that features one page science fiction hard science stories? It's in the September 24, 2009 issue for those with access to bigger libraries. (Or you can buy it as part of my collection of short stories Tyrannosaur Faire. Its title is "A Kiss Isn't Just a Kiss".) Why didn't I tell you about it sooner? Because I didn't know when the story was going to be published and I only found out about it when they sent me an issue - an issue that didn't arrive until the next week's issue was already out.)

Digression, Sorry.

I have to point out that this study was on a grand total of 12 people and only tested their blood an hour after eating so there's no way of knowing whether any long-term good was done.

ScienceDaily.com reported on a different study from the U.S. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in 2005. The ARS is the chief scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The researchers found natural cocoa powders contained the highest levels of TAC and procyanidins, which were found to be the dominant antioxidant in chocolates. Milk chocolates, which contain the least amount of cocoa solids, had the lowest TAC and procyanidin levels. Baking chocolates contained fewer procyanidins, because they contained more fat (50-60 percent) than natural cocoa. Alkalinization, used to reduce the acidity and raise the pH of cocoa, such as Dutch chocolates, was found to markedly reduce procyanidin content. Researchers concluded that chocolates containing higher amounts of cocoa ingredients have higher procyanidin contents, therefore, higher antioxidant capacities.

Nine major manufacturers provided commercially available chocolate and cocoa samples and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided its Standard Reference chocolate for analysis. The study was partially funded by a grant from the American Cocoa Research Institute.

Wait. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a "Standard Reference Chocolate"? Why isn't this better known? Why aren't there public tours?

Anyway, other research indicates that the chocolate should be at least 70% cocoa for best results, a nice bittersweet amount. (I find that anything over 80% is too bitter, but I'm extremely sensitive to bitter tastes.) Remember that the rest of the chocolate will be fat, so don't overindulge.

There are zillions of dark chocolate bars on the market. I've tried many and found that they are remarkably different from one another. Unfortunately, the more expensive ones really are better. You can get good results inside a good supermarket if you explore the shelves carefully and sample the brands. If the bar doesn't tell you the cocoa percentage you can assume that it isn't high enough.

Dark chocolate. Daily. Have a piece while checking out my blog. Both are proven to be good for your health.

Dairy-Free Bubble Chocolate Now in America

Bubbles. Chocolate.

Better than chocolate and peanut butter? It melts in your mouth and is lower in calories. (I Can't Believe It's Not Chocolate?) So you tell me.

Whatever it is, it goes by the easy-to-ask-for name of Bubble Chocolate.

First the press release.

While the sensation will be new to most Americans, it will be a taste of home to the millions of international citizens living in the States. With an estimated one billion dollars in annual international aerated chocolate sales (Mintel, 2009), Bubble Chocolate® introduces chocolate lovers to the light, airy, and unique melt-in-your-mouth experience.

"This is a new Bubble Chocolate® that’s all natural and reformulated to introduce Americans to the aerated chocolate craze that has dominated international markets for decades," says Frank Drab, president Bubble Chocolate®. "The timing is right to bring something new and exciting to the U.S. market. Americans will love it, the international community will be happy to have it and it will be a favorite among dieters who are looking for a satisfying, yet lower calorie chocolate fix."

People on restricted calorie diets, tend to prefer this type of chocolate. The nature of the aerated process makes the bars lower in calories than a regular chocolate bar, and despite the lower calories, it does not compromise the overall taste experience. In fact, since Bubble Chocolate® literally melts in-your-mouth, the taste is more immediate and the burst of flavor tends to satisfy chocolate cravings sooner. As the company slogan states, it’s "Just the Right Amount of Chocolate®." ...

"Creating Bubble Chocolate® is both an art and a science," says Drab. "Our proprietary procedure infuses bubbles throughout the chocolate at just the right temperature. Then it's molded and cooled so the bubbly structure remains inside while a smooth outer shell is formed."

Bubble Chocolate® looks like a regular chocolate bar, but the inside has tiny bubbles. The best way to enjoy Bubble Chocolate® is to start by breaking off a small piece and chewing it gently until it begins to melt. Your mouth will change from slightly dry to moist and creamy. This delightful transition occurs when your taste-bud receptors are drawn to the chocolate bubbles as it starts to melt.

Is it cruel to say that you can tell this product is from a European company because the press release seems to have been written by somebody for whom English is not a first language? Of course, I tend to think that of most press releases.

Only the dark chocolate version of Bubble Chocolate is dairy free, of course.

I found one review of it, by Lorraine Eaton of the Virginian-Pilot. Apparently having to let chocolate melt in your mouth is something instant-gratification-raised Americans will need a while to adapt to.

I broke off a square of the dark, which delivered a nice, dark hit of flavor. The texture takes a bit of getting used to. You definitely have to let it melt in your mouth; chewing results in a grainy texture. It wasn't a winner in my book, but maybe the calorie savings would make it more enticing.

When I compared the back of my Bubble Chocolate bar and my Trader Joe’s bar I was surprised to find similar values: Trader Joe’s has 200 calories and 15 grams of fat in a 33 gram serving (about four solid squares) and Bubble has the same counts in a 40 gram serving. The kicker for me was price. TJ's is $1.99 for a 3.5-ounce bar; Bubble Chocolate is $2.50 for a 2.82-ounce bar.

No love at first nibble for me. Sigh.

Well, 40 grams is almost 20% more than 33 grams, so having the same total fat and calories is a 20% savings per unit volume. That might make a difference to some.

Or letting it melt won't be a problem. Try it for yourself. The company will ship to "virtually any address in the US. Note that there are restrictions and/or challenges with some destinations due to the perishable nature of all natural premium chocolate. "

Is Chocolate to Be Avoided?

Chocolate. How do you answer a question about chocolate without getting so distracted that you forget the subject? (I make sure that I don't have any chocolate anywhere in my office at any time. Writing is hard enough without thinking about nibbling.)

That's a lead-in to one of the most horrifying questions I've ever received.

If a person is lactose intolerant, does that mean they should not eat chocolate? What about things like chocolate cake, cupcakes, and candy?

Chocolate is a subject that people write whole books about, long, loving books with lots of recipes and pictures of concoctions that would melt the teeth off the whole Osmond family. Nope, I'm getting distracted again. Let's concentrate on the chocolate-lactose connection.

Chocolate itself comes from the cocoa nut. Cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and chocolate liquor, better known as baking chocolate or bitter chocolate, are all pure chocolate with no lactose. Why add lactose? The name "bitter chocolate" offers a clue. Lactose is a sugar and adds sweetness. That's why milk and chocolate are paired together so often.

Not all chocolates have lactose added, fortunately. Dark and semi-sweet chocolates are almost always lactose-free. Usually the higher the cocoa content, the less likelihood there is of encountering lactose. Personally, I've settled on chocolate bars that are 70-72% chocolate. You can find higher percentages on the shelves but I find them too strong.

That last section referred to pure high-quality dark chocolate bars. High quality in chocolate also means higher priced. Some cheaper dark chocolates have milkfat included as an ingredient. Peter Paul Mounds bars do, to answer another question sent in to me. Milkfat should not contain any appreciable percentage of lactose so those with LI don't need to worry at all about it, although anyone with a dairy allergy needs to stay away.

Milk chocolate of course has milk in it. How much milk? Depends on the recipe and the brand and the cost and a million other factors. Most people with LI won't have any symptoms if they were to nibble on a small bit of milk chocolate. The more you eat, the lactose you take in. You have to know your own body well enough to do when to stop.

Especially children with LI. I received this wise email from a mother who was uncommonly watchful and observant.

I can attest (due to my 4 year old's case of LI) that milk chocolate & even semi-sweet chocolate contain enough lactose & milk in them to cause a reaction. (I'm sure this is just because he is barely 40 lbs & the ratio of chocolate to body weight a child eats is far greater than that of an adult.)

I have been cutting up dark chocolate bars for the past several years to make our chocolate chip cookies, and it seems that he can tolerate dark chocolate, but not the semi-sweet nor milk chocolate chips.

White chocolate isn't truly chocolate according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And it must contain a minimum of 14% milk solids. Avoid.

Do I dare get into the sinkhole of whether "chocolate cake, cupcakes, and candy" contain lactose? Nope. Most do. Some don't. Check ingredients labels. Patronize stores and bakeries that feature dairy-free products. Look for dairy-free recipes. Check my Milk-Free Bookstore for dairy-free cookbooks. Planet Lactose is a huge, huge world. You need to take time to explore it.

But there's absolutely no need to avoid chocolate while doing so.

"Everyone needs a little Booja Booja now and then"

UK and German consumers with a sweet tooth just got a treat.

Emma Eversham on the industry site BigHospitality.co.uk wrote about Booja Booja.

Confectionery company Booja-Booja has launched its dairy and sugar-free chocolate 'ice cream' in a 110ml size to help restaurants, pubs and hotels boost their dessert and snack offering for allergy-sufferers this summer.

The dessert, named Stuff in a Tub Hunky Punky Chocolate, is a mix of agave, cashew nuts, cocoa powder and water and is ideal for customers who cannot eat dairy or gluten.

Booja Booja's Stuff in a Tub range includes Keep Smiling Vanilla M'Gorilla, Coconut Hllabaloo, Feisty Winjin Ginger and Pompompous Maple Pecan which are available in 500ml pots.

All Booja Booja products are organic, dairy-free, wheat-free and gluten-free and are suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Those are names and a half, indeed. The rest of the Booja Booja line is a bit more gourmet. Their website features loads of high-end and dairy-free chocolate truffles.

The website is also available in German for continental customers.

Lucy Waverman's Chocolate Easter Eggs

Lucy Waverman is "a chef, the food columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail and food editor of Food & Drink, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's glossy magazine" as I wrote in Rethinking Recipes for Allergies.

She's been making recipes, like this Dairy-Free Chocolate Cake recipe, available on the EpiPen of Canada website for those who register there.

And in a timely gesture, I've been given permission to post another of her recipes here, one for Chocolate Easter Eggs. You can also find this on the EpiPen of Canada site.

This new recipe contains no common food allergens like peanuts, milk products or eggs.

Chocolate Easter Eggs

With a little work these eggs are great fun for allergic children who have not been able to have Easter eggs in the past.

Tips:

You can change the colour and the taste of the marshmallow by adding in peppermint essence, orange essence or unsweetened cocoa. Beat in a little food colouring to dye marshmallow yellow, pink or green.

You can make these eggs and not fill them, if desired or make another filling that your child is not allergic too. You can make whole eggs by sandwiching the two halves together.

The eggs are a bit fragile because the chocolate is not tempered (a professional technique that keeps the chocolate from melting on your hands).

For children who are not allergic to eggs, the easiest way to make them is to use real eggs as the mould. The plastic peels off easily from them.

If the child is allergic to eggs, plastic egg moulds are available around Easter at grocery stores, bulk stores, dollar stores and toy stores. Spray with baking spray before wrapping in plastic to make them easier to separate.

Leftover chocolate can be poured onto a sheet of parchment paper, let dry and broken up into pieces to use in other recipes or for eating out of hand. You need the extra chocolate in case some chocolate shells break.

If you do not have a sugar thermometer, drop the sugar syrup into a bowl of ice water. It should form a soft ball.

Special Tools:

12-16 plastic egg moulds
Plastic wrap

Ingredients:

1 lb (500 grams) dark chocolate, chopped*
*always read the label carefully to ensure chocolate contains no dairy ingredients

Marshmallow: ½ cup (120 mL) water, divided

1 package unflavoured gelatine (equivalent to 1 tbsp or 15 mL)

½ cup (120 mL) cold water, divided

½ cup (125 mL) sugar

½ cup (120 mL) corn syrup

1/8 tsp (0.5 mL) salt

1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla

Wrap 12 large egg moulds or eggs tightly with plastic wrap, leaving plastic twisted at one end to make a kind of handle.

Place chocolate in a small, deep heavy pot over low heat and melt stirring occasionally until liquid. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. Holding plastic handle, dip eggs into chocolate until coated half way up each egg.

Carefully place eggs (chocolate side up) in a mini muffin pan or egg carton and put in refrigerator for 10 minutes, or until chocolate has set.

Remove chocolate covered moulds from mini muffin pan or egg carton. Carefully ease plastic and chocolate from moulds. Next peel plastic from the inside of the chocolate to leave a chocolate shell behind. Set shells into mini muffin pans or egg cartons and chill while you make marshmallow fluff.

Fluff:

Pour ¼ cup (60 mL) cold water in the bowl of a stand mixer, and sprinkle with gelatine. Let stand.

Combine sugar, corn syrup, salt and remaining ¼ cup (60 mL) water in a pot and heat over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Turn heat to high and boil syrup until it reaches 240ºF (118ºC) on a sugar thermometer.

With the mixer on low speed, carefully pour boiling sugar syrup down the side of the mixing bowl into the gelatine mixture. Turn mixer to high and beat for 5 minutes or until mixture is white and shiny. Beat in vanilla.

Transfer fluff to a large clean piping bag and pipe into prepared chocolate eggshells. If you do not have a piping bag, cut a corner off a baggie, add the marshmallow fluff and pipe it in through the corner. You can also spoon it in but it doesn't look as pretty. Sandwich egg halves together if desired.

Leave to set at room temperature until firm. Refrigerate until needed. Makes 12-16 filled eggs.

Kosher Vegan Chocolate

When I run across two separate and totally independent articles coming out the same day both praising the same chocolate bars, I take it as a sign. Of course, a headline that reads Best frickin’ chocolate on the planet is a pretty good sign too.

Taylor Eason was the one who said this. Since he's not talking about the super-premium Swiss or Belgium chocolate that easily available these days he's probably talking through his hat, but hey, how many of those are kosher and vegan?

I’ve spent easily hundreds of dollars - and about two years of effort - finding the best dark heaven and uncovered it, not at some gourmet, hoity-toity place but at grocery stores in Tampa. The winner is:

Endangered Species Supreme Dark Chocolate… the one with the sad looking chimpanzee on the package. At 72 percent cocoa content, it's elegant and creamy and tastes like homemade bittersweet cocoa pudding. It coats the tongue, melting in your mouth (but also in your hands if you dilly-dally), leaving a slightly sweet yet bitter residue that keeps on giving like a well-structured wine.

Best of all, it's enjoyment relatively without guilt. Their website says:

"This 3oz. dark chocolate bar is made with all-natural, shade-grown, ethically traded supreme dark chocolate… The chimpanzee artwork from Judi Rideout is printed on recycled paper. The chocolate is ethically or fair traded guaranteeing the workers fair wages and humane working conditions. This product is also certified Kosher by Orthodox Union. On the inside of the label you can learn about the plight of the chimpanzee as well as additional information on Endangered Species Chocolate’s core value, Reverence for Life, conservation tips and coupons for other Endangered Species Chocolate products."

That website also notes that it's vegan and gluten-free.

Lisa Snyder of the Ventura County Reporter had similar praise in an article titled More than just a Valentine indulgence -- chocolate can be good for you.

I am partial to the Endangered Species line of chocolate bars, which are fair trade, mostly organic, and 10 percent of the net profits help support species, habitat and humanity. Try the organic smooth dark chocolate with the Karner blue butterfly on the outside of the wrapper, which is 70 percent cocoa, vegan and kosher.

There you are. Encomiums from coast to coast. What more can you ask for?

It's the Brownie Decade

Food writer Lesley Chesterman wrote in the Regina Leader-Post that brownies are poised to be the hot next big dessert. Now, I love brownies. And I rarely eat them because what I love about them is their concentrated quantities of fat and sugar. And chocolate. But nothing low-cal and low-fat and healthy ever becomes the hot big dessert, so we make do.

And I guess we'll make do well, because there are brownies for everybody, even those of us with special diet needs.

Though we have yet to see an entire store devoted to the brownie (I'd bet money someone in New York has one in the planning stages), there are cookbooks devoted solely to this rich little square - a startling 32 by last count on Amazon.com. When one such brownie book, The Brownie Lover's Bible (Whitecap, 2008), hit my desk just before Christmas, I tossed it into the "no thanks" pile but quickly retrieved it, recalling all the cupcake books I rolled my eyes at when that trend hit a decade back. I scanned the pages and found recipes ranging from the classic brownie to vegan brownies with cocoa nibs and sesame seeds. There are gluten-free brownies, dairy-free brownies, no-bake brownies, balsamic brownies, crunchy brownies, fudgy brownies, raspberry brownies, coconut brownies and, for when you're feeling a bit sluggish, triple espresso brownies.

Chesterman gives the winning recipe from a home taste test in that article. Substitute a non-dairy margarine for the butter and it's dairy and lactose-free.

I list nondairy stick margarines on the Margarines page in my Milk-Free Bookstore.

Non-Dairy Toffees

As a chocoholic myself, I love telling people about lactose-free chocolates.

My latest find is a new line of non-dairy and lactose-free toffees from Manhattan Chocolates.

What appears to be a press release was published on the New Jersey Jewish Standard.

Manhattan Chocolates, Inc., a division of Bayonne-based Kedem Food Products International, has released a new line of Toffee Crunch Mixes that are lactose-free and non-dairy. The all-natural products are free of additives and added preservatives. The product comes in two milk-like choices and three varieties of dark chocolate in stand-alone bags, boxes, and tubs. The milk-like alternatives are available in “Toffee Crunch” (cashew butter crunch) and “Toffee Crunch Mix” (containing peanuts and pretzels).

Kosher Dairy-Free Hot Chocolate

I wasn't familiar with the Boulevards brand of hot chocolate mixes, but that's what a press release is for.

Boulevards LLC announces availability of two new certified organic, kosher hot chocolate mixes: a dairy-free mix and a sugar-free/dairy-free mix. "Our delicious sweet-dark instant mix is now available to consumers in a dairy-free version. Plus we now have a smooth, chocolaty mix that is both sugar-free and dairy-free," says Boulevards founder Don Meyers.

...

Neither of the two new products contain milk powder, so they are vegetarian and vegan-friendly. The consumer can use fresh milk, soy milk, rice milk, or coffee to enjoy these new mixes. The sugar-free version uses the organic sweetener erythritol. This sweetener is found naturally in several kinds of food and is considered GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) by the FDA. "Erythritol is much better than other sugar substitutes", says Don Meyers, "compared to the others there's very little risk of digestive problems."

On the Boulevards website I found descriptions of the two products.

Dairy-Free

Our dairy-free sweet-dark hot chocolate removes the milk from our original mix, providing more options for you and your family.

Enjoy the rich full flavor with milk, soy milk or rice milk. Add 2 tablespoons of mix to 8 oz hot milk.

This hot chocolate is vegetarian and vegan-friendly. Certified organic and kosher.

10 servings per can.

Sugar-Free & Dairy-Free

Our sugar-free & dairy-free hot chocolate cuts out the sugar and calories. Lightly sweetened with organic erythritol (fermented glucose).

Enjoy the rich full flavor with milk, soy milk or rice milk. Add 1 tablespoon of mix to 8 oz hot milk.

This hot chocolate is vegetarian and vegan-friendly. Certified organic and kosher. Its also low in calories. Only 20 Calories per serving.

20 servings per can.

The Vegan Store

An astounding assortment of vegan products of all sorts - not just foods but clothing, cosmetics, gifts, books, and more - can be found at Pangea's Vegan Store.

Since 1995, Pangea Vegan Products has been the premier source of hard-to-find alternatives for vegans and vegetarians. Whether you're a hard-core animal rights activist or a potential new vegetarian, you're sure to find tons of great cruelty-free, animal-friendly choices here. Thanks for stopping by -- shop vegan, buy vegan!

Their dairy alternatives page has a variety of vegan cheeses and even a vegan heavy cream substitute, something I get asked about often and used to be impossible to find.

The Los Angeles Times just featured the store in its pre-holiday gift buying hints, by Lindsey Barrett.

Our favorite item at the Vegan Store (and believe us, we've tried a lot of them) is, without a doubt, the Premium Belgian Chocolates box. This little piece of dairy-free heaven contains a pound of fondant creams, hazelnut truffles, crisped rice pralines and dark chocolate medallions — and we guarantee you, your vegan friends will thank you!



The premium box (shown here) will set you back $31.95 (although Pangea recommends shipping on ice, an added charge); smaller boxes are available starting at $13.95. And if fancy concoctions with the word "fondant" in them don't ring your bell, the Vegan Store also offers truffles, caramels and chocolate-covered cherries.

Shipping is apparently available worldwide but with some conditions:

What about orders outside the USA and Canada? These orders are shipped by the US Postal Service and will take longer to arrive. The shipping cost is based on the package weight and destination. We will email you with shipping costs, and we need approval back from you before we can process and ship out your order. Please note that we are unable to track orders shipped outside the United States. Therefore, although we do keep records of these orders and guarantee that they will be shipped by US Airmail, we cannot accept responsibility for the safe delivery of such orders.

Dairy Free Truffles?

Every once in a while people ask me to host a cooking class or provide a recipe or even write a cookbook. I turn them all down, politely of course. I can follow a recipe. As a house husband I do most of the cooking. But give me a bunch of ingredients and tell me to come up with a meal and I'll give you a bunch of hot ingredients.

So I am always impressed at people who manage to rejigger recipes that would seem to absolutely unquestionably require milk products to make them work and transform them into something dairy free.


Case in point. To celebrate their National Chocolate Week, Liverpool Daily Post writer Emma Pinch wrote a feature article on Bala Croman's new chocolate business.

She manages to produce, by herself, 10,000 chocolates a month, including the ones I didn't think were possible.

Others range from curious to positively eye-watering, frequently with savory ingredients which she insists chocolate complements perfectly. "I add chocolate to chilli con carne and over roast chicken with balsamic vinegar," she says. "I'm always experimenting. We were asked to do dairy-free truffles, so we made them with water instead of cream.

"To give them creaminess, I added coconut milk. We’d had a Thai curry and I thought, lemon grass would go, and that's how we got Thai Temptations."

Coconut milk is often mentioned as a substitute for cream but it doesn't cook up in the same way so must be handled knowledgeably. I also need to add that I recommend only true coconut "milk" straight from the nut. Some Americanized varieties of coconut "milk" add actual cow's milk, rather ruining its non-dairyness.

Dairy-free truffles sound amazing. I hope my U.K. readers can indulge themselves before National Chocolate Week ends. Either that or get the celebration changed to National Chocolate Year, as is should be.