There was a cool article out of the AP that got featured on Yahoo News and CNN yesterday about the FDA Petition from the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
Here’s some video as well.
You can read Sweet Debate: What is Chocolate by Andrew Bridges here on the Star-Telegram or CNN.com or the Roanoke Times.
Bridges did a great follow up on the story, which is refreshing when so many of these issues seem to drop off the face of the map.
Cool things:
It mentions that there were 1,500 responses to the FDA on the Citizens Petition ... way to go chocolate fans!
It mentions that this may have an adverse effect on the economy of cacao growers and middlemen in the tropics. There are 50,000,000 people around the globe that make their living from chocolate, of course this has huge economic ramifications, even if it ends up being a 5% fat swap in chocolate.
It makes mention (towards the end) of the positions that Mars, Nestle and Hershey put on the record back in 2000. (A story, I might add, that I covered here back in this post.)
Big Chocolate doesn’t want to comment any longer ... Hershey’s, Nestle, Mars, the CMA ... they didn’t have anything to say for the article.
You can read the FDA statement that they put out around the time when the public comment period ended.
Here’s the interview I did for NPR last month about it where I think I took an admirable stand against some of the GMA’s positions.
Related Candies
- Other things in the FDA Citizen’s Petition
- Washington Post: It’s not Over
- LATimes Editorial
- FDA Chocolate Definition Change
- Don’t Mess with Our Chocolate!
Hey. Thanks for the comment, and the heads up. I’m usually pretty news savvy (I keep a close eye on a lot of sources) so I’m surprised it slipped my eye. I assumed if they were able to squeak it by me, then they were trying to hide something.
Guess I wasn’t as on the ball as I thought.
Nice blog, by the way. I have to pick a topic to focus, right now I just snag anything that catches my interest.
Take it easy! And by the way, who/what do you use to host this? I’d like to get out from under the LJ umbrella enventually.
Yeah, I saw this too! I was pretty pleased to hear the response turnout AND how the big 3 failed to comment….heh.
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