• lechekaflan@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Another way of reminding us there is enshittification.

    Nearly no one touches the chocolates at most supermarkets I went to. Far cry from when 40 years ago, workers from overseas would include chocolate bars in care packages.

    That real cocoa are mostly from developing countries, not all are politically stable.

    • Hupf@feddit.org
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      5 minutes ago

      Out-competing that bland old “real” chocolate with the superior product.

  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 hours ago

    I only eat the opposite type of chocolate, that being chocolate so dark its 90-97% coco content. I want my chocolate so natural, earthy, and bitter that it tastes similar to chocolate (that’s just my preference not that it makes me any better or worse than anyone else).

    • traxex@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 hours ago

      I’ll say it, it makes you better. (This is not biased, I just so happen to also have that same preference)

    • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      I think real dark chocolate can actually be good for you. Shame I like the crap stuff. But not this crap, this shit tastes like you’ve talked up a bit of stomach bile while you were chewing.

      • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 hours ago

        Absolutely, its still an acquired taste but it can have health benefits (of course if you don’t like the taste then the health benefits probably aren’t worth it).

  • daannii@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Hey I started a new community: Enshitification.

    I posted this Reese’s article the other day.

    It’s for articles like this but also personal experiences, like things you noticed going to shit.

    So if you want to rant a bit about a product quality decrease, feel free to post about it there.

    • naticus@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Yeah agreed. I only like white chocolate in a couple ways, like in a white mocha, but I’m general is pretty gross imo. I have a close friend who I agree with taste in food nearly completely, except when it comes to chocolate. She ONLY likes white chocolate and it baffles me how her taste buds have failed her so completely.

  • Slashme@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    I took two bites and had to spit it out

    That’s how I reacted the first time I tasted Hershey’s chocolate.

    • catbum@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Inb4: butyric acid

      A somehow necessary ingredient in Hershey’s which lingers unpleasantly on the palate, otherwise known as a stomach acid which imbues your vomit with the unmistakeable flavor of vomit

      Whyyyyyyyyy

      • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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        5 hours ago

        Actually this goes back to the early days of Hershey’s. As part of their drive to produce affordable chocolate, their main formulation was developed around slightly spoiled milk, which has an acidic taste. That’s why all Hershey’s chocolate since the beginning of time has had that ‘vomit flavor’. Obviously they’re not allowed to use spoiled milk anymore, but they wanted to taste the same as it always has. So they add the acid as an ingredient to replicate the same flavor.

        • Snowballfighter@lemmy.ca
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          3 hours ago

          I know m&ms are Mars but those little bits of poison have also tasted like vomit for decades. I can’t even watch people choke those friggen things down. Smarties or death.

  • bluefootedbooby@sopuli.xyz
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    9 hours ago

    Well obviously it sucks that the fake cocoa is disgusting, but I have to say I kinda am for the effort of trying to create an alternative, given how the cocoa producers are notorious for exploiting child labor and how terrible it is for the environment

  • metermatic26@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    “One German brand, the Nestlé-owned Choco Crossies, recently announced it was eliminating cocoa altogether from its new Snack Vibes line, replacing it with ChoViva, a lab-grown chocolate alternative made from fermented sunflower and grape seeds.”

    How the fudge did we end up in this dystopian nightmare? ಥ_ಥ

    • BenjiRenji@feddit.org
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      3 hours ago

      Sorry, but I really want to try the fermented seed cocoa. There are non-Nestlé versions and having an option that doesn’t exploit child slaves is always a good option.

    • MerryJaneDoe@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      By coveting.

      There’s a scene from Band of Brothers, two GIs meet a French family on D-Day. One of the soldiers offers the boy, 4 or 5 years old, a chocolate bar. The boy smiles from ear to ear when he tastes it. His father says, “Thank you. He’s never had chocolate before.”

      Imagine that. Imagine living in a society where chocolate is considered an exotic food. That’s how the world was, for almost all of human history. You live in Norway and you want a lemon? HA! Tough shit, you’ll never even know what lemon smells like.

      But, at some point, Americans got used to having every delicacy from every corner of the world. We forgot that each nibble of chocolate is exotic. That the beans aren’t native to our country. That most people in the world can’t afford real chocolate except as a rare treat. And look at us now - just like the rest of the world.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      We continued releasing more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for decades after learning that it was causing increasingly extreme weather

    • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      Child slavery is frowned upon just enough that they have eliminated real cocoa. People won’t pay for non-slave rates, so they have to go with synthetic product.

    • barnacul@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Lab-grown? Lab-GROWN? What fucking part of the metal tank has the growing area?

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        24 minutes ago

        probably synthesized, sunflower/grapeseed mixture. probably just turn the seeds intoa pulp and made it into faux-colate.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        Also I don’t think the term Lab Grown would really apply in this case. Unless I’m wrong I’m pretty sure the term would be lab synthesized, unless they are just using the materials to rend down into building blocks to grow cocoa artificially via some type of cellular manipulation method.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Yeah I bought small container of bakers cocoa bout a month ago and it was half the size it used to be and almost three times the price.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    … I just buy bags of ghiradelli dark chocolate baking chips, and eat a handful, when I feel like snacking on chocolate.

    They have 72% cacao chips, but that is bit too rich for my taste and my wallet, 60% seems to hit the spot.

    Much cheaper per weight than actual ghiradelli chocolate squares or whatever.

    And you can just toss a few into some fresh hot coffee, stir for a minute, kablamo choco-coffee.

    Anyway, yeah, most US ‘chocolate’ is disgusting.

    • Soggy@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      most US ‘chocolate’ is disgusting.

      Most by sheer volume because four companies make damn near every candy bar in the grocery store? Sure. Most by percent of discrete chocolatiers? Nah. There’s tons of good chocolate in the US, it’s just priced as the luxury good it should be (turns out slavery is great for keeping prices down)

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        12 hours ago

        Yes, yeah, the former is what I meant there.

        There indeed are tons of proper local chocaltiers in a lot of places, but sadly they do not have too much of the overall market volume.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      I can’t tell if this is a moment from your real life or a bit of creative writing about a dystopian future.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        And I’m confused about how you found anything in that comment dystopian. Though I’m assuming that name I didn’t recognize is a brand name for an actual chocolate producer. Hopefully it isn’t a brand name for something similar to chocolate but not lol.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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          12 hours ago

          You are eating baking choco chips instead of the chocolate that is for sale and also talking about how you can’t afford the richer baking chocolate all while putting it all in a faux sounding positive light. It actualy reads much like things I read written in the dustbowl and depression.

          This is not a normal state of affairs and phrasing the work a rounds like some uplifting lifehack makes it seem dystopian

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            It was a different commenter, though I also like snacking on dark chocolate chips. Baker’s chocolate is also good, but the consistency of the squares isn’t great for snacking.

            I just read it as a tip for how to get chocolate anyways, even if all the chocolate bar makers stop using it. The chocolate-like but cheaper stuff they are using instead of chocolate sounds more like the dustbowl/depression era tricks to enjoy food while you can’t afford it.

            Though part of my perspective is from getting my cooking to a level where store bought prepared stuff is just the easy/convenient option, not the high quality one (for health or taste). I also love dark chocolate and prefer the high cocoa content ones over must chocolate bars.

  • Teknikal@anarchist.nexus
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    13 hours ago

    That’s how I’ve felt about soft drinks in the UK since they pulled the sugar tax, now every drink just tastes of sweeteners. I’m guessing most people can’t taste them or something but I can’t stand them.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Yeah, I think sucralose is the only one that doesn’t taste awful to me. Like I’ve always been skeptical of the defense of aspartame because it tastes like something I shouldn’t be eating. I was looking forward to stevia back when it got popular, but it also has that taste (I’m guessing from leftover solvent, since it’s not water soluable like sugar).

      There’s plenty of ways to make things taste great without relying so heavily on sweetness. I hate the western food industry’s obsession with it along with the capitalist obsession with selling as much as possible, because it’s resulted in the less sugar I’ve wanted to see instead meaning the sugar is replaced with other chemicals that taste sweet (and “chemically”).

      And I doubt safety studies looked at anything beyond “does it so obviously cause issues that we’ll be sued the moment we try to sell this?”

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Most sweeteners don’t bother me but stevia has a very distinct flavor that I dislike.

        As for safety, aspartame is extremely well-studied and understood. It’s been used for over 50 years now. Sucralose for 30 years. We also know a lot about the dangers of high sugar intake. The no-calorie stuff is probably healthier overall in the amounts people actually consume.

    • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      i mean i taste it. i started trying to give up soda in general, and the sweetened waters definitely have something about them. like the preservatives in MRE’s. it’s hard to describe the taste, and there is nothing ‘wrong’ with it, but there is also something wrong with it