From a nutritional point of view, chocolate is a superfood. It has all the vitamins that the body needs (except vitamin C) and about 300 nutrients that are healthy for the human organism. Due to the positive ingredients of cocoa, such as theobromine, dark chocolates give you a certain feeling of happiness after eating them. And they stimulate mental and physical performance. In addition, the secondary plant compounds and polyphenols stimulate thinking and perception.

dark chocolate also has a blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering effect. For this, however, one must eat about half a bar of dark chocolate of 85% and higher. Already a piece of chocolate per day (approx. 5g) is to lower studies after, the heart attack risk around 50%.

This only applies to dark chocolates that have been properly processed (e.g. not over-roasted) and does not apply at all to milk chocolates!

As is so often the case on television shows, the audience is asked for their opinion: they can taste and then vote for their favorite chocolate. However, from the point of view of Chocolats-de-luxe.com, the audience does not even have the opportunity to test a "good chocolate" in comparison to supermarket qualities. In this case milk chocolate is tested without a comparison to one of the winners of the International Chocolate Awards, the Academy of Chocolate or the Great Taste Award. One "Melissa" from Pralus, "Laura" from Tobago Estate or even the "Nicaragua" from Zotter would, in our opinion, open up whole new worlds of taste to the public.

The Maitre (French for master) Chocolatier is a successful invention of the advertising company that worked for Lindt. This "disguise" is very popular in commercials, where you supposedly with attention to detail, the chocolate in scene. One deliberately creates the impression of craftsmanship and quality.

One must not be dazzled: neither at Lindt nor at the other industrially working chocolate manufacturers do the employees in the huge factory halls run around dressed like this, nor is the chocolate production at supermarket chocolate in any way manual labor.

Every industrial chocolate manufacturer has food technicians who are always trying out new recipes or working out how to replace expensive ingredients with cheaper ones. Here one knows yes the TV transmissions of Sebastian Lege, with which tricks the food industry works.

The example of "pure butter fat" is a good way to explain this for chocolate. Cocoa naturally contains cocoa butter (cocoa fat). This is a very high-quality fat that is often used in the production of lipsticks, for example. For this purpose, the fat is pressed from the bean and sold to the cosmetics industry for a lot of money. In the chocolate manufacturing process, the missing fat is replaced by clarified butter. This is dehydrated butter from milk from cows. Thus, a product that is even vegan becomes a no longer vegan chocolate and good fat is replaced by cheap fat.

It is quite common for the food industry to disguise a price increase by changing filling quantities. Lindt also has different prices in different packaging. As Chocolats-de-luxe.com we know only too well that special packaging has its price. If I want to have a beautiful packaging, it costs just more than a "plastic" bag !

The different filling quantities of Lindt bars are also due to the different cost structure and pricing according to the cocoa content. If I replace good cocoa butter with cheap clarified butter (butter made from cow's milk) at Chocolate and only have 20 or 30 percent cocoa content at milk chocolate anyway, and fill up the rest with milk powder and above all sugar, I can make different prices than with chocolates with a high cocoa content.

Industrial chocolate manufacturers like to advertise with seals such as Fairtrade, UTZ or Rainforest Alliance. This is seen as positive by consumers, as most want to support the idea of fair trade. However, without looking into it, people pay high prices, but without the cocoa farmer getting anything out of it. You can also read the interesting report on ➤ Fairtrade Chocolate.

About the origin of cocoa beans the manufacturers of supermarket chocolates like to keep silent, because they know that the mass cocoa comes from countries such as Ghana or the Ivory Coast and there the cocoa is grown and harvested under partly precarious conditions. If the farmers are not paid enough for the fruits of their labor, then they are not interested in improving the quality. So it doesn't matter if projects of chocolate producers like Lindt, Barry Callebaut, etc. build a school or a well. Only fair payment makes it possible for the farmers to live on the money they earn and to purchase what is needed locally within the community. Please also read our information on ➤ Direct trade Direct trade Chocolate.

Industrial chocolate manufacturers use soy lecithin because it improves the processing of Chocolate, especially its flowability. This means that it makes the Chocolate thinner, so to speak, and it thus flows better and spreads in the corners of the molds. It also prevents the pipes from sticking in industrial production. It also prevents problems in production that occur when there is moisture. It is also cheaper than cocoa butter and helps sugar crystallization, thus increasing shelf life of Chocolate.

Soy lecithin, however, changes the texture and flavor of the Chocolate. It makes the Chocolate slightly waxy, which causes the Chocolate to lose creaminess. In addition, soy lecithin tends to flatten the subtle flavors in cocoa and eleminate the delicate ones.

Chocolatiers who handcraft their Chocolate naturally place special emphasis on the subtle flavors and therefore do not use soy lecithin, among other things.

Although soy lecithin occurs naturally in soybeans, it is an industrially obtained product. Soy lecithin is extracted with chem. Solvents such as acetone are used to extract it and it is also bleached to turn the dirty brown color into a light yellow like cocoa butter. In addition, soy is rarely sustainably grown and much of it comes from genetically modified plants.