Drop it, that’s not chocolate

Posted on September 19, 2008 · 4 Comments

It is probably enough to have Milton Hershey rolling over in his grave.  Last year a number of chocolate manufacturer’s lobbied to attempt to get the definition of chocolate changed so that they could substitute cheap fats in place of cocoa butter when making chocolate.  This would have allowed them make the product cheaper, and to profit more by selling the cocoa butter at much higher profits to the cosmetics industry for use in lotions, soaps, etc.  This however failed, and the FDA re-iterated that ”Cacao fat, as one of the signature characteristics of the product, will remain a principal component of standardized chocolate” according to the update.

The part that was most galling (to me anyway) was a statement by Kirk Saville, a Hershey’s spokesman, who said (emphasis added by me):

There are high-quality oils available which are equal to or better than cocoa butter in taste, nutrition, texture and function, and are preferred by consumers.

Preferred by consumers?  Preferred? I don’t think so, Kirk.   Oh, yeah take out the Cocoa Butter which actually has some nutritional benefit, and lets replace it with hydrogenated corn oil instead.  Screw the fact that we take chocolate and actually make it unhealthy… it is healthy for profits.  What this really means is, I think we can get away with it, and nobody will notice.

In the Biography of Milton Hershey that can be found at hersheypa.com

He took great pride in the growth of the school, the town, and his business. For the rest of his life, he always placed the quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits.

Well, obviously Milton is no longer in charge of the Heshey’s chocolate company.  Hershey has done an end run around the issue.  So, they can’t call their imitation chocolate “chocolate” but that didn’t stop them from making the change in a number of their products.  According the the post on CandyBlog, a number of Hershey’s products are no longer milk chocolate, but instead are now “chocolate flavored candy.”

Look at the list of ingredients from a package of the original “Milk Chocolate” Kissables.

Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & artificial flavors), sugar, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1 & carnauba wax.

Now look at the “Chocolate Candy” Kissables:

Sugar, vegetable oil (palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), chocolate, nonfat milk, whey, cocoa butter, milk fat, gum arabic, soy lecithin, artificial colors (red 40, yellow 5, blue 2, blue 1, yellow 6), corn syrup, resinous glaze, salt, carnauba wax, pgpr and vanillin.

See anything missing? Yup, that is right, no Milk Chocolate in it any longer. The same is true for Whatchamacallits, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackle.  Why hasn’t anybody noticed?  Because Hershey went to great lengths to make it so that it is difficult to notice.  (And in part, thanks to a slight change in labeling law on what has to be called “imitation” ).  Products that once bore the words “Milk Chocolate” now instead are listed as “chocolate candy,” “made with chocolate” or “chocolatey.”

Actually, it seems in once case apparently it did get noticed, where Almond Joy was returned to Milk Chocolate after comsumers complained.

Fortunately (so far) Hershey Bars, Kisses, and Reese’s Peanut butter cups remain unaffected and are still Milk Chocolate products. Tell Hershey what you think of their faux chocolate, because messing with our chocolate is just plain wrong.

Filed Under: Corporate sneaks, Health and Safety, Rantings

Exploding Patio Sets?

Posted on May 15, 2008 · 1 Comment

OK, not really… but now that I have your attention, let me tell you what happened this past weekend. It was Saturday, a relatively warm, cloudy day here in New Jersey. Like every Saturday for the past few months, my routine was the same, I would go out on my back deck, enjoy a cup of coffee and my morning cigarette (yes, I know… don’t go there), the dogs run around the yard, and then I get ready and head off to the gym. So like every other Saturday morning, I knew exactly what the condition of the yard was (mostly I note whether I will be mowing or doing yard work that day). Nothing was particularly amiss or out of the usual.

As I was coming home, TheWife calls me and says the our patio set is “broken” (I really must speak to her about her ability to understate a situation). I arrived home to find that the tempered glass top of our patio set had shattered into nothing but a chards of glass. I mean tiny. The pieces were so small that you could fit two or three of them on a dime. I found this quite baffling. Now granted tempered glass is supposed to break in a way that prevents thos huge sharp edges from forming, but in the past, I had only seen the tiny pieces at point of impact when something broke the glass, and the rest sort of hung together in a “sheet” of broken pieces. In this case the entire tabletop was completely in chards. I did my best Gil Grissom imitation (other than taking photos… dammit), looking for a cause. There were no rocks, sticks, branches from a tree or other projectiles within the rubble. The ring that protects the center hold where the umbrella goes had fallen straight down and landed on the leg of the table, so obviously the table came straight down, and not at some angle. There was no blood to indicate that a squirrel or other animal had landed on it crashing through. I even entertained the notion that since I live in the flight path of Newark Liberty International Airport that it was a case of “blue ice” and that in the midday sun, it had just melted… but even that would have left some sort of residue from the dye (and or contained waste…ewww). No, nothing seemed to fit.

The table, was one I had purchased from K-Mart a couple of years ago, one of their Martha Stewart line of tables. I was talking about it this week to somebody, and decided to look up some information on Tempered Glass, and at first found this article discussing how when tempered glass is compromised in some way that it can seem like it just “explodes.” Back into Google for a search of “Tempered Glass Exploding” and there… the first article up (at least at the time I did the search), was this little piece called, “Sounds of Summer: Martha Stewart Tables Shattering.” Turns out, this “phenomenon” that had struck our table was not at all uncommon.

There is apparently even a class action lawsuit that is in the works against Martha Stewart Living Omnipedia and JRA Funiture.  However, JRA Funiture filed Chapter 7 Bakruptcy (total liquidation) last year, so at least they are no longer the source (depending on inventories of course) of the tables, but it also means no recovery for the Class Action Lawsuit either.

I’d like to think that with JRA Funiture out of business that this is the end of the situation, but to be honest, reading how Sears (and/or Kmart) and Martha Stewart Living have not even (so far as I can tell) acknowledged this as a problem, outside of saying they will work with consumers under warranty, leaves me a little ill at ease with them, leaving me doubting whether I want to trust them again.  Problem is, at least the old sets were also farmed out under different names to other chains as well.  JRA’s funiture was also sold under the Hampton Bay name at Home Depot, as well as being carried by Sam’s Club, Target and Safeway. (Only Home Depot has has a similar report of an exploding table that I have been able to find so far).

If you have (or had) one of these sets,  if your table is still under warranty you can call K-mart Customer Service about it at 866-562-7848 (though K-Mart has not specifically said they will honor the manufacturer’s warranty) or Home Depot (who will honor the warranty) at 800-585-9969.  Other than that you are probably out of luck.  So what does this all mean?  I guess, most of all be careful if you are going to buy a glass top patio set from a discount retailer.  In my case, I am thinking a nice teak set might be in our future instead of risking it with glass again.

Filed Under: Better Home, Corporate sneaks, Health and Safety, House and Home, My So Called Life

Fat Fight

Posted on May 12, 2008 · 2 Comments

I, like many people have battled weight issues a good part of my life. Despite what many “skinny” people will claim, it is not a “choice.” Is it something I can do something about? In my case, yes. At least I have managed to do it before, and with weight loss of almost 16 pounds since April 17th, I am making some progress again.

But this isn’t really about that fight. No, this is something that has been simmering since my Step-Father-In-Law passed away from Lung Cancer last year. It bothered me at the time, but I wasn’t completely sure why, but there was a gnawing at me about this. Mostly, I guess because I felt it was so unfair that by the time it was “discovered” he was given six-to-nine months and didn’t last that long, that I dismissed what was bothering me as just the sort of bitterness you have when you lose a loved one to illness.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my uncle was diagnosed with Lung cancer. Fortunately, in his case, it is currently considered early enough that while the long term prognosis is not good (can it ever be?), there actually IS so far, a long term prognosis. Something, that my Step-Father-In-Law never “enjoyed.” I started rethinking it, and using “the Google” to seek some others information and similar type of incidents and stories. I probably shouldn’t be shocked in this day and age to actually find a Blog dedicated to the topic of fat prejudice in health care. This is exactly what was bothering me all this time, and a couple of delicately placed questions to my mother-in-law confirmed this.

He had complained of shortness-of-breath and several other symptoms for quite some time before his diagnosis. Every time his Primary Care Physicians “diagnosis” was that he needed to lose weight, and that then it would no longer be an issue. Symptoms overlooked, simply because, well if you are fat… that is the problem and the end of the effort by the physician (in these cases).

I would love to think that this is infrequent and isolated with a few “bad seeds,” but when you see things like, UNC-Chapel Hill: Obesity May Keep Some Women from Getting Screened for Breast, Cervical Cancer it seems clear that this is not the case, and Kate Harding has a excellent breakdown of this story and how (and why) this issue exists. (On a side note, Kate’s Shapely Prose blog is an excellent read.)  There are even studies published on the Stigma and Discrimination in Weight Mangement and Obesity.

Of course, the media is not much help in this regard either.  Yes, there are some articles that point properly at some causes and issues, but doing so is “too politcally correct” for some writers, and just a lifestyle choice for others.  Of course even some governments get involved as well when they do something like tell a person that they are ‘too fat to adopt.’

It is like continuing to get picked on by the school yard bully for being overweight.  Only the sonsequences to your health could be far more severe.

Filed Under: Health and Safety, My So Called Life, Rantings

New Data, same excuses

Posted on March 12, 2008 · 3 Comments

It was a bit more than a year ago that I was thrilled to see the release of a vaccine for HPV since this is the leading cause of cervical cancer, though I was completely dumbfounded by the controversy that it stirred up. Now in all fairness there were some excellent points brought up, such as this from Mr. Big Dubya over at Dadcentric, and I can certainly understand people feeling leery these days about drug companies and their rushing products to market. What I don’t get, is the religious nuts that try to claim that having a girl vaccinated is tantamount to giving her the green light for sex.

Now, I guess I was stupidly hoping that when I saw this report that stated 1 in 4 teens have a sexually transmitted disease, that perhaps people would wake up and realize that “Just Say No” didn’t cut it for Nancy Reagan and the war on drugs, and it isn’t working for this either. I was hoping, but of course I should have known better. I should know that there are clowns out there like Wendy Wright over at “Concerned Women for America” (no I am not linking to the hypocritical group of activist women, that somehow believe women don’t belong doing the things that they are doing… like being activists maybe). Anyway, apparently Ms. Wright (I can’t even type that without laughing) decided that the reason for this is because there are actually some programs out there that don’t strictly teach abstinence. Good Gravy, when are these people going to get a clue.

I guess the “concerned women” couldn’t be bothered reading things in the story like:

Blame is most often placed on inadequate sex education, from parents and from schools focusing too much on abstinence-only programs.

or maybe

“This is pretty shocking,” said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital in New York.

“To talk about abstinence is not a bad thing,” but teen girls — and boys too — need to be informed about how to protect themselves if they do have sex, Alderman said.

No, I guess that wouldn’t fit their agenda.  I just can’t help but wonder, if they aren’t concerned about young women and their health, just who are the Concerned Women for America really concerned about?

Yes, I realize I have wandered a bit, but it is these types of people that continue to defend the indefensible.  Of those girls that had contracted an STD in the study, the most prevalent was HPV!

Teens were tested for four infections: human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer and affected 18 percent of girls studied; chlamydia, which affected 4 percent; trichomoniasis, 2.5 percent; and genital herpes, 2 percent.

And this is the leading cause of cervical cancer, and 18% of the girls studied are infected?  I don’t like those “odds” at all.  Certainly not enough to take a flyer on my daughter’s health.  Sure, I HOPE she will save herself for marriage, and I HOPE that the man that she marries is ALSO saving himself, so that he can not give her the virus.  But you know what?  I am sure as hell not going to take a roll of the dice with her health and tell her that “Just Say No” is all she needs to know.  I will take any steps I can, and I will educate her for the steps that I can’t take for her, to give her the best chance possible.  To me, that is the only logical conclusion, and in my not so humble opinion, this studies shows that the odds are too great to play it any other way.

Filed Under: Health and Safety, My Princess, Political Parenting

Friday Focaccia

Posted on February 29, 2008 · 1 Comment

Do you have an adorable pet? Do you think others would think so to? Enter a photo of you pet in the Bissel MVP (Most Valuable Pet) Pet Photo Contest. The winning pet’s picture will be put on the new Bissell Pet Hair Eraser vacuum , and donation of $10,000 will be made to the charity of the winner’s (well winner’s owner) choice. Plus the top vote getter each week will win one of the Pet Hair Eraser vacuums, and the top 5 vote getters (getters?) will move into the finalist group. Grab your camera, snap a picture of your pet and send it in.  (Contest ends 04/30/08)

Why I hate people from Alaska – You remember Sen. Stevens (R-Alaska), of “The Internet is a series of tubes” fame?  Well, he is at it again, along with apparently equally dimwitted Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Senator Olympia Snow (R-Washington), who have introduced a bill to outlaw the already illegal practice of phishing.  Sounds a bit like yet another Bridge to Nowhere.  Of course I can’t but wonder, if it doesn’t pass if Stevens will throw another one of his hissy fits and threaten to quit the Senate.  Of course, I can always dream.

Your rights trampled in the name of profits – It seems Monsanto is on a tear again, pushing for lawmakers to get rid of your right to select milk not tainted with synthetic growth hormones.  Whether or not you believe or care about the rBST/rBGH controvery or not, you should care about your rights, as this is not the only product that is being targeted by large companies to get labeling stripped to keep the consumer in the dark.  Contact your representatives, and tell them, you have a right to know.

Emeril going green – Emeril is coming to the Discovery Channel with a new eco-friendly food show.  The show reportedly will be set in Whole Foods Markets and will feature organic, free range and natural foods.

And how about now? – Yes, I know I can understand if you are tired of me mentioning TheMeatrix, and Sustainable Table, and other food “activist” type things, because how could farms possibly be as bad as it is show in that little animated movie… right?  Well what about this video?  That is not fiction!  That is not “a demonstration” or even a theoretical re-enactment.   No cute little animation here.  This is the actual goings on that lead to the single largest recall of beef (to date) in the United States. [Via Sustainable Table Blog]

Filed Under: Corporate sneaks, Earth Friendly, Health and Safety, In the Kitchen, Potpourri, Rantings
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