What has happened to chocolate?

[rosemole]

I haven’t eaten popular brands of chocolate for years because they all started adding palm oil to their ingredients, but I still missed the unique taste of Cadbury’s and Milky Bar.

Anyway this Christmas someone gave us a box of Quality Street and I decided to eat one - the green triangle - but it tasted absolutely rank!
And today I noticed a bar of Milky Bar doesn’t have palm oil (maybe changed) so I thought I’d treat myself to memory lane. It’s disgusting. Not that yummy moreish flavour of years ago. Or have my taste buds changed?

YABU - it still tastes the same
YANBU - chocolate is not what it used to be and is full of cheap ingredients

Artificial sweeteners give me migraines. I mostly drink water, but agree it's nice to have something "special" sometimes (I don't drink alcohol either, for taste reasons and the fact I am a control freak who doesn't like feeling out of control, rather than anything else). Have a look at Belvoir, they do some nice (although not cheap) fizzy drinks as well as cordials. No sweeteners.

Yeah i know there are nice cordials and so on but for a mixer i really want just the plain lemonade rather than something with too much lemon or other flavour. I think waitrose do one with sugar but i don't shop in waitrose! That's really disturbing that you get migraines from sweeteners - they aren't really a food stuff are they?

No, I'm not great with anything artificial or "chemical" tbh. Started when I was about 11, took a while to pin point because they weren't as prevalent back then, and I know a couple of other people they affect in a similar way.

It's really irritating when recipes change for this reason though, cos although I'm pretty good at checking ingredients on new stuff, you get complacent with things you know are "safe" and then suddenly I'll be in bed for a couple of days with a migraine and have to work out what I've had that's different. I shouldn't get complacent but you know, life happens.

The good side of it is I've become a pretty decent cook, and we mostly eat natural, cooked from scratch stuff, because I'm suspicious of so many things. Doesn't stop us eating crisps or chocolate (human!) but mostly, real.

Qs has always been the worst one, its Nestle. Go for CDM - Still tastes good IMO

There have been lots of chocolate threads this Xmas.

After one I noted a recommendation for Kennedy a fine hand made chocolates in Orton.

There are two Kennedy's chocolates so make sure you get the correct one.

I treated myself to a box of self chosen chocs this Xmas and it was such a treat ! Only fudge they get in has palm oil all else free.

Kenndys fine chocolates Orton .

We need to petition the government to up the ‘legal’ quotient of cocoa solids needed before something can be classed as chocolate.

Aw that's awful but as you say the upside is healthy eating. Your body is literally alerting you not to eat something harmful.

If I had a time machine, I would go back to Woolworth's in the mid 1970's and buy tins of original QS just to show my kids what real chocolate tastes like, the variety and the beauty of the wrappers 😕
It's so sad what's happened. I would happily pay more for 'proper' chocolate again.

Oh, and a big 👏 for M&S Big Mix - lush

I threw our quality street after eating two.Disgusting.

I really wish I found it as bad as everyone else, but I keep buying and eating it, I like it all chocolate apart from dark I even prefer Cadburys over posh chocolate.

What is the best quality chocolate one can buy in a regular Tesco/Asda?

Next time you go to the supermarket, check out a bar of Cadbury’s and you will notice the word chocolate has been removed. This is because there isn’t enough cocoa content in it to be able to refer to it as chocolate. Such a shame what they’ve done to it

I only eat belgian chocolate these days. Our chocolate was always inferior but now it is inedible. I think they made a terrible decision with palm oil. It makes everything awful

It's got chocolate on the tin I have and also calls it chocolate on the website or are you saying that is wrong

This sounds amazing boozy homemade truffles. Most Nestle chocolates including Kitkat are now chocolate flavoured not made from chocolate which is so disappointing.

I bought a load of Charbonnel et Walker, they are quite nice, also a big load of Hotel Chocolat, they are still ok

Where does it say chocolate? It says dairy Milk. The word chocolate has been removed

I don’t know what’s happened to chocolate. I bought Quality street for the first time in ages but they are inedible. The wrappers look cheap and nasty. The chocolates are much smaller (maybe a good thing, one mouthful is enough) and they all taste the same, of fat and sugar.
Aldi does great chocolate which actually tastes of chocolate, I still like Lindt and Ritter, but you can bin the rest.

It's on the blurb on the back of a tin I have, also on the Cadbury website it's still chocolate. Several bars where on the news recently as not being chocolate, toffee crisps, I think was one but no Cadbury ones mentioned

Vote with your tastebuds. For me, it's Cluizel all the way. I'll happily eat it less frequently in order to enjoy proper chocolate.

I had a bag of Cadbury caramel filled buttons a few months ago. They were disgusting. I don’t think toblerone is what it was. I used to love Guylian seashells, but they don’t taste right anymore.

Cadbury probably took chocolate off the wrapper for the EU market which needs 25% cocoa solids but in the UK it's 20% for chocolate

Leonidas is also nice and easily bought from Amazon, no need to eat the not so nice stuff