Monday 11 August 2008

A commandment from the chocolate god

Thou shalt not use blood chocolate. I post a lot of chocolate stuff, and so I think I have some responsibility to ask you not to use chocolate produced by slaves when you make the lovely, decadent dark chocolate goodness from my blog. Animal slavery is not vegan. Human slavery is also not vegan. Both suck, and the edge of guilt will ruin the otherwise perfect taste of chocolate. And it will break my little dancing vegan chocolate god heart. For more info, go here.

You can be a chocolate snob like me and still not rely on child slaves to get the stuff to your table. Many of the fair-trade, organic chocolate bars have failed miserably to impress me, but just as many have knocked my socks off with how good they are. Here are my recommendations:
For cooking cakes etc: Green & Blacks or GEPA dark chocolates, Plamil for cases where you want a dairy-free milk or white chocolate. Green and Blacks also makes kick-ass coco powder.
For super decadent stuff (truffles, hot chocolate): Valhrona, either tempered or not, depending on the application.
For straight up eating (decadent): Coppeneur, Charlemagne, Coco of Bruntsfield, Luento Santoro
For straight up eating (fun): Dagoba (if you can get it fresh-ish... I don't know why, but I've had extremely bad luck with getting stale/bloom-ish chocolate from this company, yet their lavender chocolate is so good, I still buy it.)

Generally, stuff marked organic (or fair trade) is slave free, as is single-origin chocolate that is not from the Cote d'Ivoire. Please do your sleuthwork if you are unsure of the origins of your chocolate. Here is a link to a list of some slave-free chocolates. If you're too lazy to do your own research, please please please stick to the brands that others have taken the time to research for you.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, I had never really stopped to think about where my chocolate comes from...thanks for pointing this stuff out. I know I've seen Green & Black's around, so I think I'll have to hunt it down again and give it a try.

sinead said...

You're welcome. It was actually pointed out to me by someone on Vegan Freak Forums. I was also shocked.

Chocolate is so very clearly a luxury, and I can't even begin to see how anyone could justify knowingly buying slave chocolate just to save a little money, or because of the taste of the chocolate.

Much like I hate the thought of someone substituting animal ingredients into a recipe I've given them, the thought of someone using my truffle instructions etc. to support slavery sickens me.

roden said...

Hi divadork,
I was so happy that Green and blacks were
* available in shops in Denmark and
* vegan
But they are no longer labelled vegan, except for the one with orange flavour.

Don't know if it's the same around you, but I can't help being a little disappointed with them.

sqrt

sinead said...

Hey roden!

Yeah, I was also disappointed at the sudden disappearance of the vegan label, but I emailed them, and they assured me that their chocolate hadn't changed at all. The dark chocolates are just as vegan as before.