Miracle Chocolate

Last night I went to a chocolate tasting at a friend's house. It turned out that there were only two kinds of chocolate to be tasted, and a whole lot of marketing to be swallowed.

They're starting to market Xocai here in Sweden. It's a "healthy chocolate" made of cold pressed cocoa, acai berries, and blueberries. I don't doubt that it contains lots of great antioxidants. In fact, one piece of chocolate contains about as much antioxidants as are recommended for an entire day. So far so good. Unfortunately it didn't taste that great. The "nugget" had the mouthfeel of Hershy's kisses, but it was harder. The flavor was ok but not great. They say this product is for everyone who likes chocolate, but in my opinion, as someone who really loves chocolate, it doesn't measure up. The nugget is filling, and they say if you eat one before each meal, you'll eat less and thus lose weight. That's plausible, but certainly not the lifestyle change recommended for keeping the weight off. I wouldn't mind having a few around to eat before going to a party where I'd be tempted to graze on unhealthy stuff.

I also got to try the "power" dark chocolate square. Again, it was okay, but nowhere near as good as high quality dark chocolate. It's something I might eat occasionally because of the antioxidants, kind of like an extra multivitamin, but I wouldn't want to eat it just for the taste. They say you should eat 3 pieces per day which would be about 3 times as much antioxidants as the average person needs, and this doesn't count what you'd normally be getting from sources like food. (Funny how people selling supplements never calculate food into their schemes.)

I was thinking I might support my friend and buy a little (even if it's not that great) until I heard that it cost about 10 SEK ($1.25) per bite-sized piece! Yikes, mediocre and expensive too! But that's not how it works. To get your chocolate, you have to subscribe to get it monthly (assuming 3 pieces per day), and you also have to recruit two other people to join the multilevel marketing program, and help them recruit two people, and so on and so on. Eek! Pyramid scheme or not, it's my worst nightmare. I would hate selling stuff to my friends, and I could never recruit anyone.