So I noticed these “chocolate” bars and looked a little closer to discover that Maxwell House teamed up with Cote d’Or Chocolate to make a new candy bar called Maxiccino. Yuck. You might guess that I’m not going to recommend these.

Cote d’Or Chocolate was originally a Belgian company until the 90s and it used to be a basic, better than average chocolate bar. We’d have to throw a few bars in our carts each time we went shopping. It didn’t have as much cocoa as with the higher quality chocolates chez the independent chocolatiers in Europe but for its category, it wasn’t a bad bar.

Then, exactly one year after we moved to France, in August of 2003, the EU passed a directive that declared up to 5 percent of cocoa butter in chocolate could be replaced by ANY other vegetable fat – and still can be called chocolate. Vegetable fats are 10 times cheaper for chocolate producers than cocoa butter, and to add insult to injury, there are no controls required so many believe there is possibly more than 5% vegetable fats in chocolate now. The fat content is extremely difficult to test, which will leave a large margin for unscrupulous activity. Basically, the consumer doesn’t even know what he/she is consuming.

I wondered if I’d be able to taste a difference in the Cote d”or chocolate but forgot about it until recently when I got a Cote d’Or chocolate bar. Not only can I tell the difference in the quality, which has declined by leaps and bounds, it now has “something” in it that irritates my throat. What the hell is that? I don’t think I want to know.

Many Europeans blame this bastardization of chocolate on Britain saying they won the 30-year war on bringing their crappy chocolate to continental Europe, but if you look at a timeline of events, the real culprit is unambiguously obvious: The American Conglomerate, Phillip Morris.

Reality crashes down in shards of clarity when looking at the timeline:

1987 – Cote d’Or, the leading Belgian chocolate maker gets acquired by Jacobs Suchard.

1988 – Phillip Morris acquires Kraft for $12.9 billion.

1990 – Kraft acquires Jacobs Suchard (Cote d’Or) – So Maxwell House and Cote d’Or are essentially the same company.

2001 – Phillip Morris Companies conducts an Initial Public Offering for Kraft Foods.

2002 – Phillip Morris spends the most ever within the last 8 years on lobbying firms defending trade issues (U.S. domestic and foreign).

2003 – EU Directive to allow vegetable fats in chocolate is passed.

The most powerful and influencial lobbyists unmistakably work directly with the biggest companies worldwide in the following industries: Tobacco, Oil (Plastics), Pharmaceuticals and Health, Chemicals, Automotive, Insurance – to name just a few.

Companies (like Philip Morris), labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to make campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, as well as lobby Congress and federal agencies in the U.S. They also spend these billions to lobby foreign governments agencies to influence legislation.

Philip Morris ranks amongst the biggest spenders in lobbying activity. In 1998 it was the leading spender out of all of the lobbying corporations which includes Exxon Mobil Corporation, Monsanto, Microsoft Corporation, Shell Oil, Pfizer among others. The list of 100 is here. I mentioned some that I particularly deplore but there are more and I must note that not all companies that lobby are necessarily working to pass evil legislation.

related: Grand’mere coffee is Maxwell House