After the Christmas truffles, make way for Easter eggs!In France, chocolate is often at the party in supermarkets and among craftsmen.But it is sometimes difficult to find your way around this jungle."To buy a good product, it's simple. You put on your glasses and you read the label. The less ingredients, the better it is", advises Valentine Tiberius, "Châteaireologist" and co -author of the Club GuideChocolate crunchers (ed. Michel Lafon), "Ideally, she continues, there should only be the mass of cocoa, sugar, possibly soy or sunflower lecithin [aEmulsifying, editor's note] for dark chocolate. For the milk, more milk powder. That's it. "
According to regulations, dark chocolate must have at least 43 % cocoa.However, the specialist ensures that the proportions observed in the products, even industrialists, go far beyond this percentage.In supermarkets, it is common to find tablets at 70 % and more - up to 99 %.But not beyond, because to benefit from the Chocolate appellation, a tablet must contain at least 1 % sugar.Which can come from fruit, as in Neo Gourmets or Rrraw.A high cocoa content is not necessarily synonymous with quality: "I do not consider the 99 % Lindt as good at all. The beans used are not aromatic", explains the expert.
Ecolo chocolates: exceptional wines
The secret of taste lies in the choice of bean.The most common develops only the cocoa aroma and a lot of bitterness, long considered a guarantee of quality.However, there are beans today that offer a whole aromatic potential, which is being rediscovered."Chocolate has become a complex tasting product, which varies with the terroir, with notes of spice, fruit, roasting or almond," said Valentine Tiberius.We are talking about cocoa vintage, original chocolate or from such plantation or such cooperative.
In search of these new flavors, some craftsmen have abandoned the work of semi-industrial chocolate ready-made (called "coverage") to return to the source.They are now working directly with small producers.It is the Bean to Bar, understand from the bean to the tablet, a movement born in the United States in the early 2000s. In France, more than 80 craftsmen-including nearly twenty this year-whohave joined this new way of working.Quality, however, has a cost.Tablets are sold between 5 and 8 euros each instead of just over 1 euro for conventional products.
This does not mean, however, that in supermarkets, you will only find industrial productions.Admittedly, no bean to bar on the shelves but Valentine Tiberius affirms it, "in supermarket, there are good chocolates, in particular equitable labeled. Brands like Ethiquable and Alter Eco, which work the beans or from the covers developedin producing countries ".A way to guarantee better valuation of the work of peasants - a major issue in the face of market players in market players.
A suspicion of bitterness
Because if we enjoy our sofa, cocoa can have a very bitter taste for beans and planet producers.The price of this raw material is fluctuating.It depends on supply and demand but is often subject to stock market speculation.This generates poverty among farmers, with dramatic consequences.To provide them with decent income, buy chocolate from fair trade.There are several labels (Fairtrade/Max Havelaar, Fair for Life ...) who undertake to properly remunerate the farmers.
The latest is an initiative of French craftsmen called engaged chocolate makers."95 % of French cocoa is the fruit - at least partial - of child labor or does not guarantee that there is a fight against this scourge, denounces Blaise Desbordes, Managing Director of Max Havelaar France. If the producers haveNo correct income, we cannot ask them to send their children to school or protect the forest! "Ensuring a decent standard of living but also helping and supporting small producers in their development is one of the objectives of these NGOs that deliver the label.And if this chocolate is organic, in addition to being fair, then your choice will be good at all levels: for the environment, for peasants ... and for your taste buds.
Ecolo chocolates: industry nuggets
Industrial chocolate is often of poor quality.While four ingredients are enough to make milk chocolate, that of cookies, such as the little schoolboy of Lu, contains eight, including many sugars.Original, extra pure pure pure cocoa butter chocolate contains skimmed milk powder and an aroma.Sugar, still at the top of the ingredient list, is the most important in quantity.As for the favorite egg of children "which contains all the flavor of Kinder chocolate", there are also vegetable fats (palm, shea) and concentrated butter.If you want to avoid other unpleasant surprises, read the labels well.
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⋙ Chocolate: how do you know if it is outdated?
⋙ Milk chocolate or dark chocolate, what is the best for health?
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