I'll just entertain myself

Some "chocolate" candy, such as Butterfinger, don't have a speck of chocolate in them.

Those are only available in specialist shops over here, about 3-4 times more expensive than standard chocolate bars.

There's a shop in West Quay shopping centre that specialises in American sweets and pop. My youngest is really into his pops, he always wants to try something different.

A standard can of pop (330mils) in there costs £2.50, because they don't sell it anywhere else.

We have a sugar tax over here so standard coke is more expensive, but 8 cans of coke would cost £4.00 which works out at 50p a can. The imported stuff is 5X more expensive.

The difference in diet coke is even more pronounced, it works out at 40p a can, that makes the imported stuff 6X the price.

I mentioned that about Butterfinger because I don't know if it's a trend or just applicable to a few such candies. It makes me read candy labels these days.

The word candy isn't used much over here, the most used term is sweets, but chocolate is always chocolate.

Even if it's "not chocolate" chocolate? (like butterfinger)

I think some variation on nougat is normally used.

If you want chocolate get it black and never sweet...it is good for your heart and good for your emotional mind...vegy chocolate as you pointed out has not a single gram of cocoa in it...Legislation in the EU zone to make the distinction has failed as the group that wanted the label true chocolate in their products did not got a lobby majority in the European parliament.

I know a place to buy healthy chocolate. I just haven't made the effort as yet.

‘True’ chocolate has No cocoa? Huh? WTF is wrong with cocoa? Now if you say it has no animal fats or milk fat, I’d see the health benefits but how do you have no cocoa when chocolate is made from cacao fruit or pod?

You often see these chocolate experts on the telly banging on about how wonderful non dairy 100% coco solid chocolate is.

The rest of us prefer chocolate that tastes nice. If we want licorice we'll buy licorice.

I’m a huge fan of dark chocolate and as such in my recent travels I went to Costa Rica to see how ‘real chocolate’ is made. I don’t like milk chocolate and know it is ‘less healthy’ thank dark. But setting this issue aside, dark chocolate is far tastier to my taste buds. Furthermore, the dark chocolate which is from 70% to 80% cocoa flavanols is tastiest and contains more antioxidants. 100% can be a tad too bitter.

If you’re referring to processing using carob bean as ‘veggie chocolate’ this could make some sense. Clearly Cacao bean is clearly a veggie. People who are vegetarian use carob powder to make a ‘chocolate-like’ tasting flavor but it’s not satisfying , IMHO, and doesn’t have the same or close to the same health benefits.

We eat a little dark chocolate at my house. Mainly because it is said to lower blood pressure some. The stuff we buy has sugar, so I have it only sparingly.

Obviously, and I was expecting this exact comment coming up...fatal, here it is!

Speaking about fake chocolate lots of things out there that look like chocolate but aren't...the funny fact is that many people don't like real chocolate they like sugar and processed carbo sweetener with milk nuts and everything else but cocoa...

one of us may be misinterpreting here. How is what I wrote about wrong? I'm not talking at all about the beverage that is known as hot cocoa. these are two different subjects. Reinforcing that I am talking about the solid food substance dark chocolate ... not the beverage called hot cocoa.

Today marks day 15 since I spent three hours with a relative who came down sick with the virus the next day. Hopefully, my wife and I dodged it.

You dodged a bullet! Hope your relative is feeling better.

She's back at work.

Bob Dylan is one of the great songwriters. But lately I think his new lyrics are too disjointed to be considered great. He's been getting awards for Time out of Mind, for instance. Maybe being sung it is good, but reading the lines sans music I don't get much out of it. As one of his long time fans it's painful to acknowledge.