Online shopping: how to pick the perfect chocolate

Chocolate

There are many kinds of chocolate with various characteristics, prices and as for any product it is not easy to find the right one, in this case the right chocolate.

Ingredients

Let's start with the most important part: the ingredients. The ideal chocolate shouldn't contain milk, butter or animal substances, because farming leads to deforestation, the greenhouse effect, water and energy waste of various kinds. Don't forget that animals raised to produce meat or other products, have always been and will always be an economical loss: with all the things an animal eats and drinks, for example the cost of feeding a cow, would feed 10 people. In addition the animal would live a cruel life, especially in intensive livestock farming. We have a great distrust of milk chocolate or similar, we should choose dark chocolate. When we get used to the taste we won't go back again. Going back to the matter of ingredients, we should avoid chemical and non-natural substances looking for the certificate of organic chocolates, even if there are also exceptions in the organic; for example natural aromas sometimes aren't so natural, but it's better than nothing!

Packaging

Once we have found products that satisfy us with their ingredients, we could improve our selection considering another important factor, packaging. We all try our best to recycle most of our refuse, but we can't do anything with mixed materials, such as plastic and aluminium, or aluminium and paper. In these cases refuse go in the non-recyclable. So, firstly we should look for products with simple packaging, avoiding double packaging which is considered fashionable because it is cute and can be easily sold. We should choose, whenever possible, a product that prefers simple packaging, in order to sort the different materials.

Fair trade or local

Another aspect that we could check before buying is fair trade products, that give jobs to developing countries. However, this aspect contradicts with local products produced where we live. We should then choose which of the two are more important to us.

Price

Finally we should look at the price, because the cheapest doesn't mean it's more convenient. Lowest price, but for whom? Maybe we can save money buying that particular product, but then we will spend more money buying medication as the product contained many antibiotics or chemical substances, or we will have to switch our air conditioning on to cool down our houses because of the greenhouse effect.

Conclusion

In my experience of selling chocolate, I've run into just two products with these characteristics. One bought in a big distribution, and the other in a shop specialised in organic products. The first one called Mascao, is a 70% dark chocolate with whole brown sugar from the Philippines and Latin American cocoa from organic farming (more information www.altromercato.it). The second one called Alce Nero is an extra dark chocolate with organic whole brown sugar with 71% Costa Rica cocoa (more information www.alcenero.it) I'd like to underline that the Alce Nero costs more, and contains organic vanilla aromas while Mascao chocolate doesn't have any aroma, so it is much more natural and healthier.

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