The abundance of chocolate and chocolates often plays a cruel joke on the consumer. The choice is large, only there is practically no real chocolate behind a beautiful wrapper. And hiding there is a surrogate product made from soy at best. There will be no harm from such chocolate, but also no benefit.
If earlier the products of several confectionery factories were presented on the market, now even individual entrepreneurs produce chocolate. What should a customer do if he wants to buy real chocolate, and not overpay for a fake?
All information about chocolate must be indicated on the packaging. Moreover, real chocolate must be marked with GOST (R 52821-2007). If the manufacturer has indicated GOST, then a standard recipe was used in the production of chocolate. Of course, here we have to hope for the decency of the confectionery factory.
Read the composition. If you are buying classic dark chocolate, the composition should contain only cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar. Everything! No more dyes and flavors. If the chocolate is with nuts or raisins, nuts and raisins are added accordingly.
However, manufacturers can cheat with the composition and instead of cocoa butter, which is inherently vegetable fat, they indicate vegetable fat. This could mean that palm oil was used. Or they write "cocoa-vella", which is a cake from cocoa babas.
Open the packaging. Real chocolate shouldn't have a sugary sweet smell. Chocolate without additives smells like cocoa. The chocolate bar should have a smooth, shiny surface. But if you break it, the tile should be matte at the break.
As you break the chocolate, you will hear a dull, dry crackle. And if palm oil is added to the chocolate, the product breaks down silently. In this case, the chocolate should not stretch and crumble.
