Candy Dish Blog

Michelle Obama is set to discuss her initiative to combat childhood obesity. Susan wrote about this last week. We are committed to seeing our nation’s future as healthy and sustainable with healthy, happy children who learn to make sensible choices that carry on into adulthood. To quote Susan:

NCA takes seriously the First Lady’s interest in healthy children. We hope the emphasis will be on positive incentives to create healthy lifestyles including encouraging physical activity, wonderful inspiring incentives to encourage increased consumption of tasty fruits and vegetables and initiatives to discourage overconsumption of foods and beverages.

We also hope that the First Lady and other food policy leaders will continue to acknowledge that there is a place for small pleasures, like candy, in the lives of children and adults. As most diet programs acknowledge it’s the little pleasures that help us achieve lasting change and good health.

Update: See this article on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Watch the speech, to be broadcast at noon today:

Update: Broadcast removed after it was over.

In the last few U.S. administrations the First Ladies all have had serious agendas.  As a former librarian Laura Bush was known for her efforts to encourage children’s literacy.  First Lady Hilary Clinton ’s tag line was “It takes a village” as she encouraged public private partnerships as part of a “global village” concept of assistance to underdeveloped regions of the world.  She has continued that interest as U.S. Secretary of State.

Many of us in the Washington area have been wondering when First Lady Michelle Obama was going to declare her agenda.  A  hospital administrator before becoming our current First Lady, she’s also a devoted mom to two young children. Her background in health administration and her personal role as a mom has helped define her agenda which has been rolled out over the last few weeks.  Mrs. Obama is joining forces with two respected health care leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin to “help Americans lead healthier lives through better nutrition, regular physical activity and by encouraging communities to support healthy choices.”   The First Lady says she will launch a major initiative on childhood obesity in the next few weeks stating “today’s epidemic of childhood obesity is unacceptable.”   She notes that the prevalence of obesity has tripled among children and adolescents from 1980 to 2004.

Along with the U.S.  Surgeon General the First Lady would like to see changes in community, home, child care settings and schools to allow individuals to make healthy choices.  According to a news release , likely  practical applications of this initiative include “the limitation of advertisements of less healthy foods and  beverages” ; reducing  consumption of products with added sugars and appealing healthy food and beverage options in child care and school settings.  The First Lady carefully refers to childhood obesity as an “epidemic” threatening America’s “quality and years of healthy life.”

NCA takes seriously the First Lady’s interest in healthy children. We hope the emphasis will be on positive incentives to create healthy lifestyles including encouraging physical activity, wonderful  inspiring incentives  to encourage increased consumption of  tasty fruits and vegetables and initiatives to discourage overconsumption of foods and beverages.

We also hope that the First Lady and other food policy leaders will continue to acknowledge  that there is a place for small pleasures, like candy, in the lives of children and adults. As most  diet programs  acknowledge it’s the little pleasures that help us achieve lasting change and good health.

If you’re reading this blog I’m going to assume you are a candy lover.  I’m also going to assume you have an interest in food.  What’s your food agenda?  What do you do to keep yourself fit and healthy?

Michelle Obama by Story Accents.

Today I read in a daily news item in NCA’s trade magazine, Candy & Snack TODAY, that coupon use is on the rise.  According to a new study by Inmar, Inc., coupon use grew 27 percent in 2009.  The increase began in October of 2008, right around the time the economy starting sliding downhill. Internet coupon distribution in 2009 grew 92 percent and redemption of Internet coupons has increased an astounding 360 percent.

This won’t surprise readers of the Candy Dish Blog since we mentioned back in October that consumers were looking for values like manufacturers’ coupons and retail store promotions when shopping for Halloween candy.

I see coupons for candy almost every Sunday in the paper.  It made me wonder if there are currently printable coupons for candy available online.  Sure enough.  Coupons.com has few offers right now for Nestle / Wonka products. Take a look and see if you can find any more.

Are you a coupon shopper? Do you regularly clip candy coupons?

Lance Cpl. Ryan T. Mathison detonated a blasting cap connected to an IED in Shosharak, Afghanistan on Friday. Somehow, even though it was triggered, the IED did not explode. After bomb technicians examined it and discovered the power of the bomb – enough explosives to destroy a truck – and realized the toll it could have taken on their patrol, many of the Marines broke the tension in the usual way, lighting up cigarettes and talking of buying Lance Cpl. Mathison a drink for his good luck.

The article in the New York Times describes the scene:

They passed cigarettes, except for Lance Corporal Mathison: He pulled a lollipop from a plastic bag and popped it into his mouth.

We are glad that this young man and his fellow Marines are safe. We are also glad that candy can be a stress-reducer even in combat situations and that the troops have some sweet treats to enjoy. Susan talked before about helping troops through candy donations to Soldiers Angels. Now seems like a good time to do that again.

Will you help with the effort?

As you may have heard reported early this morning, the U.K-based chocolate company Cadbury has agreed to be sold to the U.S.-based Kraft Foods for more than $19 billion.  All day long news reports have been filtering into NCA, and one really caught my eye – not because of its coverage of the merger, but for its glaring inaccuracies of chocolate manufacturing both here in the U.S. and the European Union.

The article appeared, online at least, in the “news” department for the Life and Style section of The Independent, a London-based daily newspaper.  I point this out because some of what was reported was clearly a matter of opinion, while other sections were merely false.

First the author claims that while Brits value creamy textures and taste, Americans prefer chocolate that has a “sourness” and “gritty texture”.  It’s so clearly a matter of personal preference that I’m shocked any editor could let it pass for fact in a news story. 

Nonetheless, as a matter of personal opinion it’s not verifiably wrong like some other information appearing in the story.

For example, the article claims that one major difference between British or European chocolate and U.S. chocolate is that American chocolate is typically made from South American cocoa beans and that European chocolate is generally made from West African cocoa beans.  The truth is that the majority of chocolate the world over is made using beans from West Africa or proprietary blends of beans incorporating some from West Africa.  While native to South and Central America, cocoa is grown in many countries around the world and West Africa is by far the largest producer at this time.  That means it’s likely that any chocolate you eat – whether made by an American producer or a European producer – contains beans grown in West Africa.  

The reporter goes on to say that some American chocolate contains the additive PGPR, which he claims “can act in the place of more expensive cocoa butter.” PGPR is an emulsifier.  Almost every chocolate manufacturer around the world uses emulsifiers like lecithin, PGPR or Ammonium phosphatides in order to keep the cocoa butter and the cocoa solids from separating.  PGPR has the additional benefits of improving texture and allowing manufacturers to have a chocolate that flows very well (this is helpful when making, for example, hollow chocolate).  Additionally, it can only be used in small quantities not to exceed .3 percent of the total product weight.

Second, no chocolate product sold in the U.S. is permitted to contain any fats other than cocoa butter.  In the EU, where countries subscribe to a different standard of identity, manufacturers are permitted to label a product as chocolate if it contains no more than 5 percent of an additional vegetable fat.  That same product could not be sold as chocolate in U.S.; the label would have to indicate the difference.

I love Cadbury chocolate – Cadbury Fruit and Nut makes me super happy.  But I also love American chocolate.  There are no substitutes for a Snickers bar, a Hershey Milk Chocolate with Almonds or a Baby Ruth in my mind.  Every manufacturer in the world has a different recipe for chocolate.  There are regional differences, but that doesn’t make one chocolate better or worse than another.  It just makes them different.  And that variety?  Well, that’s what I love most about chocolate.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmoosa/ / CC BY 2.0

Yesterday a few NCA staff members had the chance to attend the PEEPS & COMPANY store opening at National Harbor outside of Washington, DC.  It’s the first ever Peeps store, featuring the famous marshmallows chicks and bunnies on hats, water bottles, t-shirts and, of course, in candy form.  There’s also significant shelf space dedicated to Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike, and Peanut Chews – some of Just Born’s other well known brands.  Here are a few pictures from the event:

In all, there are more than 850 products that fans of the candy can grab to show how much they love their Peeps (including a sweatshirt that every Washington-area resident and visitor should have: DC PEEPS):

Following the grand opening, we were invited to a brunch that included a table so “sweet” you just have to see it for yourself:

And, of course, no store opening would be complete without the swag bag.  PEEPS & COMPANY’s bag included a Mike and Ike mug, a plush stuffed Peep Bunny and plenty of candy. In the spirit of the holiday and with the thought that it is better to give than receive, Susan S offered to donate her swag bag to a lucky reader of the Candy Dish Blog (everyone say, “THANKS SUSAN S.”).  Here’s a look at what you’ll receive if you win:

In order to win, answer the following trivia question.  We’ll randomly choose a winner from everyone who guesses correctly.

TRIVIA:
Today it takes six minutes to create one marshmallow chick.  How long did it take back in 1953 when they were first made?
(HINT: it’s an amount of time that you would not normally measure in minutes).

Good luck.  Submit your best guess by Tuesday, December 15.

If you would like to see more pictures from the grand opening of PEEPS & COMPANY, take a look at my flickr set.

America’s dairy farmers and milk processors have teamed up to produce a new campaign aimed at keeping chocolate milk available to kids in schools. The Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign comes on the heels of evolving legislation designed to limit or eliminate soda and other sugary drinks in schools. The campaign maintains that children love chocolate milk, no surprise here, for its flavor. They say that removing chocolate milk from the lunch menu will drive kids to other sweet drinks, and not regular white milk.

Kids can get a good amount of the goodness of milk in flavored milk options, and that is what the point is. They love it for the flavor and parents love the nutritional value of chocolate milk. Even for older kids, chocolate milk has been shown to have benefits. Researchers at George Mason University and Indiana University have found that drinking chocolate milk after exercising helps muscles heal and rebuild just as effectively as the popular sports drinks do.

“[Reduced-fat chocolate milk] contains 170 total calories, with 29 grams of carbohydrates and 8 grams of protein, a 3.6-1 ratio. Optimal recovery ratio for carbs to protein is between 3-1 and 4-1,” Cheryl Zonkowski, director of sports nutrition at the University of Florida, said. Other valuable nutrients found in milk include vitamins A, D, B-6 and B-12, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc.

Here are the top five arguments from the Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign:

• Milk provides nutrients essential for good health and kids will drink more when it’s flavored.
• Flavored milk contains the same nine essential nutrients as white milk and is a healthful alternative to soft drinks.
• Drinking lowfat or fat free white or flavored milk helps kids get the 3 daily servings of milk recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and provides three of the five “nutrients of concern” that children do not get enough of – calcium, potassium and magnesium as well as vitamin D.
• Children who drink flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs; do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories; and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers.
• Lowfat chocolate milk is the most popular milk choice in schools and kids drink less milk (and get fewer nutrients) if it’s taken away.

Chocolate Milk by hleo.