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Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

choviva.com

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Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#41

Post by basch »

isatty wrote: post #34
IAmBroom wrote: post #2

This is classic deck-chair reorg, instead of actually helping the environment. China outputs gigatons of coal smoke. The US ships goods by individual trucks that could travel by train for a fraction of the fuel usage. We dispose of millions of plastic, floating pieces of trash in our oceans. But if we slightly decrease the carbon footprint of a Hershey's bar, we'll be OK. I use a stainless steel straw, so I'm doing m…

Absolutely. No fucking way am I giving up chocolate for anything so it’s just a moot point and a funny read.

and here I am ready to have a Ninja iTransformer on my counter than converts leaves and grass and sunlight into every delicacy in the world, at my fingertips.

As for saving the planet, are we still pretending that reduce/reuse is an option, or have we moved onto white hat underground climate engineering as the only practical solution given current politics and markets.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#42

Post by echoangle »

krunck wrote: post #31
k__ wrote: post #15

They changed the chocolate recipe in East Germany because they didn't have the ingredients. At one point they sold "chocolate" made of fish meal.

Interesting. Source?

The only relevant thing I could find was the „Schlager Süßtafel“ ( https://www.t-online.de/leben/essen-und-trinken/id_100228748... ) which seems to have been made with milk from cows fed with fishmeal, which made it taste weird.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#43

Post by gs17 »

comrade1234 wrote: post #30
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize I may not be the average consumer, but I love Impossible Burgers. I generally try to limit my intake of mammalian meat for animal welfare reasons, but I've found no other alternative satiates that "red meat craving" like an Impossible burger can for me. I love chocolate, and while I'm skeptical this will taste like my favorite dark chocolate, I'm open-minded that it could be a viable substitute on some occa…

I can’t remember which one did the BK Whopper and White Castle burgers - beyond or impossible. (I live in Europe but was spending most of my time in the USA when these came out). Whatever one it was - it has a heme protein extracted from soybean roots which gives it that blood smell and taste that is so satisfying.

Both used Impossible AFAIK (pretty sure they both have them still, too).

> it has a heme protein extracted from soybean roots which gives it that blood smell and taste that is so satisfying.

Glad you like it. Personally, I wish places didn't replace the real veggie burgers with them, but that's mostly a side effect of American restaurants tending to think there should be exactly one veg option so they can't coexist.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#44

Post by colechristensen »

HighFreqAsuka wrote: post #4

> Here’s what we’ve found out: It’s not about the cocoa-beans, but about the way they are treated during the manufacturing process. I eat a lot of high end single origin chocolate bars, and I simply don’t believe this. Two bars from the same brand at the same percentage of cocoa content using different beans taste completely different. In exactly the same way as wine or coffee. It’s one of the most interesting parts…

I'm likewise extremely skeptical, but I'd still like to taste it.

Maybe a replacement where chocolate isn't the main ingredient?

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#45

Post by dylan604 »

IAmBroom wrote: post #33
dylan604 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These types of arguments are so tiresome. As if the only thing anyone on the entire planet is trying to do is decrease the carbon footprint of a Hershey's bar. If we wait around for a the panacea of solutions, we'll be wiped out as a species well before that solution hits (sadly human extinction seems to be that panacea solution). Instead, people do whatever they can where they can. I can choose to use a stainless st…

Now you're tilting at imaginary windmills. No one is "telling me what I can and cannot do because you disagree." I'm simply pointing out it has zero net effect on the problem. It's like trying to stop an island from being flooded by rising sea levels, using a bucket brigade. It's not "better than doing nothing!"; it is doing something that achieves nothing. Go ahead with your buckets if you want to. Buy them in prett…

So you just go ahead and continue to do nothing while armchair quarterbacking whatever it is you think you're controlling (it's nothing in case you haven't yet realized it). You showing up to a protest also does nothing more than using your stainless straw. It is the people in power that are actively denying climate change exists, striking from the official record any mention of it from any official forms of government communication, and there is nothing Joey Sixpack can do about it. Making fun of or belittling in any way other people for doing whatever they can is just beyond unhelpful.

Also, do you not think that those that are using stainless straws and eliminated use of single use plastics in their personal lives are also not doing other things to encourage their leaders to enact big changes? Signing petitions, writing/calling representatives, attending protests, participating in community events are all things that individuals can do that all add up to nothing in today's government leadership. It would be much better use of energy complaining about the havoc the current administration is doing to undo legislation that did enable large scale changes than admonishing the little guy for something totally out of their control

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#46

Post by mlyle »

A_Duck wrote: post #5

I used to watch sci-fi films and think: "well this isn't realistic, people simply wouldn't accept eating Soylent Green or a nutrient paste ration" Now I realise that these things will come to us branded up as desirable and high-status. It isn't ultra-processed pea protein, this is a 'vegan steak' Human beings evolved to eat whole foods. If you're going to eat something else, you better be very, very sure about the lo…

> Human beings evolved to eat whole foods. If you're going to eat something else, you better be very, very sure about the long-term effects.

I think if you apply similar processing to sunflower seeds and cocoa beans, one isn't more of a "whole food" than the other.

I would give this a try. It's probably not exactly the same as chocolate, but that doesn't mean it has to be worse.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#47

Post by moffers »

Replacing cocoa as the base for a chocolate that can work with local crops and be price competitive without being too dissimilar has been a fancy of mine since the cost of cocoa went through the roof in the last year. My wife and I run a small wholesale bakery and I’ve been dying to try and come up with my own alternatives. I heard there has been work using Fava beans, which I like the idea of because it’s easier to grow those in more places than the cocoa bean. Sunflower seeds is an interesting base, I wonder what their “fermentation-like” process is.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#48

Post by colechristensen »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25
comrade1234 wrote: post #11

If I’m going to eat a fast-food burger other than in-n-out I may as well eat a beyond burger or something else non-meat because McD’s and BK’s meat are nothing like real meat. If I’m going to eat a Kit Kat or some other gas station candy bar I may as well eat artificial chocolate because it pretty much already is fake chocolate. However I can’t eat a Beyond BK (do they make those anymore? Or the White Castle beyond b…

I realize I may not be the average consumer, but I love Impossible Burgers. I generally try to limit my intake of mammalian meat for animal welfare reasons, but I've found no other alternative satiates that "red meat craving" like an Impossible burger can for me. I love chocolate, and while I'm skeptical this will taste like my favorite dark chocolate, I'm open-minded that it could be a viable substitute on some occa…

Impossible burgers smell strongly of soybean meal to me. As in I'm mildly repulsed if the person sitting across from me is eating one.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#49

Post by anon84873628 »

IAmBroom wrote: post #2

This is classic deck-chair reorg, instead of actually helping the environment. China outputs gigatons of coal smoke. The US ships goods by individual trucks that could travel by train for a fraction of the fuel usage. We dispose of millions of plastic, floating pieces of trash in our oceans. But if we slightly decrease the carbon footprint of a Hershey's bar, we'll be OK. I use a stainless steel straw, so I'm doing m…

For this reason I think they are unfortunately over-selling the climate aspect.

However, it is still a good idea for shortening the supply chain, reducing labor costs, and hedging against climate risks.

Cacao (like coffee) is a crop with structures still reverberating from the colonial period. It is labor intensive (not amenable to mechanization) and low margin for most small holder producers. As a perennial crop it requires long term investment to establish, and the harvest cycle often requires financing to bridge. It is subject to fluctuating global commodity prices. The plants themselves are climate sensitive and the impact of changing temperatures and precipitation are already wreaking havoc. Attempting to expand or relocate production to compensate often means deforestation of threatened ecosystems.

The next generation of cacao and coffee farmers see these problems and want to ditch the fields in favor of city jobs. Why put your life into something so risky?

Sunflowers avoid most of these problems since they are an annual crop that grows in temperate latitudes and can be heavily mechanized. (The problems of monoculture are a separate discussion).

Of course it won't be as good as the real deal. That's fine; use sunflowers for the chocolate covered candy garbage. Let craft chocolate be a luxury good with prices that offer a living wage to producers.

Re: Choviva: Chocolate replacement with less CO2 emissions

#50

Post by gs17 »

IAmBroom wrote: post #2

This is classic deck-chair reorg, instead of actually helping the environment. China outputs gigatons of coal smoke. The US ships goods by individual trucks that could travel by train for a fraction of the fuel usage. We dispose of millions of plastic, floating pieces of trash in our oceans. But if we slightly decrease the carbon footprint of a Hershey's bar, we'll be OK. I use a stainless steel straw, so I'm doing m…

> But if we slightly decrease the carbon footprint of a Hershey's bar, we'll be OK.

They're not saying it alone will fix it. They also say they:

>created the ChoViva website with an environmentally conscious mindset. This means we use fonts, colours, images and animations in a purposeful way, do without flashy videos and welcome you in the low-energy dark mode by default.

And I doubt you think they're claiming less JavaScript is all we need.

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