i8o COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 



The presence of more than a small percentage of 

 shell in cocoa is a disadvantage both on the ground of 

 taste and of food value. This has been recognised from 

 the earliest times (see quotations on p. 128). In the 

 Cocoa Powder Order of 1918, the amount of shell 

 which a cocoa powder might contain was defined 

 grade A not to contain more than two per cent, of shell, 

 and grade B not more than five per cent, of shell. The 

 manufacturers of high-class cocoa welcomed these 

 standards, but unfortunately the known analytical 

 methods are not delicate enough to estimate accurately 

 such small quantities, so that any external check is 

 difficult, and the purchaser has to trust to the honesty 

 of the manufacturer. Hence it is wise to purchase cocoa 

 only from makers of good repute. 



CHOCOLATE. 



We have so far no legal definition of chocolate in 

 England. As Mr. N. P. Booth pointed out at the 

 Seventh International Congress of Applied Chemistry : 

 " At the present time a mixture of cocoa with sugar 

 and starch cannot be sold as pure cocoa, but only as 

 * chocolate powder/ and with a definite declaration 

 that the article is a mixture of cocoa and other in- 

 gredients. Prosecutions are constantly occurring where 

 mixtures of foreign starch and sugar with cocoa have 

 been sold as ' cocoa,' and it seems, therefore, a proper 

 step to take to require that a similar declaration shall 

 be made in the case of ' chocolate ' which contains 

 other constituents than the products of cocoa nib and 

 sugar." We cannot do better than quote in full the 

 definitions suggested in Mr. Booth's paper. 



The author refers to the absence of any legal stand- 

 ard for chocolate in England, although in some of the 

 European countries standards are in force, and points 

 out, as a result of this, that articles of which the sale 

 would be prohibited in some other countries, are per- 

 mitted to come without restriction on to the English 

 market. 



