New Crisis: Chocolate Threatened!

If you think stress levels are high now, wait until you hear this. The bad news is that Indonesia has found unusually high levels of melamine in Cadbury Asia Pacific Chocolate products and has ordered every last bit of it removed from stores. Melamine, added to milk by suppliers, is an industrial chemical high in nitrogen that fools protein quality tests on watered down milk. A UK site called The Sun (which I will not link to because of a burst of popups that got through Firefox's barriers and where I found this yummy photo of chocolate) said that Cadbury is planning to cut 500,000 jobs worldwide in another cost-saving restructure, but there was no mention of the melamine tainted chocolate. In a relatively controlled panic, I headed over to the FDA web site to see if any recalls of the chocolate were issued here in the US. No chocolate warnings, but the FDA issued an advisory on Sept. 26 that said that melamine was found in Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products. That will be another crisis if they find the chemical in Maxwell House or Folgers! I'll let you know. In the meantime, unless we are now importing milk from China, which wouldn't surprise me, I'll stick with Hershey's Chocolate.