The dark chocolate version of Toblerone's most popular bar has been discontinued after nearly six decades on confectionery shelves.

Sweet treats manufacturer Mondelēz International confirmed in a statement that its 360g dark chocolate bar would no longer be sold in the UK.

The company said it understood the "difficult decision" may be "disappointing for some consumers".

It attributed the discontinuation to "changing tastes" and growing its business, adding it "continuously adapt[s]" its range and "continue[s] to invest in Toblerone".

The original Toblerone bar was first invented in 1908, with a dark chocolate version - containing 50% cocoa - released in 1969.

Mondelēz did not indicate if its dark chocolate Toblerone was being discontinued elsewhere besides the UK, or if other sizes will also be discontinued. The BBC has approached the company for further comment.

The brand name Toblerone was created using the founder's surname, "Tobler" and the Italian word for a type of nougat made with honey and almonds - "torrone" - which the chocolate contains.

The Swiss chocolate bar's distinctive triangular shape is thought to have been inspired by the Matterhorn in the Alps - a silhouette of which appears on the packaging - though its true origins remain unclear.

The food pyramid was created in the 1970s and adopted by the United States in 1992. It has had disastrous results for American health, particularly by minimizing the role of healthy fats and proteins and increasing low-nutrition carbs.

Nutrition expert Dr. Paul Mason has an excellent video detailing the history of the food pyramid. It was created by flawed and inaccurate studies, and heavily influenced by politics and not research. Since the food pyramid was set as a guideline, the average American adult weighs 30 pounds more than Americans did previously!

Secondly, the pyramid’s suggested protein intake is much too low, even though protein is necessary for maintaining and growing muscle, can help decrease unhealthy weight gain, regulates blood glucose, and so much more. Finally, the pyramid’s neglect of healthy fats has led to a misunderstanding of dietary fat, causing many to avoid beneficial fats even though unsaturated fats help lower the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death in America.

While canned goods past their "best-by" date may not taste optimal, there's no real health risk in consuming canned goods as long as they remain in good condition. Here's why: The food in the container is commercially sterile and a vacuum seal prevents any new bacteria from getting in, so it will not spoil.

The USDA recorded 69 violations in a year. So far, 9 people have died in the outbreak. //

While it's always lurking, L. monocytogenes especially plagues the food industry because it has the notable ability to reproduce at refrigerator temperatures—a condition that typically limits the growth of other nasty germs. //

According to USDA documents, the agency has not taken enforcement actions against Boar's Head, and there is no data available on swab testing for Listeria at the Virginia facility. The plant has been shut down since late July after health investigators found the outbreak strain of L. monocytogenes in unopened containers of Boar's Head liverwurst.

ColdWetDog Ars Legatus Legionis
14y
12,021
Subscriptor++

Epimetheus_Secundus said:
Genetically there are three speeds to processing/eliminating caffeine from the body

Fast - body clears it in 45 minutes. These people can drink coffee before bed
Med - body clears it in 4 hours. Don't have coffee after dinner. Most people are this - call it "normal"
Slow - body clears it in 14-16 hours. Don't even bother

I got the slow gene, so I just don't bother.

My heartfelt condolences. But there is good news. While caffeine metabolism is about 80% genetic, the target enzymes are the cytochrome p450 system in the liver. So even if you have poor natural clearance, you can increase the p450 system by taking up cigarette smoking. o_O

This level of national obesity is new. In 1960, rates were about 10 percent for men and 15 percent for women. They drifted up a little for the next few years, then in the late 1970s inflected upward in a steady rise to their current levels. //

So what caused this national epidemic of obesity?

The most persuasive answer is that in the late 1970s, the U.S. government, acting under pressure from such senators as former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, launched a nutrition campaign that resulted in the 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and, a decade later, the “Food Pyramid.” Bread, cereal, rice, and pasta were the base of the pyramid. Then in order upward were vegetables; fruits; milk, yogurt, and cheese; meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts; with fats, oils, and sweets in the small apex.

The guidelines are reviewed periodically, but the latest version (2015) continues the anti-fat, anti-meat, pro-carbohydrate basic philosophy. //

Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences, asked McGovern in 1977, “What right has the federal government to propose that the American people conduct a vast nutritional experiment, with themselves as subjects, on the strength of so very little evidence that it will do them any good?”

But the skeptics were drowned out and left stranded without research money or institutional support, and clinicians who tried a different approach, such as Dr. Robert Atkins, were traduced viciously. A huge body of respectable clinical observations that contradicted the guidelines — see, for example, “Treating Overweight Patients” from a premier medical journal in 1957 — went down the memory hole. Also unnoticed was the similarity between the guidelines and the recommendations in a 1930 Oregon pamphlet on “Fattening Pigs for Market.” //

The failure of the guidelines to improve public health was not bad news for everyone. The more the weight-challenged fail, the higher the rates of Type II diabetes, which is accompanied by a rise in blood sugar and consequent insulin prescriptions, and the more the money that can be made from substituting cheap vegetable oils for natural fats, from weight loss programs, and from drastic surgical remedies. Good times for Big Farm, Big Pharma, Big Medicine, and assorted other major players. //

In 2001, investigative journalist Gary Taubes published “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat” in the peer-reviewed and prestigious journal Science. The article, and his subsequent book “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” argued that the food pyramid was almost totally wrong.

Taubes cited both solid metabolic research, which was being ignored, and extensive medical history, which had been amnesia-ized, to the effect that overconsumption of carbohydrates eventually leads to insulin resistance, which skews appetite regulators and turns off the ability to burn fat. The eventual result is a cascade in which the body is taking in excessive amounts of food and storing it as fat, but cannot access the fat for energy. The lack of available energy then reduces metabolic rates, which makes losing weight still more difficult. The solution is to cut carbs to decrease insulin, and add fat. //

The rebels agree with the conventional wisdom on one crucial point: The refined-sugary fast foods that permeate the current American diet are terrible. Otherwise they conclude weight loss can be achieved by inverting the food pyramid, creating a diet of 70 percent healthy fats (not vegetable oil or saturated fats), 25 percent protein, and 5 percent or less carbohydrates, an approach abbreviated as “low-carb” or “ketogenic,” a term based on the fact that burning fat produces substances called “ketones.” Red meat is favored, the fattier the better.

The rebellion is reinforced by numerous clinicians who struggled with personal weight issues as well as with frustration over an inability to help patients. //

The moving force behind EAT-Lancet is a vegan Norwegian billionaire, but it is also a darling of the corporate world. Among its sponsors are 20 Big Food companies, 7 Big Pharma, and 14 Big Chemical. All of these have their own interests, which do not necessarily include our health. As Teicholz says about Big Food:

The vast majority of packaged foods sold on the inner aisles of supermarkets — cookies, crackers, chips (crisps), candy, cereals — are made up of the same basic ingredients: soy, corn, grains, sugars, and salt. This is vegan.

Americans eat more chicken and less beef than they used to. They drink less milk – especially whole milk – and eat less ice cream, but they consume way more cheese. Their diets include less sugar than in prior decades but a lot more corn-derived sweeteners. And while the average American eats the equivalent of 1.2 gallons of yogurt a year, he or she also consumes 36 pounds of cooking oils – more than three times as much as in the early 1970s. //

Broadly speaking, we eat a lot more than we used to: The average American consumed 2,481 calories a day in 2010, about 23% more than in 1970. That’s more than most adults need to maintain their current weight, according to the Mayo Clinic’s calorie calculator. (A 40-year-old man of average height and weight who’s moderately active, for instance, needs 2,400 calories; a 40-year-old woman with corresponding characteristics needs 1,850 calories.)

Nearly half of those calories come from just two food groups: flours and grains (581 calories, or 23.4%) and fats and oils (575, or 23.2%), up from a combined 37.3% in 1970. Meats, dairy and sweeteners provide smaller shares of our daily caloric intake than they did four decades ago; then again, so do fruits and vegetables (7.9% in 2010 versus 9.2% in 1970).

Nearly 60 years after tobacco companies were first required to print warning labels on cigarettes to reduce smoking, statists salivate at the opportunity to pull the lever for labels on any other behavior they wish to deter, such as eating meat.

Last fall, a coalition of scientists proposed cigarette-style caution labels be placed on meat products for alleged hazards to the climate and human health. A study examining 1,000 meat-eating adults found labels espousing hazards to climate, health, and pandemics were enough to convince participants to opt for a non-meat meal. Given the success of warning labels at reducing cigarette use, researchers expressed optimism at the potential for similar warnings for deter meat consumption.

A dramatic drop in meat at the center of the American diet, however, offers far worse implications for public health than appreciated by the statist class of academics determined to manipulate behavior. The federal government’s recommendations to embrace a low-fat diet, for example, planted the roots for the twin epidemics of obesity and chronic disease overwhelming the health care system today after three generations dutifully followed the dietary guidelines. Americans increased consumption of grains and processed oils at the behest of the “experts” and now live in a nation where nearly 42 percent of adults 20 and older are obese and 6 in 10 suffer from at least one chronic illness.

More people have reported severe poisonings in an ongoing outbreak marked by people seizing and needing to be intubated after consuming microdose candies made by Diamond Shruumz, the Food and Drug Administration reported Tuesday.

Don’t get me wrong: I was happy working hard with my two feet planted firmly on the land. In a better world I and people like Scott Chang-Fleeman would have kept getting our hands dirty, making an honest, if modest, living providing good and wholesome food in synch with the rhythms of the planet.

But to borrow a word from the world of ecology, being a young farmer in today’s economy is “unsustainable.” The numbers don’t work economically and, eventually, any mind trying to square this un-squarable circle is going to break. The economic, physical and mental challenges are all interconnected.

It’s hard to find an American, Republican or Democrat, red or blue state resident that doesn’t want more young hands on the land. We all rightly see agriculture as a pathway to personal fulfillment and a way to make our food supply healthier and more secure. But words and intentions can only do so much. We must answer these very real problems with very real subsidy.

My grandfather was fond of pointing out that "...eatin' ain't eatin' unless there's a dead critter involved," and he was right. //

it's easy to hit Gloat Factor Six when you hear of a study that shows you are at a higher risk of diabetes and heart problems from eating the vegan Impossible Burger than the real thing.

anon-ymous99
7 hours ago
“I got a year’s MREs stored in my basement, a 2500 gallon plastic clean water tank, rice, beans, antibiotics, medical supplies and tools. Whadda YOU got?”
“Not much. Just a rifle, and your address.” //

mikwcas DaveM
3 hours ago
I'd be happy to make it a month in a SHTF scenario. Other than that I am not even supposed to be of this present kingdom so I should win out anyhow. Just a thought. //

Min Headroom llme
6 hours ago
There’s at least two kinds of go-prep, as compared to hunker down prep:

• Movie type wide area apocalypse in which urbanites head for the boonies they aren’t prepared for and will be unwelcome in.

• Neighborhood or at most city wide disasters that need evacuating.

The latter includes things like local wild fires that rip through a neighborhood, hurricanes, floods, etc. This is the kind where driving 20 - 200 miles (if one can) will generally get one out of the disaster area, and “living off the land” can be as simple as using a credit card in a roadside diner. While it’s possible to be prepared for the latter with as little as a full gas tank and a credit card, it would likely be a lot easier with a go bag suitable for living a week or two in motels, shelters or whatever, and a big variable in what that includes would depend on the region. For example, being prepared for an emergency road trip in an Idaho winter (or Iowa’s either for that matter), is somewhat different from a road trip fleeing a Gulf coast location in the summer ahead of a hurricane.

In the latter kind of scenario, the advantage comes from being first out the door before the highways jam and/or whatever the disaster is catches up. So having a mind set and a prep that enables just grab and run is what’s needed. I grant this sort of prepping and disaster isn’t as exciting as a zombie apocalypse, but it’s a good deal more likely, and, good news, more survivable. //

TheOtherOne
7 hours ago
Well said. Preparing for an event (tornado, earthquake, hurricane) is doable and a good target. But a cataclysmic life altering event where society collapses? You can’t store enough water or food to wait it out. I’m hoping to go in the first wave personally. //

Louise1
6 hours ago edited
I try to buy emergency food that I don't have to cook. (Either the company selling the food has cooked it, or the food can be eaten raw.) Mountain House says you can eat their food (at least the stuff that I've bought) without cooking it. You soak it in cold water for twice the time that you'd soak it in boiling water.

Make sure that you store enough water to re-hydrate dried or freeze-dried food, besides storing drinking and cleaning water.

I have some prepared meals, like Mountain House meals. I can eat maybe one of them a day. But most are way too salty to eat nothing but them for a week or a month.

So most of my emergency food is canned, dried or freeze-dried fruit, vegetables, TVP, and food from Ready Harvest / Food Storage Depot. (I don't have to cook the TVP that I get.) No canned soup or chili; too salty.

I emailed Ready Harvest / Food Storage Depot customer service, and a lady replied:

Most of our products are 25-30 year shelf life with a couple exceptions. And you are right, we may not have fuel to heat up our foods. That is why we carry what we have in the store. All our products but popcorn and eggs can be eaten right out of the can. Some items require longer soaking in water, but all will soften even with cold water. I did a test with Belgian pasta. I heated the water in the microwave to just about boiling and then put the noodles in. They were perfect within 10 minutes. The pasta soaked in cold fridge water was done within 35 minutes. Beans/Potatoes took 2 to 3 hours with room temperature water. The rice 4 or 5 hours room temperature water. If you have hot water 20 minutes.

If it's an emergency, and I have to eat my emergency food, then the power probably will be out. So I won't be able to cook my food. So I want not-too-salty food that I don't have to cook.

Louise1
6 hours ago edited
I try to buy emergency food that I don't have to cook. (Either the company selling the food has cooked it, or the food can be eaten raw.) Mountain House says you can eat their food (at least the stuff that I've bought) without cooking it. You soak it in cold water for twice the time that you'd soak it in boiling water.

Make sure that you store enough water to re-hydrate dried or freeze-dried food, besides storing drinking and cleaning water.

I have some prepared meals, like Mountain House meals. I can eat maybe one of them a day. But most are way too salty to eat nothing but them for a week or a month.

So most of my emergency food is canned, dried or freeze-dried fruit, vegetables, TVP, and food from Ready Harvest / Food Storage Depot. (I don't have to cook the TVP that I get.) No canned soup or chili; too salty.

I emailed Ready Harvest / Food Storage Depot customer service, and a lady replied:

Most of our products are 25-30 year shelf life with a couple exceptions. And you are right, we may not have fuel to heat up our foods. That is why we carry what we have in the store. All our products but popcorn and eggs can be eaten right out of the can. Some items require longer soaking in water, but all will soften even with cold water. I did a test with Belgian pasta. I heated the water in the microwave to just about boiling and then put the noodles in. They were perfect within 10 minutes. The pasta soaked in cold fridge water was done within 35 minutes. Beans/Potatoes took 2 to 3 hours with room temperature water. The rice 4 or 5 hours room temperature water. If you have hot water 20 minutes.

If it's an emergency, and I have to eat my emergency food, then the power probably will be out. So I won't be able to cook my food. So I want not-too-salty food that I don't have to cook.