Chocolate as Health Food [1]
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton [2] on
Mars Inc., the candy company that makes Snickers bars, M&Ms and Dove chocolates, used to spend $1 million per year subsidizing a newsletter which claimed that eating chocolate could prevent cavities [3]. Now it is funding research that says chocolate is good for your heart [4]. According to PR Week, the company has hired the Weber Shandwick [5] PR firm to help promote its new CocoaVia brand, with the slogan, "Be Good to Your Heart Everyday." The New York Times reports that Mars is even placing its new CocoaVia bars in the health food aisles [6], near nutrition bars rather than candy, in retailers such as Wal-Mart [7] and Target. Noting that the new chocolate bars are still high in fat and calories, independent nutritionists remain skeptical, "saying that the effort seems less of a breakthrough than a sly way to scare up chocolate sales."