Think Pink with Chocolate Cupcakes

October, Sisters and Brothers, is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  You've problably started to see the pink packaged candies in the stores but you can also find items honoring this month long educational effort in bakeries as well especially in but not limited to big chain stores.


Your Chocolate Priestess got this huge, 4oz, that's a quarter of a pound, chocolate cupcake in her local Kroger's.  The cake part tastes much like you'd expect from a mass produced cupcake.  Light, chocolaty but impressively so, not too moist.   However the scent of the dye in the frosting and the blatant dye taste of the frosting is horrible, there is just no other way to describe it.  Yes, you'd need to dye it to get it this pink but you nee to also make sure the frosting tastes like sugar and cream at the very least and not dye.   YUCK.  I cut off the cupcake part after one bite and tossed the frosting part.  The cupcake allow was good but not great and not worth $2.49 even if some of that money goes to support breast cancer research and education.

I recommend that you do the same if you decide to get this treat or better yet try something else with less frosting.  Supporting charities are great but when bakers and candy makers think that means they can give us inferior products, they are mistaken.  Give you money to causes you believe in but do not spend it on items that do not give what you'd want if the charity part of the equation was removed. 

Of equal importance is how much of the price of an item goes to support that charity.  Is that company actually giving part of their profits to breast cancer research or have they increased the prices of these "pink" items so they donate really excess money?  The only way to determine that is to compare regular and "pink" items.  With this huge cupcake, there was nothing to compare except with the regular cake slices I found elsewhere in the bakery section; the prices were the same so I felt good buying this in terms of the money to charity measurement.

Sisters and Brothers, may you too take the time to slowly appreciate what the Divine and human ingenuity have offered you in chocolate.

Comments

mavido79 said…
As a BC survivor, I have mixed feelings on this kind of fundraising. While I appreciate the awareness it raises, in most instances, so little money actually goes to charity that it's hard to support the efforts. Okay, admittedly, that didn't stop me from buying a bag of pink M&Ms today, but frankly, I was looking for something sweet anyway and M&Ms are a favorite of mine when it comes to mass produced candy.
Exactly. While there is nothing wrong with buying these products, if you desire to support research or help fund a charity, your money is probably best spent by sending it directly to programs that do the research or support those in need.