Who gets cravings for choclit?

We all get cravings for choclit, don't we? No food is as emotionally loaded as choclit.



Who remembers these Flake ads? I mean, she's virtually fellating it.



Why have cotton when you can have silk? Why indeed.

IT'S JUST CHOCOLATE!

Okay, I'm the first to admit that I know bugger all about the history of chocolate advertising, but for as long as I can remember, chocolate has been marketed almost exclusively to women and almost exclusively with sexual imagery and undertones and/or the idea that it is a naughty/indulgent treat.

The best example I can think of to illustrate just how powerful marketing can be has little to do with feminism at all. Everybody remembers the Ferrero Rocher adverts - Mr Ambassador, with these Rochers you are really spoiling us! Ferrero also make this stuff called Nutella, which is marketed as a chocolate spread for kids. Now, I don't have any concrete proof of this, I have not sent samples off to the lab or anything, I only have my taste buds to guide me on this one, but after, erm, extensive research, I am damn sure that the soft centre of Ferrero Rocher is exactly the same as Nutella. Same stuff, different positioning.

Come to think of it, the chocolate and diet industries kind of feed off one another's advertising campaigns:

1- Chocolate manufacturers convince woman that she should be "naughty" and stuff her face with chocolate

2 - Diet companies (Special K, anyone?) make woman feel ugly and fat and in need of their services

3 - Woman feels guilty. She gives up chocolate and eats Special K bars instead.

4 - Woman feels emotionally deprived, not to mention bloody hungry. That family-sized bar of Dairy Milk has never looked so good.

5 - Repeat from Step 2

Why should a food make you feel emotionally deprived? It's just food. Chocolate will not make you happy, nor is eating it a terrible sin. You're not a chocoholic - you've just been duped into thinking that because you're a woman you need the stuff, particularly when you're on your period.

I love chocolate, I really do. And occasionally I do get cravings for it, which are usually satisfied by a small bar of Green & Blacks milk chocolate. Or Cadbury's Whole Nut. Mmmmmmm.....nuts...... Well, you are what you eat. I also have a particular fondness for Curly Wurlys, Chomps, Toblerone (especially those mammoth ones you get in airports!), Twirls (like Flakes but less messy) and Creme Eggs.

I have nothing against chocolate in itself, but I wish that women would stop seeing it as their friend, saviour, ultimate source of comfort, etc etc, because it's quite frankly pathetic.