The chocolate you were used to has been changing over the years. The produces constantly are looking for ways to simplify their production and cut costs. While you are still thinking of some products as chocolate their name has changed as they do not longer qualify as chocolate products. Surprised?
Chocolate vs Chocolate-like Products
Whether we are consuming chocolate or chocolate-like product it’s all down to the proportions. Pure chocolate typically contains pure chocolate, added cocoa butter, and some sugar. The chocolate-like products will contain a very small percentage of pure chocolate and cocoa butter and will be loaded with additions such as sugar and sweeteners, dairy, vanilla, emulsifiers, and other flavourings.
Health Benefits of Chocolate
Good quality chocolates are made with cocoa butter, a fat comprised of oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil. Oleic acid actually helps lower bad cholesterol levels in the blood. Interestingly, although stearic acid is a saturated fatty acid (SFA) it does not affect blood cholesterol negatively.
Cheap replacements
Lecithin
Lecithin is very important to chocolate because it reduces viscosity, replaces expensive ingredients such as cocoa butter, improves the flow properties of chocolate, and can improve the shelf life for certain products.
In chocolates you will most often find soy lecithin, however some chocolates use sunflower lecithin (Perugina, Enjoy Life, Pacari, Madre). There are only few brands that do not use lecithin and instead use more expensive cocoa butter (Ritual, Camino)
References:
http://www.chocolateuniversityonline.com/lecithin-in-chocolate/