My Hot Cocoa Weakness

I went grocery shopping today. I have a backup freezer and stock it full, so I don't go grocery shopping all that often. Gas prices and all that.

It was an exhausting day for many reasons. Not feeling great.

Anyway, hot cocoa -- you know, the chocolate powder packets that you add hot water to -- was not on my list. It hasn't been for a while because partially-hydrogenated oils are too far up on the ingredient list. This is a bummer, because I really like hot cocoa and have been pretty miserable without it. I've looked at the "fat free" mix varieties, but while they don't contain any hydrogenated anything, they also contain sucralose, A.K.A. Splenda, which is fake sugar with a building scary reputation. That may be why they now call it "sucralose."

You are perhaps wondering if there are any ingredients I'm not afraid of. Well, of course! The things found in nature!

So instead of packaged cocoa, I've been experimenting with homemade. I tried the real thing, with a saucepan and milk and all that, but it tasted...weird. So instead I tried this recipe for a homemade mix. I had everything but the non-dairy creamer. It tasted closer to what I was used to, but still a bit weird. So I thought, "Okay, I'll get some non-dairy creamer and try again." But you know what non-dairy creamer has in it?

Hmm?

Partially-hydrogenated oils! Nooooooooo!

As I said, I have had a bad day. Then I had a hard shopping trip where the store was either out of what I needed or the prices of what they did have went up -- again. By the time I got to this, I just wanted to sit down in the aisle and cry.

So I wandered back over to the packaged cocoa mixes. And I re-read the ingredients list of my old favorite, Nestle Milk Chocolate. Nope, no change. But Swiss Miss? She's now using fully-hydrogenated oils! Is this ideal? No. But it was close enough and I bought it. I had a mug of it tonight, and it tasted good.

Sometimes you just have to make a compromise. I compromised for cocoa. And I have no regrets.