Alex Rast wrote:

Well, what is or is not chocolate is, of course, a very slippery slope.
Is "vegelate" chocolate? Is "milk chocolate" chocolate? Indeed,
if we are to keep to the line of thinking of the Rational Skepticists
(per Sandra Boynton), "How do we know that chocolate exists?".
But, to tackle the issue at hand...

Chocolate is a confection made from cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar,
and flavor additives such as vanilla. Pure or nearly pure cocoa is
not chocolate.

Cocoa and chocolate aren't the same thing. Cocoa is a defatted,
powdered derivative of the cacao bean. Chocolate is a product
of the cocoa bean wherein the bean has been roasted, de-hulled,
ground, turned into a very smooth, thick liquid (usually by conching),
and solidified.

You are misrepresenting the comparison. Cocoa is also roasted,
dehulled, and ground. You omitted those features from the list of
attributes for cocoa.

It contains enough cocoa butter to make a smooth, creamy
mouthfeel, and for this reason most chocolate has cocoa butter
added. Use of sugar and flavour additives is optional, otherwise
a) how could we have products specifically labelled
"unsweetened chocolate",

Every bar I've ever seen that was labelled "unsweetened
chocolate" did in fact contain added sugar. They didn't
necessarily have enough sugar to make them sweet, but
did have enough to make them chocolate.

If you go into a supermarket, anywhere, and ask for
unsweetened chocolate, they'll point you at bars or
blocks of the chocolate product I described above.

Which is chocolate -- bars containing cocoa, cocoa butter,
and added sugar.

If you ask for cocoa, they'll point you either at cans of
the former cocoa definition I outlined, or boxes of the
latter.

Which is cocoa.

However, the bars you've^H^H^H^H^H^Hcertain people
have been eating -- with extreme cocoa contents of 85-99%
are essentially bars of cocoa with just enough cocoa butter
and/or sugar to allow consolidating them into a solid bar.
These bars are cocoa converted from powder to solid,
which is a product distinct from the confection known as
chocolate.

This person is in denial about his COCOA ADDICTION.

Thus, cocoa addiction would consist either of being
addicted to the pure powder, or the milky drink. Since
the person advancing the original theory actually is rather
less fond of the powder, and not a particularly big fan
of the milky drink, in comparison to the blocky stuff with
a creamy mouthfeel, I think this would have to classify
that individual as a chocoholic. You'll also note that this
same individual wrote further down:

" IMHO the perfect balance of sugar to chocolate
happens in the 66% - 75% range. "

Which even according to your definition is within the
chocoholic range. QED.

A hardened COCOA ABUSER might pay enough
lip service to the idea that he could be satisfied with
a 66-75% bar, to maintain his denial that he isn't
really that far gone. He should ask himself -- could
I get by without solid cocoa or even a dark chocolate
bar for a month? A week? Could I get along on
just milk chocolate or white chocolate for that length
of time?

The difference between a 77% (or less) bar and 85% is that
there is no sweetness at 85%. You may as well be injecting
it directly into a vein.

Intravenous chocolate? Sounds fun. But then you'd miss all
the mouth sensation. I'd stick with a bar.

If it turned out that the full flavor -- or even more, and in a more
concentrated form -- were available by smoking it through a
cocoa pipe, well then . . . the less said about that the better.

Meanwhile, there are individuals who can easily taste sweetness
in an 85% bar. And the difference between 85% and 100% is
pretty noticeable.

Only after habituating to abuse at that level. If it were possible
to go to 150%, such a person would probably find an 85% bar
annoyingly, intolerably sweet. (Molly, hide the cocoa pipe.)

We all know that the first person to accuse is usually the guilty
party. In view of that, might the poster making erroneous
definitions of a cocoaholic be a closet cocoaholic himself
(according, at least, to his own definition)?

Ah, first denial, then redirection. The hallmarks of an addict.
If you have to ask whether you have a problem, it means you
have a problem.