Soft centres

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

I’ve been given a box of Green & Black chocolates (which are v nice, thank you). Although all the wrapping is recyclable, some might even be reusable (the box for instance), chocolate boxes deserve to be singled out as the most excessively over-wrapped items.

This is a mystery to me as when I make truffles (using Fleur’s recipe for 12) all I need is 125g of dark chocolate (ie, a bar) and then two spoonfuls of double cream and liquer. Once the truffles have set they don’t seem to stick, especially if they have been rolled in cocoa powder, which means you can pile them up in or on anything without having to worry about turning a dozen delicious treats turn into one blobby goo.

Verdict: it’s easy to reject over-wrapped food products, even delicious chocolates. And if you’re doing the giving, then maybe it is worth thinking about packaging as much as the rest of the product. After all the manufacturers do.