I’m still coming down from the Fancy Food Show, which was held in New York City last week. There was lots of mustard, cheese, charcuterie, and other fancy items such as caviar, in addition to, as my colleague Pat Cobe pointed out last week, lots of food with protein added, like jam, granola, and ice cream, and a ton of beverages (with and without added protein).
That’s all well and good, I suppose. I guess you need something to set yourself apart — although halfway through 2026, adding protein doesn’t do that anymore.
What set me off at the show was the moral posturing of some brands.
“Guilt free gummies!” the first exhibitor I encountered exclaimed at me with glee.
Guilt free?
Why would I feel guilty about eating gummies? They taste good and are fun to chew on.
This particular one was sugar-free, and probably had added protein, but the lack of sugar just meant it didn’t taste as good as a regular gummy. That’s not something to feel guilty about, either. Accidents happen, including sometimes eating something unpalatable.
Another booth declared that it was offering “chocolate with benefits” mostly due to its clean label and the fact that it’s sweetened with “unrefined coconut sugar.”
Let’s unpack that a little.
All chocolate has benefits, and I’m not talking about the presence of flavanols, which are antioxidants. The benefits don’t come from chocolate’s nutritional profile, which is almost always high in fat and sugar, but from the fact that eating chocolate makes you happy — unless you don’t like chocolate, which is not a moral failing but a taste preference.
As for “unrefined coconut sugar,” well, your body doesn’t know whether sugar is refined or not; it treats it all like sugar.
Instead, we should talk about how chocolate is decadent, right?
Please, for the love of sanity, don’t do that.
The dictionary definition of decadence is a state of moral or cultural decay. Eating chocolate is neither the cause nor the result of that. It is, instead, an affordable source of palatable pleasure. That’s not something to feel guilty about.
Now, guilt can be a motivation to change bad behavior, but it can also be a cause of added stress, which in turn can negatively affect your immune system, your heart, your mental health and — please let’s not forget this — your happiness.
I was much more taken with the exhibitors at the Fancy Food Show that shared items without moral pronouncements, like the one offering ramen in cheese sauce — a tasty mac & cheese variation that I enjoyed slurping — or the chocolate company promoting the fact that its product tastes good.
I happen to know that that company also carries out as much of the cocoa processing as it can in the countries where it’s harvested, helping to develop those economies, but that wasn’t its selling point — it just happens to be at the bottom, not the top, of its press releases.
Selling something that tastes good is a moral positive in my opinion. As for the other stuff, well, try selling it to someone else.