I have to preface this letter with a statement of strong support and admiration for the work that you do. As a fundraising effort spanning the five most prominent children's hospitals in Australia, I can only imagine the number of families you have helped navigate unbearable scenarios.
That being said, I am motivated by a strong sense of outrage to question your Easter fundraising efforts.
I am a mum to two small children and I struggle daily with making the right food choices for them- weighing up flavour with organic ingredients and food miles and production wages, additives, colourings, carbon footprint of packaging. The modern mum's foodie conscience is fraught with pot-holes. Easter isn't just a pot-hole, it's a major crater. Let's face it, most kids love chocolate, and lots of it, and it's an up-hill battle to control their lust for it.
When I was perusing my local supermarket and saw your charity offerings, I was immediately swayed to them. Here was a chocolate that supported a local charity. Nay, a local kids' charity! Sweeter than sweet. I picked up three bunnies and stashed them in my basket, before a bright orange label on your box packaging caught my eye. "No added sugar!", it proudly proclaimed.
That can't be right.
I have type 1 diabetes and I've learned to be sceptical of anything sweet that has no added sugar. I turned one of the bunnies over and read, with depression, the listed ingredients. The first, "Carbohydrate modified chocolate". Doesn't that just sound like something nature wanted to dish up to your school-aged child? Next? Maltitol. That's an artificial sweetener of the sugar alcohols variety. It has no nutritional benefit, it's highly processed and manufactured, and excess consumption may lead to intestinal discomfort and bloating and diarrhoea.
Which brings me to my third point. Underneath the ingredients list, there's a bold, capitalised warning to unsuspecting parents: "EXCESS CONSUMPTION MAY HAVE A LAXATIVE EFFECT".
In all seriousness, who thought this was a good idea? Children are, undeniably, excessive consumers of chocolate. Parental watchfulness aside, children are wily little beings, and they *will* find a way to over-indulge on chocolate. Particularly at Easter.
I really do admire the great work the foundation does, but this product is sheer madness. Why not an Easter card? Calendar? Cook book? Bunny ears? Or, a bonafide dark chocolate bunny, at the very least? What a shame.
I'd prefer to not give my kids the unpleasant gastric side effects and just donate straight to your cause...and I'd urge every other mum I know to do the same thing. Www.childrenshospitals.org.au
Best wishes
LittleLunching
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