Take My Nutella from My Cold, Dead Hands

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle over in France after French Government Minister Sergolene Royal asserted that Nutella was harmful to the environment.  The statement was not well received by the food industry, nor in Italy where Nutella is made.

If you don’t know, Nutella is a delicious chocolatey hazelnut spread that you can put on a variety of things or simply spoon directly into your mouth. [Pro Tip: Put some Nutella on sourdough bread. I once ate this for 10 days in Vienna.]

But now the dessert spread is being blamed for harming the environment as are so many things these days by the green mafia.

The outspoken environment minister said on French television earlier this week that people should stop eating the sugary, chocolate-hazelnut paste because it was made with palm oil, a product whose growers have come under fire from environmentalists for contributing to deforestation and destroying rare habitats.

Palm oil.

The French Alliance for Sustainable Palm Oil criticized Royal’s comments and responded that the company is making “progress” on the environmental issue.  Ferrero, the company that makes Nutella, said, according to the New York Post, “since the end of 2013, Nutella has been made exclusively with palm oil from palm trees certified as 100 percent sustainable and guaranteed not linked to deforestation.”

Italian politicians punched back with a delicious vengeance. Literally delicious.

Agnese Renzi, the wife of Italy’s prime minister, was shown by Italian media ordering a pancake filled with the spread for her daughter Ester.

Italian Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti tweeted he would eat bread and Nutella for dinner.

Now we’re talking. I would join the backlash if I didn’t already consider Nutella one of the food groups.

This isn’t the first time France has tried to go after Nutella. In 2012 “senators proposed quadrupling a tax on palm oil. The draft law was dubbed the ‘Nutella Tax’ but was eventually rejected.”