Nutty over Nutella

5 Kg (11 lbs.) of Hazelnut Happiness 
sitting at an outdoor café table

Chères amies et chers amis,

I was almost caught unawares. Once the Christmas holidays were over, I thought I was home free until Valentine’s Day in the celebration arena. Then I was reminded of an upcoming February holiday I have never celebrated before but don’t intend to miss this year—the 7th Annual World Nutella Day on February 5, 2013!

Nutella® has only been properly celebrated with a designated day for the last seven years, even though it was first concocted by Pietro Ferrero, a pastry maker in Italy, in the 1940s. He "invented' it during World War II as a confectionery substitute to appease those with a sweet tooth who were craving chocolate but were facing sugar and chocolate rationing. He included hazelnuts, milk, and a wee bit of chocolate in a spread recipe and built his empire. It then became a favorite in Europe—France accounts for 26% of its consumption today—and America started importing it about twenty-five years ago.

Whole generations have grown up on Nutella, and it appears that no one has ever thought to look at the label and question the healthfulness of the ingredients packed into it. Not until recently.  A California mom finally got around to reading its label after feeding it to her four-year-old child as a daily breakfast staple and was horrified when she discovered the actual contents in the jar. She said she had fed it to her child because a Nutella television ad led her to believe it was part of a nutritious breakfast.

Her outrage led to more shocked moms reading labels, and in April 2012, Nutella-maker Ferrero USA, Inc. agreed to a $3.05 million settlement to end the subsequent four class-action lawsuits filed in the United States accusing Nutella of misleading marketing in portraying its product as a healthy part of breakfast. The four mothers involved in the lawsuits said they were shocked when they found out that the Nutella they were spreading on their kids’ bread was a confection that packed twice as much sugar as a similar amount of jam or syrup. (I guess reading nutrition labels before you put something on your child’s plate hasn’t caught on as quickly as reading forwarded email jokes.)

                                            Courtesy www.nutelladay.com

Fortunately, not everyone is so concerned with the damage that Nutella can do to a body. American-born writers Michelle Fabio and Sara Rosso, who both live in Italy, have created World Nutella Day to celebrate the hazelnut-chocolate concoction and have written a light-hearted book called The Unofficial Guide to Nutella that is packed with recipes, has ideas for Nutella parties, and includes the “10 reasons Nutella is better than a boyfriend.” You can also “like” them on their Facebook page. 

Over the centuries, there have been many memorable couplings—Antony and Cleopatra, Fred and Ginger, Wallace and Gromit, Tony Bennett and k.d. lang, Owen and Mzee, and Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner, to name a few. Today, I offer another—Nutella—and anything you want to slather it on.

Happy World Nutella Day!