A few days back, I came across a site called Dandavats where Vaisnavas discuss all varieties of pertinent matters, even if not as critically important as many of those ongoing at Chakra. An ongoing debate is about the bonafideness of chocolate. Filled with lofty divine inspiration, I found myself writing a comment on a contribution titled "If Krishna does not accept my chocolates, who should I offer them to?". Here's what ensued.

---

People can debate about the substantiality of the impact of chocolate in terms of its mildly stimulating theobromine content on the psyche all they wish, but the theobromine content isn't the reason of its having or lacking the quality of being offerable. Chocolate bought in stores is not offerable to Krishna because it hasn't been prepared by Vaisnavas. Moreover, it is a product of beans, which are an ingredient that carries more "karmic weight" than fruits for example, on par with rice and other grains, and cooking is involved in the process of its preparation.

Visvanatha Cakravarti, commenting on patraM puSpaM phalaM toyam, notes that while devotion is the essential factor, considerations of purity and so forth apply. One who has love will seek to offer pure ingredients prepared with love.

I once heard a note in reply to "Should I offer or not?" to the effect of "You can try to offer anything!". However, is this an act and an attitude of love? Throw everything at Krishna without consideration of how much or little it pleases him. Heavens, don't use Krishna as a prasada machine! That is not bhakti, nor are such offerings accepted – even if the item offered might be offerable in itself! The offering becomes unfit due to the offerer's unfit mentality.

Arguably, taking into account the above considerations, you could then "properly" offer chocolate if you were to prepare it yourself from the very beginning, and you would be a proud consumer of some real bonafide chocolate.

However – even if Krishna might love chocolate – whether he will be happy in seeing his devotees eat foodstuffs that have the potential for causing addiction and unrest is a whole other consideration. He eats tambula, and we offer it on the altar to him. He takes honey punch too, we know from the acaryas' writings! Regardless, consuming the such does not yield beneficial psychophysical effects for those encaged in material bodies subject to negative influence arising from diverse ingredients.

...

A worthy topic deserves an epilogue. In replying to the question posed in the title of this contribution, "If Krishna does not accept my chocolates, who should I offer them to?" — if Krishna doesn't accept your chocolates, and your concern is more in eating karma-free chocolate than it is in acting for Krishna's pleasure, then you could try offering your chocolates to Shiva, or to his good wife, Parvati. They accept ganja and a host of other offerings, and aren't known to be that concerned over who prepared what. I'm sure chocolate would pass as offerable. To ensure that chocolate bar offerings are accepted, a tilaka formed with three horizontal lines may be worn at the time of the offering, so say the sages.