Chocolate vs Cheese. The great debate

Ok, gun to your head! You can only eat one of them for the rest of your life, you must give up one completely… Which do you save?

Here in the office there is a clear result with 70% of us preferring to keep cheese over chocolate, but it is a difficult decision for many of us and we are wondering whether we are a true sample of the nation?

We have read that in brain scans, our brains are more stimulated by chocolate than by cheese. We have also seen some research that suggests that when offered a single choice of either a chocolate treat or a cheesy treat, the majority take the chocolate in the moment. We have also seen that in terms of UK annual consumption it is a very close run thing – 700k tonnes of cheese vs 661K of chocolate approximately.

However, at least in the Hay Hampers office, we think that although we wouldn’t be overly happy to give up chocolate forever, we would rather that than give up cheese.

Both have many varied implications. For chocolate, it isn’t just actual chocolate bars, but chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream – boxes of chocolates at Valentines - variety selection boxes at Christmas – those oozing melt in the middle lava pudding desserts, and meltingly decadent truffles with a cup of coffee – a warming hot chocolate or chocolate spread on pancakes… mmmm. They are all so decadent and luxurious.

But with cheese, it feels a bit more fundamental – it’s not just delicious cheeseboard cheese courses, but simple cheese and ham sandwiches… you are talking about the Cheddar from your Ploughman’s lunch, losing the mozzarella from your pizza, the comfort of a grilled cheese sandwich, oozy macaroni cheese, the feta from your Greek salad, the Stilton from your glass of port at Christmas, the Parmigiano from your carbonara!

We would love to know what you think.

And we also wonder if the result varies by nationality? Maybe the Belgians can’t imagine life without chocolate but the French would be very happy just with their cheese? Maybe with the rise in popularity of Veganism, the result might change in time?

Fortunately, here at Hay Hampers, we have created two brand new gifts so you don’t have to choose at all. These hampers are “choc” full of both luxury chocolates and delicious cheeses – the ultimate in decadence! One of the gifts also includes Brandy and Port – but maybe adding alcohol into the debate would create a different result again!