*: Chocolate lovers are anti-faking the cocoa butter funk

If there is one thing I have learned, its that you never want to mess with people's chocolate.

Deep in the heart of chocolate lovers worldwide, there is a (sometimes subconscious) division-- those purists who love the cocoa butter-based treat and those who enjoy the cheaper versions made with vegetable oil. These two groups have coexisted peacefully, but now everything could change...

A dozen food industry groups have petitioned the FDA on standards of how certain foods can be produced and the great chocolate divide is proving to be the most contentious of the debates.

While the battle took 30 years to settle in Europe, Americans have only been entrenched in the chocolate war for a year.

The pro vegetable oil lobby: "If you're able to replace cocoa butter with another fat, even at the 5 percent level, you're saving lots and lots of money, especially if you are a major manufacturer of chocolate bars," said Bernard Pacyniak, editor in chief of Candy Industry magazine.

The oil-haters (aka cocoa connoisseurs) argue: "It's a real philosophical thing, just about the foods we eat. There is such a focus on people's wanting to know what's in the foods they eat, how they're grown, where they come from — this seems to fly against the direction of the way things are moving," said Gary Guittard, the president of California's Guittard Chocolate Co. and a leader of the opposition.