Non dairy! All the best chocolate is non dairy. I didn't realize this until I was on opioid pain meds for a few years and had to get off dairy entirely. All the American crap uses cheap milk fat as a filler. Once I started only consuming chocolate that is non-dairy the difference is substantial. Anything is pretty much great if you simply use this trick. The easiest way is just look for vegan marketing. All vegan deserts are best, seriously, and I'm no vegan.
I still follow my food rules like, I don't eat in a chemistry lab storage cabinet, and all flavorings are, at best "strawberry from a beaver's butt gland" level of natural. If you are not familiar with the reference, there was a 60 Minutes episode 10-20 years ago on the flavorings industry. One of the highlight remarks was the origin of natural strawberry flavor... I consider all additive flavorings of any kind as drugs. Not in a tin foil hat sense, but more of a 'Madd Hatter CEO has no ethics' and makes a junk product with no real value sense. I'm not eating chocolate flavored sawdust.
I don't agree. I'm Norwegian though, so there is a bit of a difference in how our chocolate is made with regards to additives. Our Milk chocolate is the shit! Additives to it is also great, but they come in the form of actual pieces of dried fruit or salted corn chips, tiny pieces of fudge, brownies etc, etc.
Freia milk chocolate is the shit. Especially the one with salted almonds.
In continental Europe (except Benelux) I find milk chocolate often gets too sugary, while dark chocolate is usually more expensive but maintains a high quality. I have never been to the US, but I am inherently sceptical of what they might pass as chocolate over there.
As far as Norwegian chocolate goes, I share my favourite chocolate with a lot of senior citizens: Mokkabønner are amazing. Dark chocolate beans with a hint of coffee, amazing with a cup of java in the morning.
Oh yeah, mokkabønner are awesome! And I don't really enjoy dark chocolate that much in general. I get really sad every time I have gotten Kremtopper by accident. Why are those boxes so damn similar anyway? And often stocked in the same shelf as well..
If you're American try other countries chocolate. Not something like Cadbury you buy at Walmart, but go to an international grocer or pay for a box of chocolates and have them shipped to you and eat them over the next 3 months. Most American chocolatiers try to mimic Hershey flavor because that's what's most popular.