According to: http://coffeetea.about.com/cs/chocolate/a/whitechocolate.htm "...White chocolate is made with milk, sugar and cocoa butter, but there are no actual cocoa solids (also called cocoa liquor or chocolate liquor). So technically, white chocolate is not really chocolate at all."

White chocolate is made of Cocoa Butter, milk solids, sugar and (sometimes) vanilla. Both chocolate liquor (the dark part -- the "cocoa") and the cocoa butter (the white creamy part -- the fat!) come from the cocao beans used to make chocolate. There are lots of people out there (including the FDA) who feel that the chocolate liquor (or cocoa solids) is what makes the product chocolate. Since white chocolate has none of that, they don't feel it should be considered chocolate. In my opinion, what makes one half of the bean more important than the other? I think that since white chocolate has cocoa butter, it should be considered chocolate, since it comes from the same bean as dark chocolate does. There are fake white chocolates out there that contain no cocoa butter, and instead have coconut oil or other vegetable fats. That product should not be considered chocolate. Really - you should avoid those. They taste like crap! (You can tell the difference by looking at them too - fake white chocolate is white in color, where real white chocolate is actually slightly off-white or yellowish from the cocoa butter). It doesn't really matter whether it's "real" chocolate or not. White chocolate is yummy, and has its place in the culinary world.