While there’s some evidence that chocolate is good for you, the fact remains that it’s so full of fat and sugar that binging on it will, in fact, make you fat. Now, though, scientists have developed a healthier version of chocolate using fruit juice — but how the hell does it work?
In fact what they’ve done is swap out 50 per cent of chocolate’s fat content with tiny droplets of juice measuring less than 30 microns in diameter. So far, they report in the Journal of Material Chemistry, they’ve infused orange and cranberry juice into milk, dark and white chocolate.
The results, apparently, have the same texture and feel as chocolate: a satisfying snap when you break it, and a smooth, melting consistency in the mouth. Of course, because it’s loaded with fruit juice it tastes, well, fruity — but the researchers explain that, in theory, it should be possible to achieve similar affects with water and a little ascorbic acid. Dr Stefan Bon from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick explains:
“Our study is just the starting point to healthier chocolate — we’ve established the chemistry behind this new technique but now we’re hoping the food industry will take our method to make tasty, lower-fat chocolate bars.”
Using the new process also means that chocolate never suffers from “sugar bloom” — the white patterns that appear when chocolate is stored for some time. The real test, of course, will be whether the stuff actually tastes as good as the real thing.
Would you give it a try? [Journal of Material Chemistry via EurekAlert]
Image by SashaW under Creative Commons license