(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, August 19, 2012 ) San Francisco, CA -- In an effort to create ‘healthy chocolate’ researchers at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom have been able to replace about half of the fat in a normal chocolate bar with micro-bubbles of fruit juice.
The micro-bubbles are created by a process called the Pickering emulsion and make sure that the chocolate still feels and tastes like chocolate in your mouth. The typical snap of a chocolate bar and the way it melts in your mouth is still present with this new lower-fat version.
Study researcher Stefan Bon says “everybody loves chocolate, but unfortunately we all know that most chocolate is high in fat.” Bon goes on to say that it is the fat that gives the chocolate all the sensations that chocolate lovers crave, including the snap when they break it with their hand as well the silky smooth texture and the way it melts in their mouth when eating it.
The process of creating the lower-fat chocolate involves combining two liquids that aren’t usually mixed. This process can be compared with combining oil and water. Normally, the mixture of fruit juice and chocolate would separate into two layers but when solid particles are added to the mix they hold the mixture together.
The addition of the fruit juice micro-bubbles does give the finished product a slightly fruity taste, but the researchers say that a vitamin C (ascorbic acid) solution can be used instead of the fruit juice. Using the vitamin C solution gets rid of the fruity taste. The process can be used in milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and even white chocolate. The addition of the fruit juice or vitamin C solution also prevents the whitening that happens when chocolate has been left sitting around for too long (this whitening is known as ‘sugar bloom’).
Bon says that the University of Warwick researchers have kept all the features that make chocolate such an indulgent experience while removing a lot of the fat. He’s also convinced that this is just the first step towards a truly healthy chocolate that people will actually want to eat. The chemistry behind the process is fully established and now the researchers hope that someone in the food industry will take their work to its logical completion: the release of a commercial version of healthy chocolate.
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