Chocoholics Unite! Scientists Create Low-Fat Chocolate By Electrifying It
Electric Shock in Chocolate Helps Reduce Fat Content
For those who are watching their weight but loves chocolate, today's your lucky day. Temple University researchers were able to cut about 20 percent of fat from chocolates by electrifying it. Even with reduced fat content from minimal cocoa butter, scientists say that the chocolate still tasted the same.
Low-Fat Chocolate with Less Cocoa Butter
Lead scientist Rongjia Tao and his team came up with the idea in 2012 when a chocolate company asked them to make liquid chocolate flow smoother through pipes. While it is known in the baking world that adding cocoa butter will make it smoother, Tao looked for other ways to improve the liquid chocolate's flow without the cocoa butter to cut fat content.
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His team was able to discover that passing liquid through an electrified sleeve could make the cocoa solids in the chocolate attract one other, which helped smoothen the flow. Electrifying the liquid chocolate helped reduced the fat content of the chocolate at 28 percent (from 36 percent), and, therefore, making it healthier.
Furthermore, the low-fat chocolate reportedly tasted the same . The details of the electric shock method are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
'Chocolate Tastes the Same with Less Cocoa Butter' - Contested by Cocoa Experts
University food expert from Penn State University John Hayes does not believe that chocolate with less cocoa butter tastes the same. It seems that cocoa butter is the cornerstone of a good chocolate as it provides the right melting point where chocolate melts when eaten. Hayes said that without the cocoa butter, the chocolate will be "more powdery, more brittle, more stringent," NPR noted. Furthermore, the study did not include supporting evidence about the taste and texture of the electric shocked-chocolate.
Electrified Chocolate Coming in the Future?
It is currently unknown how the electrified chocolate will hold up under chocolate experts and enthusiasts alike. Tao and his team are reportedly working with a big chocolate company to test the discovered technique and technology, Inquisitr reported. He believes that major chocolate companies would be quick to join the electrified chocolate trend as doing the process only involves adding one piece of equipment. The study is partly funded by Mars, the same company who came to ask the scientists for help back in 2012.
Do you believe that electrified low-fat chocolate will taste the same as one with more cocoa butter? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
