Adding Fruit Juice to Chocolate Cuts Its Fat in Half

A lot of people love chocolate; it’s rich, it’s creamy, it’s sweet, and it’s just delicious. However, all that chocolatey goodness comes at a cost in the form of chocolate’s high fat content, but thanks to researchers from the University of Warwick, we may soon be able to eat chocolate without guilt. The team found that, by adding fruit juice, chocolate loses up to half its fat, but keeps all the things that make it great.

Chocolate’s smooth creaminess and its glossy sheen comes primarily from cocoa butter and milk fats. The new method for reducing fat content involves removing most of these fat sources and replacing them with tiny droplets of fruit juice measuring roughly 0.001 inches. The cranberry or orange juice maintains the chocolate’s creaminess, glossy appearance, and snappy texture, while lowering its fat content by up to 50%. Although the chocolate will taste a little fruity, the way it feels in your mouth and in your hand will remain unaltered.

Of course, just because we can lower chocolate’s fat doesn’t mean we will. Dr. Stefan Bon of Warwick University’s Chemistry Department had this to say to Science Daily:

“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.”

It sounds like a pretty good plan. Cut the fat, keep the feel. You can even use water and ascorbic acid to make it even taste like the old chocolate. These folks figured out a way to produce chocolate with half as much fat that’s virtually indistinguishable from the real deal. If my beloved Cadbury Flake had less fat with all the flavor and all the feel, why wouldn’t I buy them with fruit juice or water instead of milk? This is the way of the future, folks! That is, of course, if we can get Hershey’s to sign on.

(via Science Daily)

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