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posted by janrinok on Saturday December 03 2016, @01:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-can-haz-chokolate? dept.

The BBC has a report on Nestle's press release concerning its recent experiments in materials science. From the press release:

Using only natural ingredients, researchers have found a way to structure sugar differently. So even when much less is used in chocolate, your tongue perceives an almost identical sweetness to before.

The discovery will enable Nestlé to significantly decrease the total sugar in its confectionery products, while maintaining a natural taste.

"This truly groundbreaking research is inspired by nature and has the potential to reduce total sugar by up to 40% in our confectionery," said Stefan Catsicas, Nestlé Chief Technology Officer.

While details of the method are not yet available, the process apparently involves "hollowing out" the sugar crystals so they dissolve faster, thereby increasing perceived sweetness with less total sugar. Nestle is already touting this as a way of achieving some of its publicly announced goals of sugar reduction in its products. Apparently they plan to introduce the new sugar structure in Crunch, Butterfinger, and BabyRuth bars in 2018.

[Continues...]

However, is this actually a useful change for dietary control or to prevent obesity? New York Magazine is skeptical:

This all sounds amazing until you remember that reduced-calorie foods with artificial sweeteners — looking at you, diet soda — can make you eat more by messing with your brain's expectations of how much sustenance it's about to get. Diet soda is particularly bad because it contains zero calories but is still very sweet, though studies in mice suggest that reduced-calorie foods can also increase hunger.

Even if you don't feel hungrier after eating diet chocolate, you might think about the calories you saved and then eat them somewhere else. In playing mad scientist with sugar, snack companies are doing what they think they need to do as customers are trying to eat healthier, but just know that it might not save you any calories in the long run.

While the ultimate effects are speculative for the moment, this latter statement seems to follow the logic around previous studies on artificial sweeteners reported here (such as on sucralose and aspartame).


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @03:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @03:36PM (#436536)
    Nestle is evil on a scale we as humans are not prepared to understand.

    And have been for 100 years...