An article in this week's Time magazine gives us an insight into how the process of roasting and storing cocoa beans can be adjusted to enhance the antioxidant content of the chocolate they become.
Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa, a professor of food science and technology at the University of Ghana, and his team have figured out a new process for making chocolate that’s healthier and contains more antioxidants.
Chocolate’s antioxidants are thought to be responsible for some of its health perks related to cardiovascular health and memory support. Capitalizing on those antioxidants could not only provide better nutrition, but could be of interest to the candy industry. The researchers presented their process at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in Denver on Tuesday.
...
Afoakwa says his team recommends consumers choose dark chocolate over milk or white chocolate since dark chocolate typically has more antioxidants and less sugar. The researchers are continuing to identify changes to the chocolate-making process that could increase the candy’s nutritional content. The researchers are currently receiving funding from the Belgium government.
There's a fine line between candy and bitter gack; I know, because my wife brings home dark chocolate that all too often crosses that line. At a certain point, why wouldn't you eat a bowl of kale if vitamins and anti-oxidants are what you're after?
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The sweet shop of the future will offer smaller portions in more elaborate forms, thanks to 3D printers adapted for food use.
Willy Wonka-esque candy floss lamps and edible diamonds were just some of the futuristic creations developed by self-proclaimed "food futurologist" Morgaine Gaye and award-winning British chocolatier Paul A Young at Future Fest, an event held in London this month.
They looked at the factors they thought likely to alter the landscape of confectionary manufacturing, and predicted that sweets as we know them were going to change dramatically over the next 20 years and beyond.
Perhaps the Chocolate Room isn't so far away after all. Let's hope chiral sugars arrive before it does...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @03:32PM
Has to be good for you b/c of all those antioxidants, right?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday March 28 2015, @04:11PM
I like the "bitter gack" stuff. :-)
Kale is inedible.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @04:19PM
Eat kale the same way you eat super dark chocolate, in small bites. Don't take a heaping serving of kale, but use it to garnish the chopped lettuce.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:08PM
I just wish you could easily find dark chocolate that doesn't contain milk or 'may contain milk', which in my experience means it does contain milk.
Having to go find a specialty shop and spend $15 for a chocolate bar is a pain.
It used to be that dark chocolate was chocolate and milk chocolate contained milk.
Now, they can use milk as a filler in dark chocolate but still call it 'dark'.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:14PM
Buy the 85-90% cocoa bars (or even 99% - but 99% is usually overpriced)? There's not much room for milk and sugar when 90% of it is cocoa, so at those levels it only matters if you're very allergic/intolerance to milk.
http://healthyeater.com/dark-chocolate-best-and-worst [healthyeater.com]
http://ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/cote-dor-86-vs-godiva-85-vs-cemoi-desir.html [blogspot.com]
I actually find 70% to sweet for me while 85% and above are fine. I like the 85% Godiva, 86% Ghiradelli. The 85% Lindt doesn't taste nice to me but the 90% Lindt tastes OK.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:40PM
90% Lindt. Yes.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Saturday March 28 2015, @09:58PM
Kale is inedible.
Kale is delicious if cooked properly. A lot of people don't know how to do that. Or worse, they serve it raw - which should never be done, unless it's the really young leaves.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by captain normal on Saturday March 28 2015, @05:09PM
My favorite way to eat dark chocolate is a good rich mole sauce over roast chicken or turkey.
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/10/mole-poblano-recipe-how-to-make-mole.html [seriouseats.com]
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Monday March 30 2015, @04:40PM
Yes. You, captain normal, are a pro.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:27PM
If they are looking for a taste tester for quality assurance purposes, I'm available!
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:35PM
Is there any real science behind the idea that anti-oxidants are bad for us? I mean, more than speculation based on known properties of anti-oxidants?
The immune system uses anti-oxidants, so there are beneficial effects of these chemicals.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:38PM
OK, the article claims that anti-oxidants are good for us, but my point still stands -- is there evidence that *eating* more anti-oxidants has an overall beneficial effect (that is better than any downsides to reduced anti-oxidant intake)?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:51PM
OK, the article claims that anti-oxidants are good for us, but my point still stands -- is there evidence that *eating* more anti-oxidants has an overall beneficial effect (that is better than any downsides to reduced anti-oxidant intake)?
If you know what oxidants [wikipedia.org] are and what they do, and what anti-oxidants [wikipedia.org] are and do, then the answer should be obvious.
It's pretty simple chemistry (you should have learned this in secondary school. I did. In the U.S., even). read the links above and you will be enlightened.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Whoever on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:23PM
You are making exactly the same mistake that I am accusing others of -- to think that it is obvious based on a projection of some knowledge, but without any actual studies. I was mistaken in my original post: the body's natural defences rely on oxidants. Hence destroying these may reduce the chance of cancer, but at the expense of weakening the body's defences against infection. Secondly, there is the question of whether these chemicals make it out of the gut and into the body unchanged.
Only yesterday, on the radio program Fresh Air an expert described how surgeons used to compete to do more radical mastectomies (removing more and more tissue) on the basis that if removing tissue is good treatment against breast cancer, removing more tissue must be better, right? It's obvious, right? Well, it was wrong. Eventually, the success of these procedures was studied and it was shown that radical mastectomies provided no benefit whatsoever against more conservative tissue removal.
(Score: 1) by Paradise Pete on Saturday March 28 2015, @09:46PM
Dr. Vera Peters. Here's a recent podcast [missedinhistory.com] about her work.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:24PM
Not at all. That answers the question whether anti-oxidants in our cells have a positive effect (and even that only to the extent that you trust Wikipedia). To answer whether anti-oxidants in our food have positive effects, you have to additionally answer at least the following questions:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:14PM
If you know what oxidants are and what they do, and what anti-oxidants are and do, then the answer should be obvious.
Not at all. That answers the question whether anti-oxidants in our cells have a positive effect (and even that only to the extent that you trust Wikipedia). To answer whether anti-oxidants in our food have positive effects, you have to additionally answer at least the following questions:
...
There's plenty of research [google.com] into the questions [soylentnews.org] you pose.
I'm not going to do your homework for you. However, oxidation/reduction [wikipedia.org] reactions are well understood chemical processes that drive our life processes and pose risks to our health.
If a substance can reduce those risks without harming essential life processes, I count that as a Good ThingTM. YMMV.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:41PM
I'm sure there is. But that doesn't change that the claim you made is wrong. The claim being: "If you know what oxidants are and what they do, and what anti-oxidants are and do, then the answer should be obvious."
Of course oxidation/reduction reactions are well-understood chemical processes; after all, they are one of the main classes of chemical processes. I nowhere did claim otherwise. Note that none of my points did even touch the question of those processes.
From the very Wikipedia article you linked in your original post:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:50PM
From the very Wikipedia article you linked in your original post:
The operative terms there are "some" and "may," friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday March 30 2015, @04:53AM
Not necessarily. [scientificamerican.com] There's a lot of things we don't understand about the body.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday March 28 2015, @07:30PM
Some of us actually like dark chocolate, so it's not like we're forcing bitter medicine down. Dark chocolate is also somewhat of a learned taste, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that despite what any hippies may tell you, for if everything that humans are unaccustomed to at birth is "wrong", then surely reading, writing, and agriculture are wrong too.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by Hannibal on Saturday March 28 2015, @08:44PM
Exactly, it's like coffee, beer and pipe tobacco, you learn the flavours. I exclude light beers from this because they have no taste to learn.