Scientific research funded by Big Chocolate:
Physicists say they've discovered how to zap the fat out of chocolate. The researchers, led by Rongjia Tao of Temple University, were able to remove up to 20 percent of fat by running liquid milk chocolate through an electrified sieve. And they say the chocolate tastes good, too.
[...] When a consulting firm working for candy giant Mars Inc. reached out to Tao back in 2012, it wanted his help in improving the viscosity of liquid milk chocolate. Tao's team worked out a method of making the chocolate flow even better than normal through the pipes — without adding any more cocoa butter. Then the researchers had a Eureka moment: If they could make liquid chocolate flow better without any extra cocoa butter, they could also slash the fat in it — by 10 to 20 percent — and still make it flow well enough not to jam the pipes.
[...] When you look at liquid chocolate at the microscopic level, the cocoa solids are circular, suspended in the fat and oil of the cocoa butter. These circular particles can pack together and get jammed (like a glass full of golf balls). Adding cocoa butter helps get the cocoa solids moving again. But Tao and his team figured out how to use electricity to get the flow going. The researchers inserted an electrified sieve into the liquid chocolate. When the cocoa particles passed through the sieve, they receive an electric shock. That makes the cocoa solids flatten and start behaving like little bar magnets, lining themselves up into long chains. This chain formation allows more room for the liquid chocolate to flow.
Electrorheology leads to healthier and tastier chocolate (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1605416113)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:19AM
Count Chocula, or Frankenberry. General Mills [youtube.com] was there first.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:20AM
To Chinese palate, maybe.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:40AM
So what is the fat replaced with? More sugar?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:06AM
Probably. Everybody's looking for one weird trick. Fat makes you fat! Sympathetic magic! [wikipedia.org] Good enough! Except, to invoke Feynman again [k12.wi.us], “No airplanes land” i.e. nobody loses weight.
Personally, call me strange, but while chocolate is nice, I prefer to get my fat and other essential nutrients from bacon++.
I'll let it to somebody who's had less to drink than me to elucidate on why this fat free/low fat chocolate is probably a Bad Idea™. Protip: don't worry about sugars in apples, pears, oranges, and whatever else your favorite fruits are. Avoid fruit juices like the plague (but remember to drink freshly prepared vegetable juice often). And avoid modern industrial synthetic “foods” such as low fat/no fat crap—these edible curiosities are tamasic [wikipedia.org] as far as I can tell.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:26PM
That's exactly what I was wondering. The part of the chocolate bar that makes it unhealthy isn't the fat, it's the massive amount of sugar that's often times put in there. Removing the fat is just going to make the bar even less healthy than it already was.
OTOH, replacing the sugar content with something that's healthier without negatively affecting the taste would be a significant improvement.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:49AM
The evidence that eating fat is bad for health appears to be unsupported by actual evidence.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Sunday June 26 2016, @04:54AM
Especially plant-derived fat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @11:43AM
yes, but careful, we now know, paradoxically, that its the saturated fats which don't inflame the arterial walls.
so weep as you see the best bits of the chocolate get removed (to make the entire machine run cooler?)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday June 26 2016, @07:29PM
There's no evidence to support the notion that a reduction in natural fats is healthy. Reducing the man made fats is something where there's some evidence to back the claim, but if you cut the fat out of your diet, you introduce problems getting enough of the fat soluble vitamins. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat soluble and really need to be ingested with fats in order to properly absorb them.
A proper diet for humans is going to include at least some of all the macronutrients. You don't technically need carbohydrates, but it's generally a bad idea to cut it out completely, 5-10% is sufficient if they're properly chosen.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 27 2016, @03:08AM
Of course it is (!?!). It's healthier to the manufacturer's pocket, thus healthier full-stop.
In reality
High-Voltage Water Purification [nasa.gov]
Oxidative Processes Occurring When Pulsed High Voltage Discharges Degrade Phenol in Aqueous Solution [acs.org]
Patent US 2005/0262760 [google.com]
(in other words, pass fat+sugar through a high voltage electric field and it's likely you'll obtain some biodiesel in the process)
Enjoy your easy flowing chocolate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @05:09AM
I tazed yo chocolate-colored momma with an electric cattle-prod and she squealed for mo like a fat-pig!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @06:08AM
I was listening to one of the few NPR programs I still find worthwhile|entertaining. [npr.org]
Between the top-of-the-hour teaser and the start of the show there is a headline news break.
I didn't reset the clock radio quickly enough and I heard part of NPR's so-called news.
They mentioned that there is a small mountain of chocolate [google.com] remaining in the lab.
I was thinking it's enough to make at least 1 full-sized copy of Harvey. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26 2016, @03:48PM
No oompa loompas were harmed during this chocolate experiment.