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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Scientific research funded by Big Chocolate [npr.org]:

Physicists say they've discovered how to zap the fat out of chocolate. The researchers, led by Rongjia Tao [temple.edu] 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 [pnas.org] (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1605416113)

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