"Chocolate breakthrough" reported by Swiss scientists
Category: Wine & Food
Via: hallux • 4 months ago • 21 commentsBy: Rob Beschizza - Boing Boing
"Chocolate breakthrough" sounds like a euphemism for something unpleasant, but in this case it's good news: Swiss scientists report successfully making chocolate with the entire cocoa fruit rather than just the beans.
They say traditional chocolate production, using only the beans, involves leaving the rest of the cocoa fruit – the size of a pumpkin and full of nutritious value – to rot in the fields. The key to the new chocolate lies in its very sweet juice, which tastes, Mr Mishra explains, "very fruity, a bit like pineapple". This juice, which is 14% sugar, is distilled down to form a highly concentrated syrup, combined with the pulp and then, taking sustainability to new levels, mixed with the dried husk, or endocarp, to form a very sweet cocoa gel. The gel, when added to the cocoa beans to make chocolate, eliminates the need for sugar.
This could improve the efficiency and economics of the process and enable sustainable production and decolonialize the industry. Yay!
Mr Mishra was partnered in his project by KOA, a Swiss start-up working in sustainable cocoa growing. Its co-founder, Anian Schreiber, believes using the entire cocoa fruit could solve many of the cocoa industry's problems, from the soaring price of cocoa beans to endemic poverty among cocoa farmers.
"'Instead of fighting over who gets how much of the cake, you make the cake bigger and make everybody benefit," he explains.
Right. There's been a chocolate breakthrough and it's definitely going to trickle down.
Just what this site needs, a whole lotta snerts.
I appreciate what the cocoa plant does for the female gender.
Especially those between the ages of 12 and 53
... uh, I was thinking more like the effect peruvian marching powder had on their undergarments back in the 80's...
Never had that effect on me. Chocolate makes me mellow
With added sugar in the mix, forget it if one happens to be diabetic.
true, but you can have a treat every now and then
That's true and I do. As the saying goes, all things in moderation...
I'll never forget seeing a small article in the newspaper about the health benefits of eating chocolate. Then, I noticed that the dateline was Hershey, Pennsylvania.
The happiest place on Earth
Disney might dispute you on that
Actually Hershey lost the right to that slogan in 1998 when Disney was granted the trademark, something Hershey had
never thought possible. In 2002 Hershey trademarked "The Sweetest Place on Earth", not quite as catchy as
"the happiest place on earth" for every Marylander and south central citizen of Pennsylvania that we grew up with.
Who would have thought that the litigious national Disney corporation would swoop in and sue Hershey over a decades
old slogan.
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those jerks! Have you ever been to Hershey Park? We went with our 4-H club and then I went with my parents when I brought Mr G home to meet them
Many times, sometimes with the kids for the Amusement Park, State Football Championships and a few concerts at the same stadium. The Who, Willie Nelson, Dave Mathews. to name a few
Usually finish the trip with a day at Gettysburg National Park.
We didn't live real close to Hershey probably about 2 and 1/2 hours. I really enjoyed Chocolate World
long live chocolate
if it tastes the same without sugar I'm in.
the darker the better.
I'm in that group too...
Never trust the Swiss other than Mad Heidi.