Posted on 08/28/2024 6:08:43 AM PDT by Red Badger
Imagine picking up a nice juicy apple - but instead of biting into it you keep the seeds and throw the rest away.
That's what chocolate producers have traditionally done with the cocoa fruit - used the beans and disposed of the rest.
But now food scientists in Switzerland have come up with a way to make chocolate using the entire cocoa fruit rather than just the beans - and without using sugar.
The chocolate, developed at Zurich’s prestigious Federal Institute of Technology by scientist Kim Mishra and his team includes the cocoa fruit pulp, the juice, and the husk, or endocarp.
The process has already attracted the attention of sustainable food companies. 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
If the fruit is really sweet and nutritious, it seems to me all they really need is a good marketing campaign. Packaging the meat of the fruit and selling it seems easier than creating a while new process and selling that.
The pulp and juices are not wasted. It’s used for making soft drinks, jellies and a sweet liquor..............
The whole point of the article is that they waste the fruit and only use the seeds. It seems to me like a marketing problem.
Personally, I avoid sugary foods like fruit and chocolate. I don’t have a dog in this fight.
Many years ago I was visiting a supplier in Zurich. They took me to the Lindt factory store and told me to pick out all I wanted for free. I still love Lindt chocolate, though I can’t eat much sugar anymore.
I’m surprised to hear that the rest of the fruit hasn’t been used all along, if it’s as good as they’re saying.
That's why there will never be a cure for heart disease or cancer. There's too much money in treating them for life; if you cure them the "victims" don't need your product anymore.
That's why there will never be a cure for heart disease or cancer. There's too much money in treating them for life; if you cure them the "victims" don't need your product anymore.
Agree
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