Polyphenols How healthy is chocolate?

"Healthier" chocolate? Waste product as a supplier of polyphenols
Taste is discussable. Some people love the fine-sour aroma of dark chocolate, which has a high cocoa content and is therefore rich in valuable polyphenols. The majority prefers to melt a piece of milk chocolate, which contains less cocoa and tastes much sweeter because of fats and sugar.

With a trick, scientists from North Carolina State University have enriched a whole milk chocolate with polyphenols, without it takes on their bitter taste. They used an ingredient that is actually a waste product: the thin skin of peanuts. From a market introduction, however, the chocolate from the laboratory is far away. It is still unclear whether it actually has a measurable higher health value.

Plants protect themselves from stressors by the formation of certain chemical compounds, which include the so-called polyphenols. Both cocoa and the skin of peanuts are rich in these phytochemicals, which act as antioxidants and protect the body from harmful oxygen radicals. An unresolved question, however, is whether the polyphenols of peanut skin are equally well available to the organism.

(Image: digieye / fotolia.com)

In peanut processing, thousands of tons of peanut skin are removed and disposed of every year in the United States. Scientists have extracted the peanut skin polyphenols into a powder that could be used as an ingredient in many different foods. The powder is made with the sugar maltodextrin to reduce the bitter taste. Maltodextrin has a slightly sweet taste and is made from starchy foods such as potatoes and rice. In a "taste test" with 80 subjects, whole milk chocolate with and without peanut skin extract was equally popular. The research continues. The allergenic potential of the extract must also be tested, the food technologists write in the "Journal of Food Science". Heike Kreutz, www.aid.de Source: Journal of Food Science, Vol. 81, No. 11, S2824-S2830; 2016 (DOI: 10.1111 / 1750-3841.13533)