The secret for a healthier chocolate is in prebiotics and probiotics. And now we know the “recipe”

The effect of chocolate on our health is ambiguous. Although some of these preparations based on the fruit of cocoa can report benefits for our health, the usual thing is usually that the sugar and other additions end up deriving in a final product far from being classified as “healthy”.

Chocolate, healthier. Now, a group of researchers works on the development of a chocolate with additives that make it healthier. For this they have resorted to add prebiotic and probiotic ingredients in their recipe.

Prebiotics + probiotics. Pre- and probiotics are two types of foods that help Regulate our intestinal microbioma. The difference between them is how they do it. Prebiotics are foods that provide nutrients to this microbiome. While probiotics are foods that provide us with microbiota, that is, they contain organisms such as bacteria that help us develop our digestive functions more effectively.

The proposal of this team of researchers is to add prebiotic and probiotic ingredients to chocolate. Until now, the idea of ​​adding these elements to chocolate had already been investigated, but doing so had become a somewhat “laborious” task, those responsible for the new study explain. To avoid this complication, the team decided to resort to prebiotics that required a minimum processing such as corn and honey.

Five formulas. The team combined the ingredients in different ways to obtain five formulas to compare. The first, reference, contained the usual ingredients in chocolate (such as cocoa butter, powdered cocoa and powdered milk). The rest contained prebiotics (corn and honey); a prebiotic (which could be Lactobacillus Acidophilus LA-14, o Lactobacillus rhamnosus Gg), and an additive to give flavor (which would be cinnamon or orange).

Keeping sensations. One of the factors that the equipment wanted to put to the test were the fat levels of these products since the texture of the resulting product depends on these. They found that the formulas maintained this characteristic consistently but also pointed out some differences between conventional chocolate and sinbiotics (those that were subject to the study).

For example They observed They added orange showed a lower pH (greater acidity), greater humidity and higher protein levels compared to the rest. They also observed that the four symbiotic chocolates presented higher levels of antioxidants. These lost some consistency, which made them less crispy.

Counting microbes. The study also included an analysis of the survival capacity of the bacteria used. They found that these continued to maintain their vitality after 125 days of chocolate storage. The team also submitted these to “stomach conditions” and found that microbes were also able to survive these conditions for more than five hours.

The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine ACS Food Science & Technology.

The benefits (and risks) of chocolate. The effects, positive and negative, of chocolate can be associated with certain compounds, some present in their main ingredient and others in additives. One of the key elements is antioxidants.

Antioxidants are especially in black chocolate, and among them Epicatechina stands outa type of flavonol. These compounds can protect us from free radicals, which has been associated with better cardiac health, a “balanced” immune system, a lower risk of diabetes, and other potential benefits.

On the other hand, the sugars and fats present in chocolates can be made harmful if we consume excessive amounts, especially if we consume is not dark chocolate but more sweetened versions of the product.

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Image | Tamas Pap