Health is important. You can also find out more about the following: The number one trend for health in the food and beverage industry, bringing sales to everything from leeks and beans to kombucha.
Chocolate is now set to be a part of the boom in gut-friendly products.
Dark chocolate (70+% cocoa solids) with its high fiber content has been recognized as good for your gut. Now, probiotics can be added to dark, white and milk chocolate without losing flavour.
What are the opportunities for manufacturers and how did they do it?
What is probiotics?
They are often referred to as ‘good bacteria’ or helpful microorganisms because they keep your gut healthy.
You can find probiotics in many foods, including kimchi, soft cheeses, sauerkraut and live yogurt.
Lactobacillus is the main probiotic added to products.
Chocolate with Probiotics: Delicious chocolate made from probiotics
According to a new study published in ACS Food Science & Technology journal, adding probiotics and prebiotics could improve the health benefits of chocolate while maintaining its flavour.
Synbiotic food is created by adding prebiotics, such as fibres, oligosaccharides, or dietary fibers (a carbohydrate type found in some vegetables, fruits and grains), to products containing probiotics. The researchers looked for prebiotics which would require less processing to be added in the chocolate that was infused with probiotics.
Researchers found that chocolate enhanced with probiotics and prebiotics such as honey and corn showed higher levels of antioxidants and retained the probiotics over a period of 125 days. The flavour was not compromised but rather enhanced. Orange flavouring proved to be the most popular among the researchers.
Smriti Gaur, one of the researchers on the study, says that the chocolates with orange flavor were the best. The vibrant citrus notes complimented the rich cocoa and the texture was a little softer, making each bite more luxurious.
The team also noted that the presence of flavouring agents could influence important properties such as protein and moisture content. It will take more research to find out which flavouring agents are most effective in maintaining chocolate’s quality.
Gaur says that in the future they are eager to investigate the health benefits and sensory profiles of the chocolates, and create a more enjoyable and wholesome treat.
Prebiotic benefits of dark chocolate (70+%) are already well-known. (Image: Getty/fcafotodigital)
How can food producers benefit from this?
The probiotic discovery opens up major opportunities to manufacturers of milk, dark and white chocolates, allowing them to move into the gut-health space.
Not only confectioners could gain from this new understanding. This new knowledge of the behavior of probiotics in conjunction with certain prebiotics could be used to adapt any chocolate-based beverage or food product.
The probiotics in chocolate can be used to make gut-friendly dark, white and milk chocolate products. (Image: Getty/carlosgaw)
What was the methodology of the study?
For their research, the team created five chocolates. The first contained just the basic ingredients of chocolate – sugar, milk powder, cocoa butter and cocoa powder. Four of the remaining samples were used as test samples for synbiotics, and contained prebiotics such as corn and honey. They also included a probiotic called Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14 (or Lactobacillus Rhamnosus GGG) and a flavouring additive like cinnamon or orange.
The researchers observed that the levels of fat, which affect texture and mouthfeel in chocolate, were the same across all five samples. There were some differences.
- Flavorings affected some synbiotic chocolate characteristics. Orange flavourings, for example, decreased pH, increased moisture, and enhanced the protein level compared with the other samples.
- Four synbiotic samples showed higher antioxidant levels than a control sample
- Synbiotic chocolate samples snapped less than the control samples, indicating that the added ingredients had disrupted its structure.
This decrease in total microbes was observed during the storage of synbiotic samples. The probiotic bacteria were still viable after 125-days. The team pointed out that this time period is longer than what other researchers reported using prebiotics and bacteria in chocolate.
Gaur and Singh also found that the probiotics were still viable for over 5 hours after the chocolates had been exposed to the simulated conditions of the gastrointestinal tract.
