Chocolate is delicious because of its fat, study finds

Anwesha Sarkar, professor of colloids and surfaces at the University of Leeds, told The Washington Post:

A research paper published in the American Chemical Society earlier this month Applied materials and interfaces Journal Details How A Team Of Scientists Analyzed A Chocolate’s Journey From Chocolate’s Aluminum Wrapper papilla of tongue — replicated each step with a human-like model of the organ used instead of the real human tester to eliminate as many variables as possible.

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The process of eating chocolate begins with what Sarkar called the “licking stage”, when the chocolate first touches the tongue. This is when the smooth “chocolate sensation” kicks in, Sarkar said. A rush of endorphins for a euphoric feeling.

After conducting experiments, scientists concluded that chocolate’s much-cherished silky sensation is the product of fat droplets that glide smoothly in the mouth as the gritty granules of cocoa. does that mean chocolate has to be high in fat to be enjoyed?

Not so, said Sarkar. If the chocolate is coated with fat, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the chocolate itself contains a lot of fat.

“During the licking phase, fat is absolutely critical to the sensation that lubrication creates,” she said. So it needs enough fat to coat the cocoa particles at first, but after that it doesn’t need too much fat.

In other words, researchers found that the amount of fat is not as important as its location. The discovery could pave the way for a new generation of chocolate that is not only delicious, but healthier and more sustainable, Sarkar said. .

“The biggest bottlenecks in designing food are taste and texture,” she said. “Once we understand the mechanics of why it tastes good, we can easily replicate healthier, more sustainable versions. food can also be designed better.

“I mean, imagine if you could make broccoli as delicious as chocolate,” added Sarker, a self-professed chocolate lover. “Or at least something like zero-calorie chocolate with the same creaminess and silkiness as regular chocolate.”

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Sarkar said her team’s findings could be: application to other beloved foods like cheese. Her goal, she said, is to better understand how texture affects people’s tasting experience.

“Our food tendencies and aversions come from texture, not taste,” she said. Many things people love, for example, contain sugar. But oranges are not the same as chocolate. It’s the texture, not the sweetness. ”

When it comes to food, other studies suggest that texture and palatability are linked.According to one Published in 2015, people’s texture preferences fall into four groups. A cruncher that likes crunchy. A sucker that likes things that melt. And the smoother who wants only food to spread in his mouth.

Melissa Jeltema, who co-authored the study with Jacqueline Beckley and Jennifer Vahalik of U&I Collaboration, a strategic business development and product research and technology company, said: “Individuals have their own eating preferences, so they prefer foods that most easily match their eating preferences — assuming they also like the taste.”

According to Jeltema, chocolate is one example of a food that can bend texture preferences and can be enjoyed by anyone who likes that taste. For chewers there are brownies and chocolate covered raisins. Chocolate cruncher with nuts. Hard to suck his chocolate candy. For smoothers, things like Nutella spread and chocolate ice cream.

that is The magic of chocolate according to science.