Chocolate with a low-fat centre could still feel luxurious to eat

Fat on the outside of chocolate may be key to mouthfeel, suggesting that the fat content in the center can be reduced without compromising sensation.

To Matthew Sparks

Chocolate with a high-fat outside and a low-fat center can offer the same pleasant taste and melty consistency, but with fewer calories, researchers say.

To investigate the factors that determine the mouthfeel of chocolate, Anwesha Sarkar and her colleagues at the University of Leeds in the UK used an artificial tongue 3D printed in silicone to mimic the texture and elasticity of the human tongue. bottom.

It is believed that as the fat melts in your mouth, it forms a drip and creates the pleasant sensation and texture of chocolate. The team found that the surface fat of the chocolate was the most important.

“What we have noticed is that fat is definitely a very important ingredient [to the enjoyable taste of chocolate]but you don’t need to distribute the fat [throughout the chocolate]’ says Sarkar. “The key to fat content is the surface layer.

Sarkar says this should allow chocolate to be created with fat only on the surface and still have a pleasant melting sensation, but with fewer calories inside.

She says that better understanding of dietary mechanisms will make it possible to design healthier foods that retain pleasing tastes and experiences. It is too early to say with any certainty how much fat can be removed.

Barry Smith of London’s School of Advanced Studies is skeptical that a greasy coating alone can provide the same sensation as regular chocolate.

“Ideally, we could redistribute the fat, keep it outside and not pour it in, and somehow achieve the desired structure where the melting rate should work perfectly, but we can’t achieve that.” is very difficult,” he said.

“Eating chocolate is a multi-sensory experience. Textures, smells, tastes, all sorts of textures, smells, tastes, all sorts of textures, to give you this little temporal sequence that transitions from hard to smooth and gooey in a luxurious way. It’s a pain to put them together, so I don’t think messing around with a single parameter is a warranted approach here.”

The researchers believe that the physical techniques employed in this study could be used to investigate other foods such as ice cream, margarine and cheese that undergo phase changes, such as substances turning from solid to liquid.