If you’ve got a sweet tooth that you’ve always been guilty about, this is the news you’ve been waiting for.
Scientists have created a chocolate bar so healthy that it could be taken as medicine.
Cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate, contains antioxidants and minerals, and can even help lower blood pressure while increasing ‘good’ cholesterol. In the average chocolate bar, the positive benefits of cacao are smothered by a 70% ratio of fat and sugar.
This bar in comparison cuts that portion in half to 35%, sweetening the indigestible pure cacao with a herb from the Andean region of Bolivia and Peru.
“Using micrograms of coca plant extract, we can de-bitter unsweetened cacao,” said Gregory Aharonian of Kuka Xoco, the American company developing the chocolate.
“This eliminates the need for sugar, sweeteners and much of the fat in chocolate, unleashing the medical benefits of cacao.”
This miracle chocolate couldn’t come at a better time, as sugar is seen as ‘the next nicotine’, says Aharonian. He argues if the high sugar contents are stomped out of chocolate, it opens the door for the tasty treat to be used medicinally.
“In America, the $100billion-a-year chocolate industry could become a $200 billion-a-year health food industry, if only much of the sugar and fat could be removed.
“We look forward to working with the chocolate industry to make chocolate the most fun medicine.”
Photo credit: Fortyforks/Shutterstock
