When it comes to talking about chocolate, the words “healthy” and “sustainable” largely aren’t choice descriptors. But that may soon change, thanks to a group of Swiss scientists who reinvented the sweet treat as a more nutritious and eco-friendly product.
In a May study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Food, researchers at ETH Zürich repurposed the cocoa pod, which contains cocoa beans, the dried and fully fermented seeds of the cacao tree. When cocoa beans are harvested, cocoa pod husks — the outermost shell that constitutes up to 75% of the cocoa pod — are often discarded. Instead of tossing the cocoa pods, researchers preserved them, specifically extracting the endocarp — the innermost layer of the husks that surround the cocoa beans and pulp — then drying and milling it to create a powder (ECP). That powder was subsequently mixed and heated with cocoa pulp juice concentrate (CPJC) to create a fibrous gel that could replace the sugar in chocolate.
