Milk choc ends Bourneville supremacy as healthier treat

FOR years we’ve been told that dark chocolate is better for us.

But now scientists have good news – they’ve found a way of making milk chocolate healthier.

Dark chocolate, which usually has a more bitter taste, contains phenolic compounds which can act as an antioxidant. It has anti-inflammatory properties and can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. All good news, of course, but not to everyone’s taste.

Researchers working for the US government have found how to incorporate these benefits in milk chocolate by adding peanut skin extract – usually leftover when peanut butter and sweets are made. Thousands of tons of these skins are binned each year, but they contain 15% of phenolic compounds.

This raises the antioxidant levels while keeping the choc’s sweet flavour and creamy texture. The team from the US Agricultural Research Service ground up the skins, extracted the phenolic compounds and mixed it with a food additive.

Adding the peanut skins to milk chocolate could give the same wellbeing boost at a fraction of the cost of dark chocolate, which is more expensive than milk varieties due to its higher cocoa content.

Lisa Dean, the project’s lead investigator, said the average person should ‘not find a difference’ in the taste of the chocolate. In fact, many of the testers preferred the choc with the peanut extract added.

The researchers have acknowledged the risk of allergies, however, and plan to test coffee grounds and other waste products to see if they can achieve similar results.