Nestlé is launching a “single source” dark chocolate that has no added refined sugars.
The chocolate’s ingredients are exclusively cocoa fruit derived with all sugars coming from the cocoa’s pulp.
The food giant’s “breakthrough idea” will provide Japan’s KitKat Chocolatory a dark chocolate that has 40 percent less total sugar when compared to a competitor’s 70 percent cocoa chocolate.
“It’s the first time that we have been able to use more of the cocoa fruit to make chocolate, unlocking the pulp potential. Cocoa pulp has not been used in this way before on an industrial scale,” a Nestlé representative told“Whole fruit chocolate” sounds like a health trend in the making, but one has to wonder if it’s actually any healthier than the leading 70 percent dark chocolate.
“While using lower amounts of refined sugar will alter the nutrition profile, consumers are wise to remember that cacao is still a high saturated fat food with more than 50 percent of the calories from fat coming from saturated — the type we should be aiming to eat less of,” Katie Ferraro, MPH, RD, CDE, a registered dietitian and assistant clinical professor at the University of San Diego, toldNestlé officials say their new product “has a high percentage of cocoa butter but has less sugar than a standard chocolate bar, due to the sole inclusion of the dried fruit sugar.”
