Chocolate provides instant energy. It notonly has nutritional value but also is anemotional confection—it can be used tocomfort, apologize, and celebrate and alsoas a token of gratitude. The word choco-late derives from the Mayan XOCOATLand the word cocoa from the Aztec wordCACAHUATL. The Mexican Indian wordchocolate comes from a combination ofthe terms choco (foam) and atl (water).As a part of a ritual in twelfth centuryMesoamerican marriages, a mug of thefrothy chocolate was shared.

Chocolate is derived from the cocoabean, which in turn comes from the cacao(ka-ka-o) tree Theobroma cacao. Theobromameans “food of the gods,” and cacao is asrich in history as in flavor. The tree is saidto have originated in the Amazon or theOrinoco River basin at least 4000 yearsago. Christopher Columbus was the firstEuropean to encounter the beans duringhis fourth voyage to the New World in1502, but he virtually ignored them. It wastwo decades later that the Spanish con-quistador Hernando Cortés helped spreadthe valuable cocoa bean crop to theCaribbean and Africa and introduced drink-ing chocolate into Spain in 1528. Todaythe cocoa tree is cultivated in West Africa,

South America, Central America, and theFar East. At world level the demand forcocoa is generally measured by referenceto grinding figures. The world grindingsof cocoa beans in 1999/2000 set a newrecord of 2.95 million metric tons.

CHEMISTRY OF CHOCOLATE

Cocoa beans are converted into chocolateliquor by a combination of roasting, win-nowing, and grinding. Until 1828 the onlyknown product was “drinking chocolate,”but high fat levels were a deterrent to anacceptable product. It was not until the1828 invention of the cocoa press, by VanHouten in Holland, that a more accept-able product was forthcoming. The choco-late liquor could now be further processedby pressing into cocoa butter and cocoapowder. The availability of quantities ofcocoa butter made it possible to pro-duce “eating chocolate.”

Cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, and cocoapowder are all important ingredients inthe chocolate/confectionery industry. Ofthese, cocoa butter is the most expensive,followed by cocoa liquor and cocoa pow-der. Cocoa powder is used mainly in choco-late drinks and in confectionery coatings.Chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, lecithin,

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Volume 13 • October 2002 • inform

Chocolate

Chocolate—A food fromthe past with

a future

This article is excerpted from the 2002AOCS Stephen S. Chang Award pre-

sentation given by award recipientVijai K.S. Shukla at the Annual

Meeting in Montréal. He is director ofthe International Food Science Centre

A/S in Lystrup, Denmark. Cocoa trees grow in the shaded regions.

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Volume 13 • October 2002 • inform

and sugar are the main ingredients in darkchocolate. Milk crumb or milk powderalso may be added to give milk chocolate.Chocolate is produced by a combina-tion of techniques such as refining, conch-ing, standardizing, and molding.

The total fat content of the whole beanon a dry basis is around 48–49%, andtriglyceride is the major storage compo-nent. A mature cocoa bean can store upto 700 mg of cocoa butter. Since a treemay produce as many as 2000 seeds a year,a single tree could yield up to 15 kg of co-coa butter annually.

There is a good correlation betweenthe triglyceride composition and solid fatcontent of cocoa butters. Malaysian, SriLankan, and Indian cocoa butters are thehardest; Brazilian is the softest; and oth-ers lie in between. The quality of Braziliancocoa butter can be improved by mixingit with Malaysian cocoa butter, which willresult in higher solid fat content at vari-ous temperatures.

CONFECTIONERY FATS

The historical uncertainty in the cocoabutter supply and the volatility in thecocoa butter prices, which depend on fluc-tuating cocoa bean prices, forced confec-tioners to seek alternatives that may have

had a stabilizing influence on cocoa but-ter prices. Ever-increasing demand forchocolate and chocolate-type products in-creases the demand for cocoa beans.However, it is difficult to predict the sup-ply of cocoa beans. This ensures the con-tinuing need for economical vegetable fatsto replace cocoa butter in chocolate andconfectionery products.

As early as 1930 confectioners attemptedto use fats other than cocoa butters in theirformulations. These experiments did notsucceed because the incompatibility of thefat blends used resulted in discolorationand fat bloom. However, these experi-ments demonstrated the need for cocoabutter-type fats in the chocolate and con-fectionery industry.

Continued research in the field of con-fection science resulted in the developmentof fats with characteristics resembling co-coa butter. These fats, known as hard but-ters, were developed using palm kernel,coconut, palm, and other exotic oils suchas sal, shea, and illipe as raw materials.The processes used to produce such fatsinclude hydrogenation, interesterification,solvent or dry fractionation, and blend-ing. The most elementary hard butters aremanufactured by combining the processesof hydrogenation and fractionation.

HARD BUTTERS

The hard butters can be divided into thefollowing three main groups based on theircharacteristics and the raw materials usedto produce them.

• Lauric cocoa butter substitutes (lau-ric CBS). These fats are incompati-ble with cocoa butter but have physicalproperties resembling those of co-coa butter.

• Nonlauric cocoa butter substitutes(nonlauric CBS). These fats are partlycompatible with cocoa butter.

• Cocoa butter equivalents or exten-ders (CBE). These fats are fully com-patible with cocoa butter (i.e., theyhave chemical and physical proper-ties similar to those of cocoa butter).

Other terms used to describe hard but-ters include cocoa butter partial replac-ers, total replacers, modifiers, and extenders.These categories can be further dividedinto a range of specialty fats, tailored tosuit particular purposes.

BUSINESS OF CHOCOLATE

The value of global confectionery con-sumption is about twice that of coffee,and the market volume is more than thatof cereals. Due to the higher price ofchocolate, the latter represents about57% and sugar about 43% of the market value.

The highest sales per capita of choco-late are in Western Europe, followed bythe United States and Australia. The salesper capita in South Africa and East Asiaare still quite low (Figure 1). High con-sumption of confectionery seems to be as-sociated with temperate climates.

Asia offers strong growth potentialfor the chocolate industry because of thesheer size of the market, which includeshighly populous China, India, and Indonesia.Despite its size, Asia currently accounts foronly around 10% of the world chocolateand confectionery consumption. India andChina are seen as the future mar-kets forchocolate and confectionery.

The world’s leading confectionery products firms, roughly in order of salesFigure 1. Per capita sales of chocolate and sugar for selected nations

CountrySw

itzer

land

UK

German

y

Belgu

imUSA

Austra

lia

Nether

lands

Fran

ceSp

ainJap

an

Sout

h Afri

ca

Per

capi

ta s

ales

of c

hoco

late

and

sug

ar (

kg/y

ear)

volume, are Nestlé, Mars, Kraft-Jacobs-Suchard, Hershey, Cadbury, Ferrero,Warner-Lambert, and Wrigley (Figure 2).

CHOCOLATE AS A FRIEND

Nutrition is an essential part of health.The top three leading causes of death inWestern nations—heart disease, cancer,and stroke—all have significant nutrition-associated risk factors. Despite severalnew exciting nutritional findings aboutchocolate, researchers reluctantly agreethat “eating chocolate will never help youlose weight,” and therefore chocolate treatsshould be balanced with other food choicesthroughout the day.

Chocolate is produced in many differ-ent recipes and contains other ingredientsbesides cocoa products. Therefore, nutri-tional value will vary with the products.For example, dark chocolate has a highproportion of cocoa solids and will there-fore retain more of the nutritional valueof cocoa than milk chocolate, which hasa high proportion of milk solids. But themilk in milk chocolate provides a richsource of proteins and so its protein valueis higher than that of dark chocolate.

The fat content in chocolate is a high30%, of which 62% is saturated, 34%monounsaturated, and 3% polyunsatu-rated. Chocolate also contains cholesterolfrom milk solids but not from cocoa.

Cocoa butter is the main lipid in darkchocolate and consists of oleic acid (mono-unsaturated) and stearic and palmitic acids(saturated). Stearic acid, unlike other sat-urated fatty acids, appears to have a neu-tral effect on total LDL (low-densitylipopotein) and HDL (high-density lipopro-tein) cholesterol. Cocoa butter appears todecrease platelet activity, which is a po-tential contributor to heart diseases.

CHOCOLATE AS A FOE

Chocolate has been accused of makingpeople fat. Obesity results from an im-balance between energy intake and energyexpenditure—excess body fat is stored be-cause intake exceeds usage. A direct linkbetween sugar and obesity has yet to beestablished, and confectionery is not a sig-nificant contributor to dietary fat intake.

Cholesterol is another area that oftenconcerns consumers. Modern research re-veals that cocoa butter does not raise cho-lesterol because of the neutral effects ofstearic acid on blood cholesterol.

The word chocolate is often a misnomerfor anything that is sugary and brown.These products are not pure chocolate andare produced with the cheapest vegetablefats with excessive amounts of trans fattyacids. Trans fatty acids do not make a pos-itive contribution to human nutrition.

Pure chocolate produced with cocoa

butter can enhance human nutrition if it isconsumed in moderation with other foods.

CHOCOLATE AS A FUNCTIONAL FOOD

Generally chocolate is regarded as a junkfood, but recently published research in-dicates it can be upgraded to health-pro-moting.

Functional foods, also known as nu-traceuticals, designer foods, therapeuticfoods, super foods, foodiceuticals, andmedifoods, are loosely defined as “foodsthat contain some health-promoting com-ponents beyond traditional nutrients.” Itis becoming clear that a single nutrientmay be less effective in promoting healthand that a balance of several nutrients maybe required to provide optimal nutritionand further improve health.

We can define these interactions as nu-trient clusters. Chocolate can play a dom-inant role in providing these nutrient clustersand should be designed to include

• nutritionally balanced triglycerideswith specific positions occupied byessential fatty acids;

• natural antioxidants to provide enhanced in vitro and in vivo pro-tection of lipids;

• essential nutrients such as seleniumand zinc to provide corrective nutrition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Shukla, V.K.S., Chocolate—the chemistryof pleasure, INFORM 8:152–162(1997).

Shukla, V.K.S., Confectionery Fats,Proceedings of the World Conferenceon Oilseed Processing and Utilization,edited by R.F. Wilson, AOCS Press,Champaign, Illinois, 2001, pp. 47–53.

Netlink: http://www.chocolateinfo.com/nutrition

Readers may contact the author atInternational Food Science Centre A/SP.O. Box 44, Sønderskovvej 7, Lystrup8520, Denmark, Fax:+45=8622=9996, e-mail: shukla@ifsc.dk.

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Chocolate

Figure 2. Worldwide confectionery market.

Company

Nestlé Mars KJS-Group Hershey Cadbury Ferrero

Wor

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conf

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mar

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es in

200

0 (%

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