Few can deny that one of life's greatest taster pleasures is to spread the soft, silky texture of fat, sugar and cocoa after biting a piece of chocolate of interest in the mouth. Although many of us may prefer to keep this sense in the realm of culinary magic, scientists are usually not satisfied until they solve the nodes of "how" and "why."
Researchers from the University of Leeds (UL) in Britain, led by Siavash Soltanahmadi, an Iranian scientist at the University, have conducted research using an artificial language and a few pieces of high-quality chocolate. They say that the principle of chocolate pleasure relates to when fat is released. They have shown in this research that this discovery can help create a healthier type of chocolate that, despite being healthy, still brings all the pleasure.
In their quest to enjoy eating chocolate, the research group obtained four samples of dark chocolate, containing between 70 and 99 percent cocoa. Then, they examined the behavior of chocolate in the mouth. To do so, they put chocolate on an artificial language made at the university in 2020.
The researchers said: "Although we have seen artificial languages sense the difference between drinks and evaluate the sweetness of chamomile tea and apple juice, this is the first research to use such technology to understand how the mouth is greased by chocolate.
After various chocolates were placed on artificial language, the researchers filmed the results and applied an engineering discipline called tribology, which relates to how surfaces and liquids interact with each other. Their goal was to understand the behavior of chocolate while melting and interacting with saliva.
They found that the satisfying feeling that chocolate creates in the mouth was due to the initial release of fat on the tongue and the way in which the next particles of cocoa are covered in fat. After that, more fat in chocolate had a limited effect on mouth sensation. Researchers say a type of chocolate can be invented whose fat is mainly concentrated in the outer part and around cocoa particles, and generally has less fat in it to make a healthier snack.
Sultan Ahmadi said: "We believe that by understanding the physical mechanisms that occur when you eat chocolate, the next generation can produce chocolate that offers a feeling of eating high-fat chocolate but is a healthier choice.
He added: "Our research makes it possible for manufacturers to intelligently design dark chocolate to reduce overall fat. We believe that dark chocolate can be produced with a fat coating that covers the surface of chocolates and particles to provide an enjoyable experience without adding too much fat to the chocolate.