Chocolate maker Mars Inc. says its pipeline is full of healthfulproducts containing compounds from the plant that gives chocolate itsunique flavor. Already, the company sells one cocoa bar that itclaims has 'proven heart-health benefits.' The Hershey Co.,meanwhile, plans to launch an 'extra dark' chocolate bar thisSeptember that will flaunt its potentially beneficial cocoa content.Smaller chocolatiers tout the same ingredient in a growing portfolioof products.
So: Chocolate is a proven health food?
Don't bite on that one yet. Lalita Kaul, a nutritionist at HowardUniversity Medical School and a spokeswoman for the American DieteticAssociation, says that chocolate 'is a pleasure food with reducedrisks' compared to many other common choices.
Chocolate makers are not using that more considered language intheir product claims, of course. They are making the most of thepossibility that some sweets -- for example, dark chocolates madewith minimal processing -- are better for you than alternativeindulgences. The Food and Drug Administration has not issued a rulingregarding the health benefits of the compounds found in chocolate, soproduct claims have not been approved by the agency.
With its CocoaVia bar, which is partly dark chocolate, Mars saysit has taken a step closer to creating a true health food. But sofar, only one study has examined the bar's effects in people, and itsresults have been presented at an American Heart Association meetingbut haven't been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Nearly allstudies linking cocoa consumption to health gains have been funded bymanufacturers, and few have looked at commercially availableproducts.
Instead, most research has dealt with experimental mixtures thatare rich in cocoa, a bitter extract from cacao beans, and relativelysparing with fats and sugars. An early formulation, served as abeverage, was unpopular among tasters, said Mars's chief scientist,Harold H. Schmitz.
Cocoa contains fiber and some useful minerals and vitamins, butmost experts say its key constituents are its flavanols. Similar tochemicals abundant in red wine, purple grape juice and some teas,fruits and vegetables, those compounds impart the bitter taste.
Some studies suggest that flavanols have positive effects on bloodvessels and that they act as antioxidants to prevent harmful changesto cells and substances in the body. See 'What Can Brown Do for You?A Tantalizing Taste of Research' below. Cocoa is an ingredient inmost but not all chocolates.
'Much depends on how much cocoa is in the chocolate,' said SusanMoores, a nutritional consultant in St. Paul, Minn., and anotherspokeswoman for the dietetics association. 'Dark has more [cocoa]than milk [chocolate], which has more than white, which has none.' Asa general rule, she said, 'the darker and often the more bitter, thebetter.'
In a recent study, U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers,supported by an industry group called the America Cocoa ResearchInstitute, found that standard cocoa powders had the greatestconcentrations of certain flavanols and of antioxidants overall amongchocolate products. Baking chocolate was close behind. Dark chocolateand baking chips, as well as cocoa powders that had been treated by amethod called Dutch processing, contained fewer potentiallybeneficial compounds. Milk chocolate -- the most widely availabletype for retail sale, and the love object of America's mostenthusiastic chocolate consumers -- contained the fewest, about 10percent of what's in top cocoa powders.
Even within a given type of chocolate, cocoa content varies fromproduct to product. St. Louis -- based chocolatier Bissinger's sellsone dark chocolate that's 60 percent cocoa by mass, just as theupcoming Hershey's product is said to be.
Cocoa content, however, may not reflect how rich a product is inflavanols. The compounds can be destroyed at many points on the pathfrom plantation to supermarket shelf, Schmitz said. Mars guarantees'at least 100 mg of cocoa flavanols' per bar of CocoaVia. Butinformation that could be used to compare products' flavanol contentisn't readily available.
In any case, the health claim on CocoaVia's package is based noton flavanols or anything else in chocolate but on cholesterol-blocking compounds called sterols, nearly all of them derived fromsoybeans, that have been added to the bar. While the Food and DrugAdministration has not ruled on flavanols, it does permit claimsabout heart health for sterol-rich products .
CocoaVia 'is more innocuous than a chocolate bar. It's a granolabar with chocolate added,' said Bonnie Liebman of the Center forScience in the Public Interest, a consumer group that closely followsfood issues. 'Plant sterols have been shown in solid studies to lowercholesterol.'
Said Moores: 'If a person likes the taste of CocoaVia and islooking for a taste of chocolate that has a few extras inside, it maybe the product for them. To rely on it to improve heart health,however, would likely be for naught.'
Standard chocolate foods and beverages are even less likely tobenefit health, scientists say, because chocolate tends to be densewith calories and saturated fats.
CocoaVia is the vanguard of Mars's efforts to 'reinvent' cocoa asan ingredient in healthful, low-calorie foods, said Schmitz. 'Fullycapturing the potential was not going to be done through traditionalcocoa-based products.'
CocoaVia has a 'pretty good' health profile, said cardiovascularnutritionist Penny Kris-Etherton of Pennsylvania State University,who has received funding from the American Cocoa Research Institute,which is supported by Mars and others in the candy industry. The goodprofile is partly because each 0.8-ounce bar contains only 80calories. (An equivalent portion of a Mars 3 Musketeers bar has about96 calories, though a whole bar contains 260 calories.)
Once people have met their recommended daily intake of fruit,vegetables and other nutritious foods, most of them can safelyconsume a small number of 'discretionary calories' in any form theywish, Kris-Etherton said. But, estimating that she can permit herselfno more than 200 daily bonus calories, she added, 'It's especiallyhard for someone with low calorie needs to work in a candy bar thatmight have 250 calories. I can't even eat a whole candy bar or I'llexceed my discretionary allowance for the day.'
Given flavanols' potential benefits, she said, 'I wish there weresome other ways to incorporate cocoa in our diet apart fromconfectionary products and desserts.'
That's one area where scientists are hard at work, according toCarl L. Keen, a professor of nutrition and internal medicine at theUniversity of California, Davis, who has collaborated with Mars. Hesaid researchers are close to identifying specific, beneficialcompounds in cocoa that could be used to enrich foods or to designmedications. Mars recently announced that it's courtingpharmaceutical companies interested in synthesizing cocoaconstituents such as flavanols.
In the meantime, for all the promotion of chocolate's healthbenefits, there is virtually no definitive, long-term, gold-standardresearch in humans by independent researchers that demonstrate healthbenefits of chocolate. For now, consumers must carry on with littleinformation about whether beneficial compounds that may be in theirfavorite candy bars offset all the sugar and fat that surround them.And, of course, there's the question of whether they can consume theextra calories without putting on weight.
Ah, that sticky issue of calories and weight, to which mostdiscussions of food science eventually return.
Chocolate, said Howard University's Kaul, has 'no health risks inmoderation.' But, she added, 'If somebody takes two bars a day, I'llsay, 'Can we cut it down, maybe to one initially and then a half?' '
Ben Harder covers health and medicine for Science News.
