A question for the more scientific minded in our community.

I was given a Cadbury Easter Bunny over the weekend and happened to glance at the nutritional information which is standardised in Australia as per 100g. The Cadbury milk Easter Bunny was 30% cocoa solids and 24% milk solids.

My question is: does this mean that the bunny is 46% sugar? (100% – 30% – 24%) ie., the same amount of sugar as 54% dark chocolate?

It just seems that we’re constantly told how good dark chocolate is for us, yet one of the most common dark chocolates for mass consumption here in Australia is probably (and I am guessing based on 54% Callebaut being widely used and 54% Haigh’s dark chocolate being a premium brand here) only 54%. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of health benefit of eating the 54% dark over the Cadbury milk.

Am I missing something? [?]

You are right, no miss here. 54% chocolate means eating 46% sugar, more precisely, saccharose (or the same in American scientific slang, sucrose). Beet (or cane) sugar. The health benefits of dark chocolate have been tested on patients eating 70 and 80% dark chocolate.

Hi gap,

Another important health consideration relates specifically to the fact that milk chocolate contains milk solids.

One of the main reasons that dark chocolate is considered good for you is because it is an outstandingly rich source of antioxidants. But antioxidants bind very effectively to proteins (this is how tannins produce an astringent sensation in your mouth: they “complex” with the proteins in your saliva, making your mouth feel dry and puckery).

Milk solids provide a rich source of protein. Hence, the antioxidants in milk chocolate tend to bind to the proteins in the milk solids, thus changing the structure of the chemicals involved, and making the antioxidants unavailable to your system. So, you don’t get much (if any) benefit from antioxidants if you eat chocolate in the presence of milk. This includes not only “milk chocolate”, but also chocolate drinks made with milk, etc.

According to one study (linked below), the levels of antioxidants in subjects’ blood “increased significantly after consumption of dark chocolate alone”, but “there was no significant change” in antioxidant levels in the subjects’ blood “over the same period after ingestion of milk chocolate alone or of dark chocolate with milk”

From: “Plasma antioxidants from chocolate – Dark chocolate may offer its consumers health benefits the milk variety cannot match.”
URL (PDF doc):
http://www.scienceinschool.org/repository/docs/issue2_nature_serafini2003.pdf

Sam

HI has any one tried making chocolates with high protein ingredients and creating a good health bar. I have been trying with soya and nuts added to it, and it tastes pretty good. chenddyna