We completely lost it.
Lost in sponsored research and lobbying propaganda, consumers don’t even know what to consume anymore. Every day we are fed a new belief. Sugar is good, wait now is bad, but what kind? Fat is ok, but in moderation, or maybe indulge? Chocolate prevents heart-attack, well actually cacao, perhaps in pills?
This continuous switch of preferences has a dramatic effect on the food we consume.
Research is sponsored by big corporations that want to sell their products. Doctors take commissions like sales agents, while big pharma creates new diseases every day and big media follows the agenda. In the meantime, striving for good health is making us sicker than ever.
Why is it so?
Because we lost it. We lost the ability to listen to our body. In a 24/7 stressed life, we don’t have time to stop and recognize what food makes us feel vibrant and energetic and which one makes us sluggish and lethargic. So we’d rather believe a big screen, a charismatic personality, a biased research or the cousin of a friend of a friend.
Depending on the latest trends, the market has to adapt to satisfy the pressing demand. And in 2017, chocolate is the saddest example of all.
Today, the biggest obsession of consumers is SUGAR-FREE chocolate.
There are different types of consumers fueling this popular demand. There are those who believe sugar to be like poison for the human body. Others want to lose weight and join the low-sugar diet bandwagon. Some others have serious health conditions like diabetes.
Between valid and questionable reasons, consumers have risen their voices during these past years. They want to enjoy their favorite food without the sugar.
But there is something that these consumers don’t realize: sugar-free chocolate is a BIG challenge. It’s not about changing one item in a 20-ingredient recipe. They ask to cut out one of the TWO ingredients of chocolate, while still expecting a pleasant flavor and texture.
Chocolate in its most handcrafted form is in fact made of two ingredients: cacao and sugar. Cacao is everything contained inside the cocoa beans (cocoa butter included). Sugar is added to make the bitterness of chocolate more bearable and to enhance its flavor. Every other ingredient is an addition, either to create a particular taste or to cut costs with cheaper alternatives.
How is the market facing the challenge?
Among cheap industrial assortments, consumers can now find some chocolate bars labeled Sugar-Free. The products with such an encouraging claim seem to be the best alternatives, but wait to rejoice. The price to pay for sugar-free chocolate is actually a bunch of chemicals.
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In chocolate bars labeled Sugar-Free, regular sugar is replaced by artificially produced sweeteners. The most popular (because also the cheapest) is maltilol, that contains 90 percent of the sweetness of sugar and has 2.1 calories per gram.
Other substances often used in industrial sugar-free chocolate are polyglycitol, xylitol, inulin and sorbitol. Made in laboratories, these sugar replacements are known for their unpleasant side effects on the human body. Abdominal pain, gastrointestinal discomfort and diarrhea to name a few.
The premise behind sugar-free choices is to do the body good. But ironically enough, consumers are trading a small amount of sugar for dangerous substances.
Health-conscious consumers should also be aware that sugar-free chocolate has high amount of Total Fats. This makes sense since big manufacturers are bulking up their alternative products with all kinds of questionable oils to replace the sugar.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise though. Other sugar-free products on the market are high in fat, and fat-free products are high in sugar. What would you put in it otherwise? If something goes out, something else has to go in.
To satisfy sugar-free demand, big chocolate manufacturers are creating something that has NOTHING to do with chocolate.
If these weren’t enough reasons to stay away from sugar-free chocolate, here is another one: mediocre taste. Everybody’s palate is different and entitled to its opinion. However, you don’t see many consumers raving about the deliciousness of sugar-free chocolate. And “tolerating a flavor” is way different than enjoying it.
What to do then to avoid chemicals, extra-fat and bad taste?
Many consumers prefer a more natural and satisfying option: REAL CHOCOLATE with no added sugar.
Thanks to a growing demand for quality products, craft chocolate is increasingly available on the market.
This kind of chocolate is minimally processed from the cacao beans by expert makers. Production is on a small scale and distribution is limited to specialty stores. This is chocolate how it should be: composed of only cacao and sugar, and none of the nasty stuff used by big manufacturers.
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To satisfy sugar-free demand, craft chocolate makers have created great options. But they don’t play on the chemical ground. Their chocolate is healthy and delicious without compromises.
Every craft chocolate company is now releasing 100% cacao bars. This is chocolate that contains only cacao and no sugar (other than the tiny amount naturally contained in cacao). But craft makers are doing it the smart way.
To give these bars a smooth texture, makers are adding extra cocoa butter (the natural fat found in the cocoa beans). In this way, chocolate becomes more pleasant to the palate, and is not as dry. Most of them are also adding cocoa nibs (pieces of roasted cocoa beans) to give the bar a nice crunchiness.
The added cocoa butter and cocoa nibs, combined with the fine flavor of the chocolate, are enough to make consumers forget about the lack of sugar. Finally, they can enjoy a real treat while avoiding sugar, chemicals and extra-fats. Some examples are the super creamy 100% cacao bar by Chocolat Bonnat and a very crunchy 100% cacao with cocoa nibs by Akesson’s.
In an era where big corporations are turning food into scientific experiments, going back to small scale production and recognizable ingredients is our best chance to win our health back.
Do YOU consume sugar-free chocolate?
I did NOT get paid and did NOT receive any kind of favor for writing this article. These are my honest opinions at your service.
Excellent remarks on this matter, Sharon
The world of small craft chocolate makers could be penalized by the growing concerns for sugar, if we also consider the taxes on sugar that a few governments are imposing or planning.
The flip side is that food companies are still ill-prepared to deal with the compromise of “less sugar, acceptable taste”. The problem is just that, as you wrote: we have a lot of alternative sugar-free products with mediocre – but most of the times – unpleasant sensory profile (not only for the palate, even the smell and texture are plain awful).
Makers can sidestep this problem by being creative, without compromising on taste. However, consumers must be prepared to pay more for 100% cacao masses having no sugar but a great taste, because the part of product missing sugar is not “bulked up” with weird fillers, but it’s the whole raw material (cacao) that has likely taken more hours of experimentation and craftsmanship than usual from the producer to make it more than “acceptable” for the consumer.
Raaka’s Yacon Root bar is cane sugar free and only sweetened with the root. It’s more for the 100% crowd but it’s smooth, deep and chocolate-ty although not sweet and with a hint of dough and tang. Like a pleasant chocolate-sourdough kind of flavor.
I agree that sugar free chocolate is a hot topic but I don’t believe that it’s the biggest thing. Certainly, there is a section of the community that is looking for it.
Having worked with nutrition coaches in my other life in fitness (because balance LOL), I spent a lot of time (and still do) debunking a lot of the myths around sugar consumption and its impact on our health. I do find myself doing this with some customers for my chocolates as well.
I don’t think there is an easy answer except to call for measured and thoughtful reporting to the public on health concerns. There is too much misleading and totally incorrect information circulating via the media about sugar and dietary principles.
Sharon, these sentences conflict with each other:
“To give these bars a smooth texture, makers are adding extra cocoa butter (the natural fat found in the cocoa beans)”
and
“Finally, they can enjoy a real treat while avoiding sugar, chemicals and extra-fats.”
I enjoy 100% chocolate, though I know it can satisfy only a very narrow segment of customers, the very advanced ones. For most people it’s unpalatable or how to say.
My recommendation to all would be to enjoy real traditionallym produced but high quality chocolate and pay attention to the main dishes instead. People usually (exceptions exist) eat a lot of crap for breakfast/lunch/dinner, then carefully select their chocolate bar that is probably well under 1% of total food volume they take. The sugar part of it can be expressed in thousands of their total diet.
> Sharon, these sentences conflict with each other:
>
> “To give these bars a smooth texture, makers are adding extra cocoa butter
> (the natural fat found in the cocoa beans)”
>
> and
>
>“Finally, they can enjoy a real treat while avoiding sugar, chemicals and extra-
> fats.”
Not really, Viktor. Perhaps Sharon should have written “extra non-cacao fats,” but cocoa butter is part of the cacao bean, and adding more can have a huge impact on the palatability of very-high-percentage chocolates.
While most craft chocolate makers are producing 100% bars, most of then (arguably) aren’t really very pleasant to eat. A little extra fluidity from added cocoa butter–preferably from the same beans–goes a long way toward smoothing out the intense, often acidic or astringent notes in unsweetened chocolate.
Kind regards,
Rich
Rich,
The problem is ” extra non- cocoa fats” are not allowed it the US and just 5% in the EU. The product with them can not then be called chocolate. Sharon also continues to claim without the requested support that “since big manufacturers are bulking up their alternative products with all kinds of questionable oils to replace the sugar.” Again that would not be allowed to be called chocolate. From what I’ve seen Sharon is more interested in propagating her own prejudices then providing the service of real information.
Hi,
I’m a chocolate maker and would like to criticize one point. While i largely agree with your discussion on sugar and fat, i disagree with your approach to the discussion of sugar replacers, particularly inulin.
Inulin is a soluble fibre extracted via hot water from chopped chicory root and artichoke. If that’s a chemical in your book, so should be sugar.
The key discussion i think ought to be about sugar reduction, and thus overall energy reduction (and glycemic load reduction) in the chocolate. Not replacement with polyols, though polyols enable diabetics to enjoy chocolate’s wonderful bitterness without having to worry about a blodod glucose spike.
I believe that (and have developed succesful commercial products in various countries) including a fibre which has proven influence on intestinal transit and has been found to promote healthy intestinal flora (bifidobacteria growth, for example) should be encouraged, and not bagged in with with polyols.
As for the use of polyols, that’s a discussion for another day. Taste is meh.
Hello and thank you for words.
I just wanted to say that I wanted to cut on sugars so I decided to use Xylitol sweetened chocolate.
I love every bit and it is 99% natural (so more than sugar) and non GM (no too sure about sugar..).
Reading “their unpleasant side effects”, I eat it every day and use Xylitol instead of sugar for tea and coffee, and have not experienced any problems. So it shouldn’t generalised that way, as it might not be correct or fair.
Lastly, there are also terrible big sugar companies trying to hide how bad sugar is. It is addictive, damaging and does not have any nutritional benefits, so why having it? Obviously, I mean the added sugar (not in fruits, etc).
Thank you for defending the small craft businesses, they do need abd deserve all our support.
Thank you
Dear Sharon
I wonder why you left out to mention the difference in quality of cacao beans. In my opinion only view are suitable to make a higher content bar. Bulk cacao beans can only be consumed by adding sugar and other ingredients to get a pleasant result. Big industry is build on mediocre ingredients to satisfy mass consumption and are limited this way. Compare a truck with a sports car makes no sense even though both are vehicles and can take you from A to B.
It would be interesting to take a closer look to the variety of beans, its origin and postharvest processing to assess which would fit for a 100% bar. Why don’t you ask raw and 100% bar producers about this? How do they select and assess the beans for their products.
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for writing this article. I think for most people once they try sugar-free chocolate, they discover that it tastes bad and there is something not quite right about it. However over time some people develop the ability to ignore this off taste similar to how people came to accept diet soft drinks. The funny thing is the side effects labels on most sugar-free chocolate products, I’m just waiting for one of those t.v. commercials to come out for sugar-free chocolate…..”may cause upset stomach, diarrhea, bloating, if you lose your taste buds for more than 4 hours, seek medical attention”, just like those big pharma commercials.
Cheers
In addition to diabetics, there are a growing number of people who are pre-diabetic, insulin resistant and reactive hypoglycemic who really need to restrict sugar intake. I’ve also read that sugar as well as salt make contribute to high blood pressure and cancer. Let’s agree that sugar isn’t too good for us, and that, even we who love chocolate, need to keep it to a minimum. So far, sugar substitutes are not a satisfactory solution for a number of reasons, not the least of which is poor flavor. Perhaps, that’s because most big chocolate makers aren’t paying enough attention to fine flavor cacao. Rather, the approach is to use commodity chocolate and throw in anything that will sweeten it. That’s why the only ones who can lead us to a solution are our craft chocolate makers, because it’s all about the flavor. There a a few excellent 100% bars out there–including Fruition’s–but most are not palatable enough for the average consumer. Still, we should encourage more people to try 80% +, because if you’re only consuming 1-2 squares a day, you’re probably not getting enough sugar for it to be concerning. You’ll notice that ‘s a small portion of chocolate. True! It’s less than the portion size described on most labels. But it’s my opinion that if you’re truly savoring those 1or 2 squares slowly, truly tasting and enjoying them, it should be enough. At least, it is for me. You can still lose weight consuming that amount, too. So maybe the underlying problem is actually mindless consumption. If my remarks intrigue you, I invite you to read my book: Deep Tasting: A Chovolate Lover’ Guide to Meditation.