Vend chocolate for health

by Emily Refermat
Created:

Research continues to support the claim that chocolate, in some forms, has medicinal benefits, especially for the heart. Dark chocolate is a popular product that contains health properties.


While still a food to enjoy in moderation, dark chocolate illustrates how a food can both taste good and be good for you.

Edtitor’s Note: Automatic Merchandiser presents a 1-page take-away sheet that vending operators can place in break rooms or on location bulletin boards. There is an area to place the vending company logo (on the upper right). Click here to download the PDF (you will need to register and it might take a few minutes to download). While vending operators should not make health claims, they can present research findings. When doing so, operators should always credit the source of the research.

Not all chocolates are created equal

The Food and Drug Administration has specific definitions for the different forms of chocolate. The defining ingredient in chocolate is actually the cacao bean. Once shelled, the beans are referred to as cacao nibs. All forms of chocolate derive in some way from the cacao nib. Different forms of chocolates are:

  • Cocoa is the pulverized cacao nibs once some of the fat (cocoa butter) has been removed.
  • Chocolate liquor is the grinded cacao nibs that form a liquid (no alcohol). In a solid form, it’s called unsweetened chocolate or baking chocolate.
  • Dark chocolate is a mixture of chocolate liquor (at least 35 percent), cocoa butter and sweetener. This is also called semisweet or bittersweet chocolate.
  • Milk chocolate is a combination of chocolate liquor (no less than 10 percent), cocoa butter, sweetener and milk or cream (no less than 12 percent).
  • White chocolate is made from cocoa butter (at least 20 percent), milk (14 percent) and sweetener, but does not have chocolate liquor.
Because the health benefiting flavonoids are found in the cacao bean, the varieties with more chocolate liquor have more of them. As more non-cacao based ingredients are added, the more calories and less flavonoids exist in the chocolate. For example, white chocolate has almost no flavonoids because it doesn’t have any chocolate liquor.

For more information, go to:
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=163
http://www.hersheys.com/nutrition/chocolate.asp
http://www.realchocolate.com/dictionary.html

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