Instant Genius - Food Science: How eating chocolate boosts your brain, heart and gut health

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Chocolate has a reputation. It is sugary and bad for you. But in its purest form, it can be beneficial to your health. As part of our Food Science series, we spoke to Megan Povey, a physicist at the University of Leeds who specialises in food processing. They explain how chocolate is made, the benefits it can have on your health and what separates good and bad chocolate. This episode is brought to you in association with EIT Food https://www.eitfood.eu/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, I'm Alex Hughes and this is the Instant Genius podcast, a bite-sized masterclass from the BBC Science Focus magazine, where we interview some of the biggest names in science and tech. For most of us, chocolate is a sweet treat that we just can't live without, but despite its popularity, it is largely a mystery. How is it made? Does it have any health benefits? And what is considered scientifically good chocolate?

part of our food science series and in collaboration with EIC food, I spoke to Megan Povey, a physicist who specialises in food and its scientific processing. She dives into the world of chocolate, answering some of the biggest questions. So I think a good place to start is to cover basically the process of making chocolate. How is it actually made? Okay, well, the first thing is to remove the cocoa beans from the shell. They're covered in this sort of mushy white stuff, which I have to say I've just seen pictures of. I've never seen this in reality.

But they're then laid out to ferment in the sun. And there'll be insects. It's not hygienic process, but it's absolutely crucial in terms of the development of the flavor in the cocoa bee. After that process is complete, and it varies from. place to place. But once it's complete, the beans are taken to a mill, usually in Europe, for example, in Amsterdam, and the husk is removed from the bean to expose what's called the nib. You can actually buy cocoa nib in the shops if you want. They're just a kind of little brown, chocolate-looking thing. The nib is then milled.

between huge carbonum stones. When you go in, I mean, these are, I don't know, a meter and a half in diameter, and there's three of them. Probably is taller than a room, and they're milled hot. Around 130 degrees, I might have got the temperature a bit wrong, but basically it's hot milling. So the nib comprises cocoa butter and the cell walls of the nib that contain the cocoa, which become cocoa powder.

That contains a lot of the kind of active components of the cocoa. Chemically, they're called polyphenols, the very powerful antioxidants and all the other interesting components, caffeine and other mind-altering substances, are all there in the cell walls. So the milling process allows the, The cocoa butter itself becomes liquid, and then the mill starts breaking up the cell walls and making them smaller and smaller.

When you see it, you see thobroman everywhere because it evaporates. So thobroming is an important active component, which is important for the way we enjoy chocolate. it appears as a kind of solid, greeny, yellowish powder all over the mill, the roof, the floor everywhere, because it's evaporating. So it's a really extraordinary process. You know, when you go around these factories, you do wonder how on earth people have come up with these processes. You know, obviously part of it would have been adapting flour milling processes to those

production of cocoa. You have then a liquor which is called cocoa mass. So the liquor, it contains both the cocoa powder, or what will become the cocoa powder, and the fat, the cocoa butter. And that is then put into a press. Again, all this is on a vast scale. But this cocoa mass is then compressed and pushed through a filter so that the cocoa butter and the cocoa powder are separated. So this is, you know, an important step. So, I mean, cocoa butter, when you see it eventually, is just a white fat with only a little small amount of taste, right? The next thing that happens is that the powder is roasted and the rose, and the roasting develops colour and flavour, and it can be roasted at rather high temperatures, even

at 180, and the choice of temperature makes a difference to the taste of the powder and its colour and so on. I have to roast it to get a colour for a specific confectionery so that the roasting step is complicated and also can remove more of the active components. like theobrome, from the powder. So the powder is then further milled. It's milled in steel mills. And the reason of that is that it has to be below, I think it's around 50 microns,

has to be smaller than that. Otherwise, you get mouthfeel from it. You feel a kind of sandiness, which people don't like. So it's milled in steel mills. The powder is so hard. it wears the steel mills away. And so, you know, some of the steel ends up in the powder. So then you've got two what become basically commodities, powder and cocoa butter.

So the miller will then sell forward the two components. And then the confectioner will purchase it. I think there are three suppliers of cocoa buttery, in Europe. So it's a commodity that's bought on the market and stored. I mean, one issue at the moment, of course, is that because of climate change and war, the cocoa is becoming a more and more expensive commodity. Coco beans would be bought and stored to make money.

But apparently, at the moment, the stocks are really low because the shortage of beans. Also, the other thing is that some, you know, indebted. industrial farming methods are depleting and the cocoa plant itself. So the whole kind of chain of producing cocoa is getting more and more uncertain. On that sort of point at the end, obviously you're saying about the chocolate supply is shrinking and there's concerns around that. If in the future, you know, we did see a point where we ran out of that supply or the supply got too low, is there something that would be an effective replacement? Well, no.

I mean, people are working on it. I've been asked to. I mean, quite honestly, the best way is to grow more cocoa plants. I mean, it's very difficult to replace the properties of cocoa butter. If you go further down the chain, then the powder and the cocoa butter are recombined into chocolate. Now, that chocolate has to have gloss, it has to have snap. What people don't notice is important is it there's actually a cooling effect in your mouth when you eat it from the melting of the cocoa butter crystals.

It's got to have good mold release. So if it's being moulded, it's no good if it expands in the mould because you won't be able to get it out. So it actually has to shrink in the mold. And then, of course, it has to melt in the mouth in quite a sharp way. It's very, very difficult to replace the properties of the fat. That's the first thing. But secondly, I mean, the chocolate manufacturers and confectioners don't like people saying this, but it's a psychoactive substance.

Theo bromine, I mean, for example, don't give it to your cats and dogs, it'll cause them a great deal of upset and potentially could kill them because of its effects on their heart. For us, we like the effects of theobroman. I mean, and of course there's caffeine and so on. In my view, it's very good for you, pure chocolate, that is 100% cocoa, that. is just cocoa butter and cocoa powder. It's extremely good for you. I mean, it's good for your cardiovascular system. The fat, cocoa butter, is very well matched to our composition of mammalian fat. It has what are called a lot of C-16, C-18, mono-unsaturated fat in it. Contrary to the idea

the saturated fat is bad. Mono-unsaturated fat is very good for you. What people don't realize is if you cut fat out of your diet, you die. But, you know, if you cut sugar out of your diet, you'll probably be a lot healthier. So I think there is a bit of an issue with labeling. And then the powder is the most intense source of polyphenols in any food. These are powerful antioxidants that persist in your body for at least a day. So, you know, if you want a healthy heart, then stick to 100% cocoa chocolate and forswear the sugar.

Just a little thing about this is that if it's claiming to be 70% dark chocolate, it will be 30% sugar. So you've just, if it's 90% it's 10% sugar. So actually the healthiest thing is to do without the sugar altogether. I should have brought, I've got some cocoa mass here. I should have brought it to show you. Is there, I guess, if you can get your hands on 100% dark chocolate, is there an amount of it that you can eat?

There's a good amount to have or can you go over that? you will have difficulty eating more than two squares of a hundred percent. The thing about it is that our bodies, first of all, fat is the most intense energy source in any food that we eat by a long way. That's the first thing. So if you just try, get yourself a chocolate, even 90%, just try and eat more than two squares. your body knows that you've got the energy that you need with sugar. That's not true.

If you have something sugary, you want more. It's not exactly addictive, but you just try it. You get a nice confectionery chocolate sweet or something. You will want a second one, I promise you. Now more people than ever can bring in their bill for a better deal at Verizon. Got AT&T or T-Mobile? We got you. Xfinity or Spectrum?

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and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. And are there any other health benefits from chocolate? I think what is badly understood and is important is the role of polyphenols, red colors specifically, but not just red colors. Most of the red colors that you see in fruits are anthocyanins. These are very, very powerful antioxidants, and they're undoubtedly beneficial and reducing the rate of of heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. After cocoa powder, the next richest source of anthocyanins

is an apple. In my view, there definitely is some truth in the saying that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, right? But if it's turned into apple juice, very interestingly, if you just crush the apples and put it into apple juice, it's no longer really any good for you. It's the fact that these substances and the sugars, the fruit sugars, are locked in the cell structure of the plant. That then that means that it's carried through the stomach and into the small and large intestines, where it's digested much, much more slowly and the microbiome acts on it as well. And the microbiome is a very important part of the digestive system. You know, whereas if you just had pure sugar, that goes straight into the bloodstream.

You know, you just get a sugar hit straight away, which in my view is harmful, because if people ate more fat like cocoa butter, they would eat less sugar, two squares, and you've had it, had enough. You've enjoyed it, and that's enough. I read the other day about this idea of single origin chocolate. Yes. And I was wondering if we could touch on that a little bit, if there's any truth to the idea of it tasting better and kind of what it is generally.

Okay, well, I said earlier there's a fermentation step, and the beans are in a sort of white substance. This is allowed to ferment. There definitely are big differences between chocolates from different places. That's partly because of different varieties and different growing conditions. For example, you know, in some people would argue that the best chocolates come from West Africa. I know some large confectioners have planted big plantations in Brazil. But the plant takes about, I think it's about eight years.

You have to grow it for eight years before it. starts producing the bean. And of course, the growing conditions, the soil and the way it's fermented, the conditions that, you know, I hate to say this, but my hens running all over, I mean, they're definitely going to contribute to the fermentation step. Some chocolates are extremely expensive and can blow your head off. I mean, really. So if you want to. If you want to find something, don't go to Switzerland is the kind of place to get expensive chocolate from. So with that idea of single origin, is that just where all of the bits are going into the chocolate have come from the same region, the same area?

Yes, exactly. You know, I would want to know that it's not being bought as a commodity. In other words, you know, you have to know both where the powder has come from and, the cocoa butter, I mean, potentially you could make chocolate without the separation step, you know, just from cocoa mass and then adding sugar. And of course, once you add the sugar, you have to introduce a conching step as well into the process, which to get the chocolate into the right crystalline form, to give it these other properties, melt in the mouth and gloss and so on.

and of course bloom as well. So, you know, if you get that white coloring on the chocolate, it actually doesn't change the taste, but it does people think there's something wrong with it. It's more of a look thing. Well, I think, you know, if I was buying single origin, I would want to know everything about the components. How is it being made?

You know, is it being made from the cocoa mass, etc., etc.? So obviously we focus a lot on the actual chocolate side, the edible chocolate side. But I'm kind of intrigued on the idea of cocoa butter and its other uses. Obviously, it's seen a lot in skin products and things like that. Yes. What's the benefit there? What's supposed to happen is that, you know, if you wash your hands with detergent, the lipid, the fat in your hands is being removed.

So you end up with dry fingers actually. So I think the theory is that it kind of replaces the fats. And cocoa butter is good because it matches rather closely the composition of the fat in our body. So I guess it's more likely to actually effectively replace the fat that has been removed for whatever reason. I don't use it myself. And I'm intrigued if there's, I guess, from your mind, anything that's quite surprising about chocolate that people don't necessarily know? Well, the range of psychoactive substances, caffeine and theobroman are the obvious ones. Theobroman is pretty powerful stuff, but it's good for us.

And there are other substances as well. And so generally, when people have eaten chocolate, you feel, I don't know, happier probably isn't the right word, but you get, you definitely get a mood change from eating it. And actually, if you, you know, I made some truffles over Christmas, which is without any sugar. So I just use cocoa, mass, butter and cream. And I'll tell you, one little truffle, and that's it. It's amazing. I mean, I think it's great stuff, but it would be better if it wasn't combined with so much sugar.

To be honest, in Europe, a lot of the things that passes chocolate here wouldn't pass as chocolate in other European countries. Because of too much sugar. Too much sugar and milk, you know, milk powder, etc. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius. That was Megan Povey talking about chocolate. The Instant Genius podcast is brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine,

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