Chocolate, with its high sugar content, cannot be classified as a healthy food choice. Most commercial chocolates contain around 50% sugar by weight, while the remaining 50% consists mainly of fat and cocoa solids. Even dark chocolate, despite its perception of being healthier, can still contain significant amounts of sugar.
Offering lower-sugar chocolate options that taste great would be a win-win for those who love chocolate but want to manage their sugar intake.
Oat Flour – A Potential Solution for Lower-sugar Chocolate with Great Taste
A study by Penn State researchers found that oat flour can be used to make equally tasty chocolate with 25% less sugar, without affecting consumer liking. Chocolate is about half sugar by weight, and reducing sugar alters the texture and flavor profile, so oat flour was used as a replacement.
Oat Flour Tastes Just as Good:
In a blind taste test, 25% reduced-sugar chocolates made with oat flour were rated equally and sometimes preferred to regular chocolate.
Kai Kai Ma, a doctoral candidate in food science at Penn State and co-author of the paper said, “Our results suggest we can cut back 25% of added sugar to chocolate, effectively reducing the total sugar by 13.5%, if we substitute oat flour”.
Implications for the Chocolate Industry:
The study’s findings may inspire the chocolate industry to develop new varieties of sugar-reduced chocolates using oat flour as a proof-of-concept.
