Good news for milk chocolate admirers!

We all know the fact that dark chocolate is healthier than the milk one. But still most of us like to have a sweeter one and not the bitter one. Our craving lets us forget that milk chocolate lacks most of the natural and healthy antioxidants as they are lost during the making process. But soon we may not have to worry about the nutrition value of our favorite milk chocolate, all thanks to our researchers. Researchers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh found that peanut skins can be used to give the milk chocolate the same nutritional benefits as the dark chocolate. Moreover, this secret ingredient won't have any affect on the mind blowing taste.

Best things happen by chance.

Researchers didn’t start their study with the aim of finding a secret ingredient for the milk chocolate. In the United States, most peanut skins are frittered away while peanuts are used in making peanut butter. They were interested in finding a way to make good use of the wasted peanut skins.

They planned to extract antioxidants from the peanut skins. An antioxidant is a substance that inhibits the oxidation of other molecules. Studies have shown that antioxidant rich foods have a low risk of heart disease. However, antioxidants may impart a perceptible bitter taste to foods. Therefore, to disguise the bitter taste, they decided to mix the peanut skin extracts with the maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is a white powder made from corn, rice, potato starch or wheat and is used as a food additive.

Post the preparation of the antioxidant mixture, researchers added it to the milk chocolate. This addition brought the antioxidant levels in the milk chocolate equal to that of a dark chocolate without having hampered the taste of a candy.

This finding doesn’t indicate that one should turn chocolate into a staple food. Chocolate does contain fat and sugar and should not be consumed in large quantities. 

Reference:
L.L. Dean ​et​ ​al., 2016.​ ​Minimizing the negative flavor attributes and evaluating consumer acceptance of chocolate fortified with peanut skin extracts.​ ​​Journal of Food Science.​ ​​​81, ​S2824-S2830.