How to identify good and bad chocolate

Humans have been drawn to chocolate for thousands of years. 91% of American women have chocolate cravings, according to a 2006 study. But not all chocolate is created equal.

Spencer breaks down how craft chocolate is produced. In six steps he will show us how we get from bean to bar. Sarah shares research into the health benefits of chocolate with a focus on fibre, flavanols and theobromine. They also look at the controversy around the association between chocolate and heart health. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Jonathan Wolf: Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.

Humans have been charmed by chocolate for thousands of years. I, for one, find chocolate very hard to resist. And I'm not alone. A recent study from Cornell University found 59% of men and 91% of women experience chocolate cravings. 

Many of us should be cutting back on sweet treats in general and these cravings don't help. But what if I told you that some chocolate can actually support your overall health? That's right, not all chocolate is created equal. 

So can we turn these cravings to our advantage? In today's episode, I'm joined by Spencer Hyman. Spencer is the founder of Cocoa Runners, a company that curates and distributes the world's best chocolate. He's an expert in all things cocoa, and he's here with insider knowledge on the chocolate industry. 

Alongside him is Dr. Sarah Berry, a professor in nutrition at King's College London, who has run multiple scientific trials on cocoa butter. She's also our chief scientist here at ZOE.

Spencer and Sarah, thank you for joining me today. 

[00:01:28] Professor Sarah Berry: Pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:30] Spencer Hyman: Thank you for having me too. 

[00:01:32] Jonathan Wolf: We have a tradition here at ZOE where we always start with a quick-fire round of questions from our listeners, with some very strict rules. Spencer, you can say yes or no or a one-sentence answer if you absolutely have to.

Are you willing to give it a go? 

[00:01:46] Spencer Hyman: Yes. 

[00:01:47] Jonathan Wolf: Is all dark chocolate good for you? 

[00:01:50] Spencer Hyman: No. 

[00:01:51] Jonathan Wolf: Is all milk chocolate bad for you? 

[00:01:55] Spencer Hyman: No. 

[00:01:56] Jonathan Wolf: Do some chocolate companies try and hide the fact that they're ultra-processed? 

[00:02:02] Spencer Hyman: Yes, most. 

[00:02:06] Jonathan Wolf: Sarah, could chocolate improve my blood pressure? 

[00:02:11] Professor Sarah Berry: Sometimes. 

[00:02:13] Jonathan Wolf: Should I eat chocolate every day? 

[00:02:15] Professor Sarah Berry: It depends on the amount and the type.

[00:02:18] Jonathan Wolf: And Spencer, what's the most surprising thing that you've learned about chocolate? 

[00:02:22] Spencer Hyman: I think that savoring craft chocolate gives you a whole new world of experiences, can help save your health, and can also save the planet, which is a fairly grand set of claims that we should dive into. 

[00:02:34] Jonathan Wolf: All of that from just eating a bit of chocolate?

[00:02:37] Spencer Hyman: Eating a couple of bits of chocolate with a couple of friends.

[00:02:37] Jonathan Wolf: I love it. And saving the planet. I mean, okay, we're all in here. 

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So, Spencer, I want to start actually with what I learned from last time. So you were on the show, one of our very, very first episodes. And you corrected me when I told you that I was addicted to chocolate.

Because you pointed out that, unlike coffee or alcohol, chocolate doesn't actually contain any addictive substances. And instead, I just really, really like chocolate. And I want to eat a lot of it a lot of the time, which is true. However, I know I'm not alone because we had a lot of messages afterwards.

And apparently millions of other people like me feel like they're addicted to chocolate. And like me, they can struggle with self-control when it's around. And that's why I thought it was really important to come back and discover, is there a way that eating chocolate can be healthy, and take this podcast, and be a bit more practical about what that might mean. 

So can we just start at the very beginning, Spencer? Can you tell us about sort of this cacao bean and how it's turned into a chocolate bar? 

[00:03:44] Spencer Hyman: Yep. So can I just correct one thing? Of course. So I think there is something which is often added to chocolate that can be addictive, and that's called sugar. 

So too much sugar can be quite addictive. In fact, it's the basis of something called the bliss point, and then you can play around with some other stuff too. 

But essentially, the cocoa bean, which grows in a pod, on trees, in the rainforest, is initially a very bitter and astringent seed, which through the magic of fermentation becomes a rather interesting bean. Which is then generally roasted, for good chocolate, and then it's winnowed, which means you take the shell off it, and then it's ground, and then it's conched, and then it's tempered, and a little bit of sugar is sometimes added to it, maybe a bit of milk is sometimes added to it as well, and then it's turned into bars.

That is the way that good chocolate is made, but there is an alternative process too. 

[00:04:36] Jonathan Wolf: And what's the difference between a dark chocolate, a white chocolate, a milk chocolate, and these different percentages that I think we see a lot more in the grocery stores than when I was a kid, saying 50% or 70% or whatever.

[00:04:52] Spencer Hyman: So I think there's been a move to basically use sugar more as a flavoring enhancer in the way that, for example, you'd use salt. with dark craft chocolate. The big difference between the three products that you've outlined. I'm just talking about craft chocolate not industrially processed chocolate here is basically the the other inclusions that are put in there.

So milk chocolate is basically cocoa beans a bit of sugar and a bit of milk powder. White chocolate which was originally sold as a vitamin supplement in the 1920s in Switzerland, which is another whole story is just basically cocoa butter, often with a lot of milk powder some sugar, and sometimes other flavorings, often vanilla.

[00:05:35] Jonathan Wolf: And is cocoa butter different from the chocolate that you just mentioned? 

[00:05:38] Spencer Hyman: So what happens when you take a cocoa bean, maybe we could dive into the two big differences in how you make chocolate. 

Inside a cocoa bean is basically about 50-55% cocoa butter, which is the secret ingredient to lots of cosmetics, and then what's called cocoa mass or cocoa solids.

And when you make a white chocolate, you just use the cocoa butter. And the big thing about chocolate is that everybody assumes that all chocolate is created equal. And it's not quite that simple. Because if you just take a bean, and as I said, you roast it, and then you winnow it, and then you grind it. You can get all the wonderful flavors, you can get all the wonderful benefits that cocoa's got inside it, like theobromine, which I'm sure Sarah's going to talk more about in a second, all the flavanols and everything like that. 

But there's an alternative way. which is basically used to make cocoa butter for cosmetics. Which is you take the bean, you will generally take the shell off it before you roast it, you'll roast it at very high temperatures, and then you will often squeeze it in massive hydraulic presses.

And those hydraulic presses basically squeeze out the cocoa butter and leave behind a cake. And the cake is often washed in an alkaline solution because that makes it less acidic. and a little bit less bitter, and also it changes the colour so that it's a bit more attractive. 

And if you have most sort of chocolate biscuits, or most chocolate cakes, or lots of chocolate confectionery, it will be made in that way. And it is very likely that a lot of those steps damage some of the wonderful benefits that chocolate has inside it. 

[00:07:09] Jonathan Wolf: I want to come back to some of the more complex industrial things that you describe in a bit if that's all right, and just start with the thing you were describing. 

Which you start with this bean, you end up going through these different processing steps, and then you're saying you can make a dark or a milk chocolate, depending upon whether you add milk to it, white chocolate, you're saying it's a bit different because actually it's only part of the bean that you're using for the chocolate.

And I'd love to switch over to Sarah a bit and talk about the health benefits. benefits as we understand it of chocolate because I'm sitting here, I'm still convinced I'm addicted to chocolate, whatever you say, Spencer. And I really want Sarah to now name some really fantastic health benefits from this addiction to make up for the fact that I do feel like I basically need to keep having it.

And I always think it sounds crazy to say there could be any health benefits from chocolate because it's sort of obvious. It's like a sweet, right? It's like a candy. Obviously it can't actually be doing anything good for me. Can it? 

[00:08:05] Professor Sarah Berry: So, you're making me think of that saying, if it's too good to be true, is it true?

And I think, going back to what Spencer said earlier, is chocolate is so diverse. To group chocolate and all the different types of chocolate into one health recommendation is wrong. And I know we'll dive into that a little bit. 

If we talk generally, chocolate does contain these very special bioactives, as we call them, called polyphenols. They contain some other chemicals, which Spencer said as well, called theobromine, and some chocolate, please note the emphasis on some, is also high in fiber, but not all chocolate. 

There is some good evidence from what we call the epidemiological studies that I know, Jonathan, we often talk about. So these are studies where we look at whole populations, and we look at patterns of food intake alongside patterns of disease, that as people increase their chocolate intake, they reduce their levels of blood pressure, they reduce their incidence of type 2 diabetes, they reduce their incidence of cardiovascular disease, and so much more.

The problem with that is that most of those studies group all chocolate together. The other problem is, is there's lots of confounders. Do people that consume more chocolate also have different other health habits? 

So how we then translate that back to what's on our supermarket shelf is where it gets really tricky.

[00:09:29] Jonathan Wolf: And Sarah, do you have any idea what's going on?  Why might eating chocolate be beneficial in the way in which eating all the other candy on the candy aisle? I've never heard anyone argue that that's good for anybody other than maybe, you know, the income of my dentist. 

[00:09:47] Professor Sarah Berry: So I think there's a number of different reasons.

One could be the fiber, but again, the fiber content in chocolate is hugely variable. So in certain types of dark chocolate, and I think you might know better, Spencer, about the different levels of fiber in different chocolates. So, we do know that chocolate that's processed in a particular way, in very dark chocolate, is quite high in fiber, is that correct?

[00:10:09] Spencer Hyman: Yeah, also the way in which the chocolate is crafted will make a huge difference to fiber. But most good dark chocolates will have four to seven grams of fiber inside them. And then if you use cocoa pulp sugar, which is going to get very esoteric in a second, that is also very, very high in fiber.

So the pulp that surrounds the cocoa beans, the cocoa seeds, and the husk is also very, very high in fiber. So lots of chocolate makers are now trying to work out how to use that, too. 

And then the other point is what you were talking about is theobromine. We've known since the 1920s is a good vasodilator. It used to actually be given to asthmatics.

So there is some good evidence that, as you said, using chocolate moderately is very, very good for you. 

[00:10:52] Professor Sarah Berry: Obviously, as nutrition scientists, we try and look at the whole food, because the matrix, you know, I always talk about is important, but we look at the different components.

So fiber is one of the components, particularly in dark chocolate. Do bear in mind though, I'm not saying that we should be using that as our main source of fiber. In milk chocolate, it's actually very low. So from a bar of chocolate, you'll probably only get one or two grams, if that you might get three or four from a dark chocolate, but at a level at which I would say is quite healthy to consume.

So not a large amount, you're not going to get a huge amount. But it still makes a contribution, given that we're deficient in fiber, given that on average we only consume 20 grams and we should be increasing our fiber. So that's one mechanism, and we know that increasing our fiber by 3-5 grams has a huge impact on our health.

Another mechanism could be the fat in it, cocoa butter. And I think this is where it gets really interesting. And I actually studied cocoa butter as part of my PhD. I did some research on this because cocoa butter is very special. The reason it's special is it actually has about 60% saturated fat.

And it's actually got the same fatty acid composition, so the types of different saturated fats as beef fat. So I don't know if you've heard of beef tallow. We don't really use it much these days, but years ago it was used. 

If I was to ask you, what do you think the health benefits of beef tallow are?

[00:12:13] Jonathan Wolf: Well, I think you've convinced me that the health benefits of beef tallow are really low. 

[00:12:19] Professor Sarah Berry: So beef tallow has the same fatty acid composition nearly as cocoa butter. Yet, if you feed cocoa butter, to humans, we do not increase our cholesterol levels. It seems to have this cholesterol-neutral effect compared to other fats that have a similar saturated fatty acid composition.

And this is because it has a very unique structure. Now, given that I did spend many years studying it, I am not going to spend the next hour, although I'd love to, maybe I can do another one on cocoa butter. 

But it has a very special structure and This special structure is actually one of the reasons why I think many people love chocolate as well as the taste, because it has this wonderful mouthfeel.

 So cocoa butter melts at body temperature, and it's one of the few fats that actually melts in a single peak, so you put it in your mouth, and slowly it warms up to your body temperature, and you have this beautiful mouthfeel of it melting. Most other fats have lots of different peaks. 

[00:13:11] Spencer Hyman: And that is the key. And that's the reason why it's so interesting to use it as an example of how to experience flavor and to use flavor as a means to identify properly brought-up fruits and the flavor aspect of cocoa butter.

So the two things which give the great length to chocolate, exactly as you said, is that when you correctly temper chocolate, which is just changing the crystal structure, you can hit crystal structure five. Which means it literally is solid at room temperature, as we'll discover in a minute. and then melts when you put it in your mouth, but it releases flavor very slowly.

So you get all those amazing polyphenols and flavanols creating those wonderful flavors which are incredibly good for you too. 

So it's sort of a win-win situation by which the cocoa butter can show you how well the plant has been looked after and how nutritious it's going to be. 

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[00:14:01] Jonathan Wolf: So there's something very cool. You're saying it literally melts in your mouth, which is that expression we use for lots of things that taste good. But in this particular case, it literally perfectly melts at the temperature of your mouth, almost as though it's designed to be eaten by me. 

[00:14:16] Spencer Hyman: It definitely is when it's properly tempered. I mean, tempering is, you know, there are a number of really important inventions in the history of chocolate.

But remember that for most of chocolate, history, we drank it. It's only in the last 100, 150 years that we ever got around to thinking about eating it as a tablet and as a bar, thanks to Joseph Fry. 

And that aspect of it actually reveals all sorts of different flavors, and it's those flavors which actually I think you can argue have a lot of the health signs that you know that you're having a good food.

[00:14:44] Jonathan Wolf: Spencer, help me with that just for a second because you've said well, obviously we all drank it until 150 years ago. I'm not sure my ancestors were rich enough to afford any chocolate a hundred years ago, never mind... 

[00:14:56] Spencer Hyman: So the history of chocolate is that a little bit like tea and a little bit like coffee, it came in originally as a drink.

And in fact, one of the reasons why it's spread in Europe, if you come to a tasting, you'll get more of this. But interestingly, it's the same reason why we eat fish on Fridays. It's that the Jesuits discovered it was a great thing to push in Catholic mass and churches on Saint's Days and on days when you're supposed to abstain from eating meat. So you needed food to fill you up, and drinking chocolate is incredibly filling. 

Dial forward to the mid-19th century and everyone's getting a bit worried because chocolate Sarah's given you all the benefits of cocoa butter, but one of its stranger attributes is that it doesn't dissolve well into most liquids.

And so if you have, for example, a beard, and you were to get any of it left in your beard on a cold day when you walk outside, when you walk back in, it looks a bit messy. So the Dutch in particular get very upset about this, and they spend a lot of time trying to work out, well, what can we do about it?

And eventually, they come up with an invention called the hydraulic press, which is actually a British invention, invented by a locksmith called Joseph Bramah, who actually used it to flush loos. 

[00:15:58] Jonathan Wolf: I just want to check, the hydraulic press is not a way to clean my beard? 

[00:16:00] Spencer Hyman: No, it's not a way to clean your beard, but it is a way to basically squeeze more of the cocoa butter out of the cakes you were using to make drinking chocolate. So there's less of it to get stuck in your beard. 

And then dial forward 20 years, a very smart Brit, somehow or other works out, if you recombine some of that cocoa butter into the cakes that you've got left, you can actually create a stable solid, and you get chocolate bars. 

[00:16:21] Jonathan Wolf: Sarah, should we dig into some more of the health that's behind the benefits of chocolate?

[00:16:26] Professor Sarah Berry: So, we know that some chocolates have a reasonable amount of fiber. We know that despite being high in saturated fat, that the special structure of cocoa butter confers a kind of cholesterol-neutral effect. So, it doesn't raise your bad cholesterol and total cholesterol as much as would be predicted based on the amount of saturated fat.

And then we know it contains these very special bioactives. So, in particular, we talk a lot about polyphenols, so we talk about the flavonols in it, but there's also another chemical called theobromine as well. 

Most of the research has been looking at the flavanols over a number of years. And there's lots of research from clinical trials now showing that if you supplement the cocoflavanols, you have benefits in many different health outcomes.

So, for example, your blood pressure, in your levels of inflammation, in your risk of cardiovascular disease. And we're starting to understand the mechanism of why this is and what we know is that polyphenols have quite wide-reaching impacts. 

But we know that they impact the functionality in the production and the bioavailability of a particular compound called nitric oxide, which has an incredible role to play in keeping our blood vessels healthy.

And so our blood vessels release nitric oxide all the time, and it causes them to be reasonably dilated. As soon as you get damaged your blood vessels you produce less nitric oxide. The more nitric oxide you're producing, the better health of your blood vessels in very simple terms. 

And what we know is if you supplement people in both the short term and the long term you have a better availability of this nitric oxide from these flavanols.

What we also know is that the theobromine seems to act in synergy with these flavanols and increase the impact that the flavanols have on the availability and production of nitric oxide. 

And this is why I think, again, it's really interesting always to think about the food. And I know I say this every time I do a podcast, yes, let's look at the isolated nutrients or chemicals, but we need to also think how they work in the matrix.

And actually there's a really interesting study that looked at the impact of taking out these flavonols, feeding them to people, and looking at how it impacts blood vessel function using a particular measure that we use in our research called flow-mediated dilation. 

And they looked at the impact on this particular measure, just feeding the coco flavanols, feeding the theobromine, and then feeding the two together.

What they found was that there's a greater impact of the sum of the parts. If you feed them together, that they have this kind of synergistic impact. And this is one of the core mechanisms why we think chocolate, if it's delivering the right amount of the very bioactive flavonols has wide-reaching impacts. Because this increase in blood vessel flow, this dilation, can impact the delivery of blood to the brain. Hence why there's some evidence to show it might impact memory, and there's a fascinating study actually recently out about that.

There's some evidence to show it impacts cardiovascular health because of blood flow. There's evidence to show, for many RCTs, that on average, obviously it depends on the type of chocolate, but having this good quality high flavanol chocolate will reduce your blood pressure anywhere around 5 millimeters, which is actually quite significant.

And it's all to do with this mechanism linked to nitric oxide. 

[00:20:04] Spencer Hyman: Absolutely, what Sarah's saying is fascinating and absolutely spot on. The one word that I would really like to focus in on though is that Sarah's been quite rightly talking about cocoa flavanols. 

[00:20:12] Jonathan Wolf: What is a cocoa flavanol? 

[00:20:15] Spencer Hyman: It's one of the multitude of amazing benefits that the cocoa seed, as it ferments into a cocoa bean, will have made manifest. And it's very very important to think a little bit about how those cocoa flavanols get into the chocolate. 

The history of all this research actually dates back to a tribe of Indians called the Kuna who live off the coast of Panama, who were first identified as having amazing heart health and low levels of stress back in the 1940s by a guy called Benjamin Kean, who has a pretty extraordinary history.

He's the guy who's responsible for why American pilots now carry shark repellent. He's also responsible in large part for the American hostage crisis because he's the guy who wrote the book, sort of script, which allowed the Shah of Iran in. 

And he has an extraordinary history, but he inspired some work done by Harvard Medical Center in the 1990s, down in Panama, to basically look at whether or not there was a genetic link between this tribe and heart health.

And fairly rapidly discovered it wasn't that. And they then moved on to thinking that it might be the cocoa that they were drinking. And it was eventually shown that it probably wasn't, because actually, they weren't able to find having the same chocolate as Kean had identified. They were actually having just normal processed chocolate, so they figured it was something else.

But in the process, they did discover that there is this flavanol link towards nitric oxide, which is also sort of brought up. And you have to be very, very careful though, exactly as Sarah was saying, that just to say, well, any supermarket dark chocolate is going to be good for my heart. 

Because it's not at all clear that the cocoa flavanols are actually present, unless you are very careful in how you do your fermentation, how you do your roasting, that you mustn't crush them, etc. So it's something which is undergoing quite a lot of research as to actually how it works. 

There is one other potential benefit which I would love to encourage you to do, Jonathan, which is to do with your second stomach, as to why I think craft chocolate can be quite good for you.

And it's based on some stuff in Japan, which Sarah is probably going to be a little bit skeptical about, but I'm going to give it a go. Which is that, as you probably are aware, you have lots of taste receptors in your mouth. You must have sweet taste receptors in your stomach. 

And so when at the end of a meal you feel absolutely full, and then suddenly, you know, your kid or you or anyone else suddenly discovers, actually, I've got room for pudding now that I've seen it.

[00:22:25] Professor Sarah Berry: Jonathan's always talking about the second stomach, aren't you? 

[00:22:29] Spencer Hyman: So technically, there has been some interesting work done in Japan on this. 

[00:22:30] Professor Sarah Berry: He's loving this, Spencer. 

[00:22:32] Spencer Hyman: So basically, what happens is, is that your stomach basically tells your brain, I want some of that. So I'm going to basically speed up digestion.

And there are MRIs, studies done literally on live TV in Japan, which show that people will speed up their digestion. 

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[00:22:47] Jonathan Wolf: So Spencer, I just want to check. Basically what you're saying is someone shows you the dessert menu. When they come around and say, would you like a dessert menu? And I look at the dessert menu and instantly my digestion accelerates so I can squeeze that little bit of cake.

[00:23:00] Spencer Hyman: We have pictures of it on the website. And in our tastings, we actually talk about this and show it. But it's not just the menu, you actually need to sort of see the cake, or you need to sort of see the ice cream. 

Now, I think what Sarah would agree with me on here is that the trick, however, is not to gobble and scarf and scoff a huge great pudding at this point. What you really want to do is have a couple of bits of craft chocolate. 

Now, it could be a dark milk chocolate, could just be a dark chocolate, and savour them, because that will basically satisfy your stomach, speed up digestion, and also just get you in the habit of savoring for flavor. 

[00:23:32] Jonathan Wolf: And Spencer, you've mentioned the word craft chocolate a few times now.

It's a word I had not heard five years ago, and which I think many of our listeners will not be familiar with. What do you mean by craft chocolate, and why have you used that word carefully? 

[00:23:48] Spencer Hyman: So I'm using it because it signifies a slightly different approach. And so if you think about it, you have craft beer, you have specialty coffee, almost every sort of food and bread has got a campaign, and chocolate has had the same.

And what craft chocolate is all about is basically giving you as much flavor as you can possibly get out of the cocoa beans. And cocoa beans have got more flavor complexity than just about anything else on the planet. And they're also transparently traded and crafted. 

So they're all about basically trying to give you flavor, but also trying to work with the farmers so that the farmers will look after the rainforests, and also have enough money to live on, and not be using child labor, etc.

So it's a sort of win-win situation. And as a movement, it's probably been around for even longer than specialty coffee, but for various reasons we can go into, it hasn't grown in the same way that say, artisan cheese has or craft gin has or craft beer or anything else. 

But it's all about basically flavor and transparency.

[00:24:49] Professor Sarah Berry: And I think this is a really good time to think about, again, what we've said numerous times about the difference between the different types of chocolate. 

Because what we know is that what you see necessarily on the back of pack label, and I'm sure we're going to dive into this, doesn't necessarily equate to the health outcomes.

So chocolate could say it's 75%, 85% cocoa or chocolate solids, but actually depending on how it's processed, where it's sourced from, et cetera, determines the different levels of the really active kind of potent polyphenols. 

Because different polyphenols have different potencies, and the particular ones that are in chocolate, some of them are converted to slightly different forms, and the microbiome might play a role in this, and other factors.

And so actually, the amount of cocoa solids is a crude measure, but it doesn't tell us exactly. And I think this is where it gets really interesting that what we realize is also from recent research is how important a microbiome is in actually reaping some of the benefits of this chocolate as well.

And so there's been some really fascinating studies that have looked at how variable people's health responses are to the same chocolate. And we know that there's huge variability between maybe how I respond to it to how Spencer will respond to it to how you might respond to it, Jonathan. 

We believe that one of the reasons for this huge variability might actually be the microbiome. And the reason for that is that we know that the microbiome is involved in some of the kind of, using simple terms, activation of these amazing bioactives, these polyphenols. 

So what we know is that when you consume chocolate, you have this very rapid improvement in blood vessel function after about two hours.

[00:26:40] Jonathan Wolf: So sorry, I just want to check. You're saying actually, if I was eating the right chocolate, I could actually see an impact on my blood vessel in just two hours? 

[00:26:46] Professor Sarah Berry: Yes. So randomized control trials where they measure how much your blood vessels dilate, see an improvement, if it's the right type, right amount of flavanols after two hours.

[00:26:56] Jonathan Wolf: That's crazy. 

[00:26:57] Professor Sarah Berry: But what's really interesting is studies that have then measured it for a longer period of time. These are studies that have only come out in the last year or so, see a second kind of peak benefit around six to eight hours after. So about eight hours after you've eaten that. 

Now, you've not got these magic chemicals circulating in your blood from when you've just eaten it. What we know is it's then reached your large intestine and what we know is that there are particular bacteria in your gut, so our microbiome, that play a role in activating some of these polyphenols, and that then we have this second kind of benefit, this second dilation.

And obviously everyone's microbiome differs, and this is why we see, we believe, this huge variability in your responsiveness to cocoa. So not only is chocolate hugely variable, we are, in how we process it and benefit from it. 

[00:27:47] Spencer Hyman: Even actually the way in which you will experience flavor in chocolate is also going to be a question of your oral microbiome too.

Because you don't just have a microbiome in your stomach, you also have a microbiome in your mouth which will release flavors in different ways too. 

[00:28:00] Jonathan Wolf: I think that's actually the perfect transition, Spencer, actually, because I think we've been hearing all these amazing things about chocolate. And Sarah, thank you for sharing all of these brand-new studies because I hadn't heard about a bunch of those before just now.

I did now want to talk about what Spencer calls Big Chocolate. People listening to this are probably familiar with Big Pharma, Big Tobacco and Big Oil, but they may be surprised to hear that there is Big Chocolate.

[00:28:26] Professor Sarah Berry: I've never heard of that. 

[00:28:28] Jonathan Wolf: And it's quite hard to research Big Chocolate because I typed it into Google and you just get ads for like really large chocolate bars. So Spencer, what is Big Chocolate? 

[00:28:38] Spencer Hyman: Craft chocolate is basically about the flavor and transparency and Big Chocolate is about consistency and about cost and it will use different processes.

Much more industrial force in the process and also it will add lots more ingredients and lots more additives, which are not things that you would normally have at home 

And so to use Tim and Sarah's normal definition, if you see something on the list of ingredients that you don't have at home, be dubious about buying it when you buy it in the supermarket.

So the difference is the way in which it's made, industrially processed, and the ingredients which are added to it. 

[00:29:17] Jonathan Wolf: What's the difference between what you're calling a sort of high-end craft chocolate and the Big Chocolate? Do they have different ingredients in them? 

[00:29:25] Spencer Hyman: So they will have some different ingredients, especially if you look at something like confectionery. You'll often see things like palm oil inside there. You'll see lots of emulsifiers and you'll probably see over 50% of the primary ingredient will be sugar. 

So if you take craft chocolate, the primary ingredient in a dark chocolate, well, it would be cocoa beans, and then there'll be a bit of sugar added to it. And you can also have dark milk, which will also have some milk in it, or just a milk chocolate, which will have a bit of that on it. 

So there's a very, very big difference in actually the ingredients which are used. And then there's a difference in the approach. So the fundamental difference in the approach is that what you're trying to do with mass-produced chocolate is to basically get people to eat as much as you possibly can.

And so they will use a couple of tricks that food science has been using to get everyone to eat ultra-processed food, which is based around your tastes as opposed to flavor. So sugar, salt, and fat basically is the secret, it's the Dorito principle. 

It's basically the stuff that Moskowitz identified, that basically if you give people sugar, salt, and fat, it's bliss point. And people don't know how to stop gobbling with that. 

[00:30:31] Jonathan Wolf: And Spencer, can you explain, when you say bliss point, what that means for us? 

[00:30:36] Spencer Hyman: So back in the 1960s, an American scientist called Howard Moskowitz, who has been written about but not quite as much as you would expect, did some work on the U.S. Army to try and get them to eat more of their rations.

And what he discovered is that if you combine sugar, salt, fat, a bit of texture, and a little bit of umami, human beings just do not know how to stop scoffing. 

So those are the basic tastes if you like. So, obviously, you don't have bitterness there, you don't have sourness there, but they're the basic tastes. And that is the secret to most junk food. Sugar, salt, fat, a bit of texture, a bit of umami, basic tastes. They delight you. You are programmed to want to basically love them. 

The second piece of technology which ultra-processed foods in general and chocolate is very good at is something called sensory-specific satiety, which was actually invented by a couple called the Rolls. 

And the simple way to think about this is that when you go to an ice cream store, and they basically try and get you to have five or six scoops They're not gonna make you just have vanilla or just chocolate chip, whichever one you want. They're gonna try and give you a variety because human beings are basically we get bored with one food.

So what they're trying to do is give you as much variety in that in terms of the texture, in terms of the different tastes, in terms of the flavors, in terms of everything inside it. So if you look at what's inside a lot of mass market confectionery, you're going to see there's chewy bits, there's soft bits, there's squidgy bits, there's all sorts of different etc.

And they're using those to basically get you to eat more and more of it. But what they're not doing is what you'd really want to do with any food, which is to try and get at the flavor. Because flavor is your other innate way of understanding whether or not a food is going to have been well crafted, well grown, and be full of all the wonderful things that Sarah was talking about.

Because flavor basically comes from, in the case of chocolate, cocoa, it's basically the way in which the bean struggles and grows, and it has all these amazing flavor compounds, over 300 of them. 

Once you learn to appreciate those, you will stop gobbling, you will stop scarfing, you will basically slow down and start savoring.

And it's another way. So looking at the ingredients, looking at where the beans come from, looking at where the chocolate's been crafted, and then relying on your sense of flavor is a good way of basically getting you in the habit of avoiding junk and ultra-processed foods, too. 

[00:32:58] Professor Sarah Berry: And Spencer, do you think, given the huge variability in chocolate, from the craft chocolate, the high cocoa solid chocolate, to your Cadbury's or Hershey's kind of chocolate, they're so variable.

I often think that what's a helpful way to think about it is that one of these kind of Cadbury's, Hershey's chocolate, it's an entirely different food to the kind of craft chocolate that you're thinking about. 

I think that sometimes I don't see it as a particularly helpful narrative sometimes to be comparing one versus the other. As long as we make sure that it's clear to people that if ever we talk about the benefits of chocolate, we make it clear that we're not talking about the Hershey's, the Cadbury's, etc. I choose to have both. 

So I do have Cadbury's, which is quite similar to a Hershey's bar because I love the sugariness, the mouthfeel, but then I also have a good dark chocolate and I have that for when I just fancy the flavor of chocolate.

But sometimes I just want that kind of gunky whatever feel in my mouth and I know that they're hugely different in terms of health effect. Just like sometimes I might have a particular kind of cheese versus another cheese. 

So I do think that it's important that… I'm quite careful about demonizing all kind of processed food. And I think that Tim and I sit in slightly different camps here. But I think if someone wants to have a little bit of it, I know that there is the problem that you get the dopamine hit, that you can overeat it, and we need to be careful. But I think we can acknowledge that there's a different purpose sometimes for the different types of chocolate.

[00:34:40] Jonathan Wolf: Now, Sarah, I just have to say that Spencer is looking here absolutely horrified as you said this. So for those of you just listening, I didn't want to allow him to come in. 

I feel like it's a bit like you've had somebody tell you about their wonderful wine and you're like, yes, and sometimes I do like to get my £1.99 thing, in a bottle, which is true. 

But Spencer's going like, you do what? 

[00:35:00] Professor Sarah Berry: But I'm saying it's for different purposes. 

[00:35:03] Spencer Hyman: So let me agree with the first point, which is that it's not fair to call Dairy Milk, or Tony's Chocolony, and use that in the same way that you would describe craft chocolate. 

So I would agree with that. That basically, if the primary ingredient is sugar, it's got a load of additives to it, which your grandmother wouldn't recognize. If you don't know where the beans come from, if you don't know how it's been crafted, that is a very different experience. 

What I would argue, however, is that I think I can find you bars which will delight you and give you what you were kindly calling that sort of bliss point. You were using the word junkie, but it's really bliss point. 

[00:35:39] Professor Sarah Berry: It's my dopamine hit I want Spencer.

[00:35:41] Spencer Hyman: I think we can do that with milk chocolates, too, from craft chocolate.  

[00:35:45] Professor Sarah Berry: That are also healthy?

[00:35:46] Spencer Hyman: Well, they're two things. They're basically going to get you to savor because they're going to have a flavor wave, so they're going to have some length.

And the second thing is, is they're going to be much, much, much better for you because they're not going to have all the junky ingredients. And the third thing is they're going to be much better for the farmers on the planet because they're basically going to be keeping the rainforest going and keeping the farmers from, basically penury and, and all sorts of nasties.

So where I would agree with you is that there are huge differences, but where I would disagree is that you can't get that with good craft chocolate. So I think my goal is to basically find you a craft chocolate which will satisfy you in the same way. 

[00:36:22] Professor Sarah Berry: Okay, so the challenge is on. I'm really happy to take that challenge.

The other thing that I think is important to say is price point. And these craft chocolates, they're expensive. So are there grocery stores, retailers, who are selling chocolate that can be healthy, that is better than maybe some of these what you call Big Chocolates that are, for a price point, accessible to a lot more people?

[00:36:49] Spencer Hyman: So, I agree with your general philosophy, but I would basically argue that the price of a bar has other costs hidden in it too. 

So the average, and I'm just going to just quickly do this and then I'll answer your question and give you the solution. So, remember that the average cocoa farmer in West Africa, which is where 70% of the world's cocoa comes from, needs two to three dollars a day. 

At best, at the moment, they're getting paid 80 cents a day if they're male, 30 cents a day if they're women. So if the cost is basically farmers going hungry and not being able to send their kids to school, I'm not sure that's a great cost of just sort of saying you can get a $1 bar. 

Craft chocolate is actually relatively not that expensive. It's $4, $5, maybe $10, or £4, £5, maybe £10. The other thing is you won't eat as much of it. It is designed so that a craft chocolate bar should last you. I know Jonathan is slightly different to this, but in general, most people will get a craft chocolate bar to last a couple of days with their partner. 

When they come to a tasting, we will taste 10 or so different craft chocolates, you'll have less than 20 grams, you will be full by the end of it, because it's that filling.

In terms of some brands you can look for, I would strongly recommend you look at Taza, which has got a fantastically interesting texture. 

[00:37:56] Professor Sarah Berry: Can you spell that? 

[00:37:56] Spencer Hyman: T-A-Z-A.

[00:37:59] Professor Sarah Berry: Would you get that in a grocery store? 

[00:38:02] Spencer Hyman: You will in America. In the UK, almost impossible. 

So, the U.K. is particularly difficult because it is very difficult to persuade any grocery store to sell any bar above, you know, £2, £3. We basically got into this habit that the way in which you sell chocolate, it's an impulse buy, it's generally sold over a vending machine, it is sold off price.

And you cannot do that with good, flavorsome chocolate. So, occasionally you'll see Willie’s in some supermarkets in the U.K., some grocery stores, but fundamentally the U.K. has a really big challenge. 

If you go to Europe, a little bit different. In Europe, there are some good examples where you can get some of these craft chocolates.

But it is a real challenge. That's the reason why I said it is not like specialty coffee. It's not like craft beer. We haven't broken through. We haven't explained to people how this is the most amazing tool to, get you to think about flavor and health yet, but we will get there. 

[00:38:54] Jonathan Wolf: I'm keen to move to the most exciting part of the show, which is how to transition from bad to good chocolate. And I know that Spencer has brought some tasting. 

Just before we do that, I just want to make one, I just want to sort of check on one clarification because we were talking a lot about the health benefits earlier. And I just want to just clarify, when we're discussing the way that these large scale, what Spencer's calling Bad Chocolate, large scale chocolate manufacturers going on, are we losing Sarah, all of those sort of flavanols and everything that we're talking about?

And the second question I wanted to ask about was, in general, there's a lot of sugar in a lot of these chocolates, and you talked about the health benefits of chocolate. I just want to pick up because we have often talked about the pretty clear negative effects of just adding sugar as a raw ingredient into food.

So could you just help to understand for people listening to this who started off with like, well, chocolate's great, so I should eat more chocolate. Now we're hearing about the sort of chocolate that you actually get in general from the grocery store. Where are we left? 

[00:40:00] Professor Sarah Berry: So the health benefits will depend on where the cocoa beans from and how it's been processed as we've heard from Spencer.

In terms of the chocolate itself that we're eating will depend on, like Spencer said, the other ingredients in it.

The biggest unhealthy ingredient that's in chocolate is the sugar. There's actually been some really interesting clinical trials that have fed people a placebo chocolate, so like a dummy chocolate, which is actually a white chocolate, because like Spencer said, it's not got any of the dark, cocoa solids in, so the solids that contain the polyphenols and these other compounds.

So they often feed that, in these kind of studies, as the control, as the placebo, the dummy. 

And then in a couple of studies, they've also fed a very dark, low-sugar chocolate. So I think the kind of chocolates that we might be tasting in a little bit. And then they fed the same chocolate with the same amount of these polyphenols and other compounds but with extra sugar added in.

And what's really interesting is when you feed the placebo, the dummy chocolate, the white chocolate, it has no impact in improving some of these measures to do with blood vessel function. 

[00:41:12] Jonathan Wolf: Okay, so white chocolate is out from a health perspective. 

[00:41:14] Professor Sarah Berry: It's out, okay. Then you've got the dark chocolate that's low in sugar, the kind of craft style chocolate that Spencer's talking about, and that elicits this big improvement in blood vessel function, both in the short term, i.e. in that two hours, eight hours, but also when you feed these over a number of weeks, you also see a long term benefit in blood pressure in the blood vessel function. 

[00:41:38] Jonathan Wolf: Amazing. 

[00:41:38] Professor Sarah Berry: And then, if you add the sugar to that chocolate bar, you do see some benefit. But it's very, very small compared to the equivalent bar without that sugar. And this, remember, is still at very high levels of these polyphenols. 

[00:41:56] Jonathan Wolf: So even when you've got this very strong benefit from the underlying polyphenols, once you start adding in the sugar…

[00:41:38] Professor Sarah Berry: It’s counter-balancing that.

[00:41:56] Jonathan Wolf: And so what's the number? What's the point at which this is balancing out. And I say the number because I think we got used to often, I think, to see that there's like a percentage of chocolate, right?

So 70% means, as I understand it, 70% chocolate, 30% sugar? 

[00:42:17] Spencer Hyman: 30% something else. 

[00:42:19] Jonathan Wolf: Thirty percent something else. So what's the fraction at which we can feel good about this? 

[00:42:25] Professor Sarah Berry: So I'm quite uncomfortable putting a fraction on it, given how variable the chocolate is. 

[00:42:32] Spencer Hyman: Yeah, I would agree with Sarah on this. The percentage is very tricky. 

So we're gonna try a dark milk in a minute, which has actually got less added sugar to it than the dark chocolate bars. But I think, as a rule of thumb, and Sarah can disagree with me here, if the primary ingredient is sugar, which is the case in most mass-market confectionery, you can be resting assured that that's basically done for three reasons.

Cost, because basically it's very, very addictive, and it's a good stabilizer. So I think if you see sugar as being the primary ingredient, which you will see in a lot of ‘dark chocolates’ in the supermarket, then I think you have a problem. 

[00:43:12] Professor Sarah Berry: And I think, again, if you were to push me, which I know you will in a minute, Jonathan, I think if it's above about 75% solids, as a rule of thumb, then you could say it's a healthier chocolate to the other chocolates.

But the amount of solids doesn't necessarily equate to how kind of bioactive those solids are.

[00:43:35] Jonathan Wolf: This is back to it's got to be good quality beans grown in the right way, extracting the right way, all this thing that's sort of rather than it all smashed to pieces which is sort of the image I'm getting from the thing.

I really want to switch to eating some of the chocolate that Spencer is now unwrapping in front of him. 

[00:43:48] Spencer Hyman: It's going to be very noisy because one of the great things about craft chocolate is that the packaging is also extremely environmentally friendly.

So the reason why this is sort of making this noise and for those of you who are on the video you can sort of see it. This paper is actually sort of biodegradable. 

So we're going to try two different chocolates, made in exactly the same way. Dark chocolates, a company called Standout. We often use these in our tastings. One is from Peru, a place called Urumbaba, and the second is from India. The only difference between the two is the different beans and the different fermentation.

They both have the same amount of sugar, which in this case is 30%, but I hope what you're going to do is get a completely different flavor. 

Now, can I do one more thing? Can I show you how to eat chocolate properly before we get going too far? Just for, it'll take one second more to do.

[00:44:32] Professor Sarah Berry: Oh, do you know what, Spencer? I just like to stuff it in. 

[00:44:36] Spencer Hyman: I know, I know, but there is a trick, which actually is back to your issue with…

[00:44:38] Professor Sarah Berry: You're going to make us slow it down, aren't you?  

[00:44:40] Spencer Hyman: No, no, I'm going to show you, all I'm going to do is basically make you take a piece. Sniff it. 

[00:44:44] Professor Sarah Berry: I pass it along?

[00:44:45] Spencer Hyman: Pass it along. And then I want you to do two things which are a little bit strange. 

So the first thing is before you eat chocolate, and this goes back to your point about cocoa butter being an amazing substance, because of the way that when you temper it, it basically melts in your mouth. You have to test that. And you test it by holding it up to your ear and snapping it.

And that snap should tell you that it's basically going to release all the flavor properly in your mouth and go.

Basically squeeze your nose tightly shut and drop a piece of chocolate on your tongue. You've been to a tasting before, Sarah, so you'll remember this. Suck it. Try and keep your mouth shut. I'm not going to.

But what you should now be able to do is maybe get a little bit of sweetness, a little bit of sourness, but you won't get much flavor. Now, if I basically count to three, and then I get you to release your nose and breathe in and out through your mouth as if you're in the Paris Olympics. One, two, three.

And suddenly, you should be accosted by an amazing raft of different aromas. and flavors. Because humans are unique in being able to detect flavor with our mouths. No other animals can do this. We basically can smell through our mouths. 

[00:45:49] Professor Sarah Berry: See, this is a bit more bitter than my Dairy Milk. 

[00:45:52] Spencer Hyman: We're now going to try one from India. So again, crafted in exactly the same way. Now, if you want to do the snap test again, that would be great.  

[00:45:59] Jonathan Wolf: Alright, I'm snapping. 

[00:46:02] Spencer Hyman: Suck it, very different flavors, yeah. So one of the great things actually with chocolate and with anything is to always basically have two of them on the go at the same time. 

[00:46:11] Professor Sarah Berry: I don't think this is as strong a flavor.

[00:46:14] Spencer Hyman: No, but wait for the wave to come through, because at the end, you may get slightly more caramelly and maybe slightly more nutty notes. 

[00:46:20] Professor Sarah Berry: But normally I would have swallowed it by now, Spencer. 

[00:46:22] Spencer Hyman: So that's the secret, is to get you to slow down. So if you slow down and you focus on the flavor, it has two benefits.

One of which is, it's like learning to sort of play a musical instrument. You will just enjoy it more, 

[00:46:32] Jonathan Wolf: We should describe a little bit though for the listeners who aren't having the pleasure of it, right? 

Which is that there is a lot of complexity to the taste, isn't there Sarah? So when you stop for a minute, unlike just getting that hit of sort of sugar and quite a simple chocolate taste, there's a richness to these chocolates. Which having had chocolate shipped by Spencer for quite a few years now, I definitely do appreciate in the way in which I never did at the beginning.

So I think there is something a bit like when you first drank a beer or a wine or a coffee or whatever right, it tastes disgusting the first time and then as you start to get used to it. You not only start to realize that you know coffees tastes different or beer tastes different.

I definitely think that the same thing is true with the chocolate and particularly true as you reduce the amount of sugar in it, because then it's less overwhelmed by the sugar taste and you start to notice the chocolate more. 

[00:47:22] Professor Sarah Berry: It has a length. So if I compare it to my grocery retail Dairy Milk, I'll have a lot bigger mouthful than that, I can tell you.

And then my sense that, okay, I love the texture of it, but then a minute later, I need to have more because there isn't the taste. But I can still taste now, and even though I've had a sip of water. The one that you gave me, probably four minutes ago, I can still taste it in my mouth. 

[00:47:46] Spencer Hyman: And that's, again, back to your magical cocoa butter, and a little bit to do with tannins too.

But I think what you're describing, and you both instinctively grasped and got to those words, which is, there's a wonderful concept which is called BLIC, which is balance, length, intensity, complexity. And in a way that's what you want in any food or any olive oil. What's fascinating about flavor and people is that actually just with a little bit of practice, people get really, really good at it.

[00:48:12] Jonathan Wolf: Do you know someone who craves sugary chocolate bars? Someone who might not know there's a healthier option, go ahead and share this episode with them right now. You'll empower them with the latest scientific advice, and I'm sure they'll thank you. 

[00:48:28] Spencer Hyman: Right, Sarah, I feel now that I should basically give you your treat.

So this is a dark chocolate, again made by Standout. This time it's basically the same as the last chocolate you had, but it's a dark milk. So it's 60% cocoa, and then as a sweetener, it's primarily the milk powder. So I'm hoping that this is going to get you. It should be quite unctuous and rich.

[00:48:51] Professor Sarah Berry: This is whether you've converted me or not. 

[00:48:54] Spencer Hyman: This one is, I have to say that this is not the one that I would have used to convert you. I think I'm going to have to reach into my bag and try and find a couple of others. 

[00:49:00] Professor Sarah Berry: I'm a difficult one. 

[00:49:01] Spencer Hyman: No, I can definitely get you. We'll get you back to another tasting.

[00:49:04] Professor Sarah Berry: It's softer, which is what I like. 

[00:49:06] Spencer Hyman: You're gonna like the milk. The other thing which we talked a little bit about the bliss point, which everyone goes on about, but actually I think sensory-specific satiety and texture is incredibly important. 

Now, would you like to see how well we've trained your taste buds by now getting you to have a supermarket dark chocolate? And you will immediately see what a difference it is. 

So this is Bourneville, which is one of the U.K.'s leading dark chocolates. It's actually only 39% chocolate. One of you can actually have a look at the ingredients list, and you will be, intrigued to see all those lovely ultra-processed ingredients inside it.

[00:49:38] Jonathan Wolf: Oh, it's disgusting. 

[00:49:40] Spencer Hyman: Okay, but now we're training you. Now, I'm going to do something which we do at all of our tastings. I'm going to say a word to you, and I'm going to see whether or not you can identify this flavor. 

You will never see this written about Bournville, if you Google it or anything else like that. What's the flavor you get from it? 

[00:49:55] Professor Sarah Berry: No, I need another piece. 

[00:49:57] Spencer Hyman: Keep going. 

[00:49:57] Professor Sarah Berry: Do you want another piece? 

[00:49:58] Jonathan Wolf: No.

[00:49:58] Spencer Hyman: But you don't like it because it just goes up and down. It hasn't got any balance. It hasn't got any length. It hasn't got any intensity. No depth. No complexity. So I'm going to say the word coconut to you.

[00:50:07] Professor Sarah Berry: Just tastes weird. 

[00:50:08] Spencer Hyman: Just tastes of sugar. 

[00:50:09] Jonathan Wolf: I was going to say, it's like sugar and 

[00:50:12] Spencer Hyman: Powder.

[00:50:13] Professor Sarah Berry: Spencer, can I ask you a question related to this chocolate? So you said this is a dark chocolate, but it's got about 30% solids. Are there not regulations in the U.K. and the U.S. around at what percent solids it's allowed to be called a dark chocolate?

[00:50:29] Spencer Hyman: Yes, but they're incredibly low. 

[00:50:30] Jonathan Wolf: So how much sugar is in that? 

[00:50:32] Spencer Hyman: Well, this is 39%. So I'll read you the ingredients. Sugar, emulsifiers, soy lecithin, E476, skimmed milk powder, etc. But it is advertised as a dark chocolate. 

[00:50:43] Jonathan Wolf: And so my big reaction is just it's 60% sugar, and I'm used to maybe 20% sugar in my chocolate, which is why I had this sort of…

[00:50:51] Spencer Hyman: It's not just that, it's also the way in which it's been made.

[00:50:53] Jonathan Wolf: Because you're saying it's very, very processed, so it's lost all the flavors of the chocolate.

[00:50:56] Spencer Hyman:  It won't have the wonderful cocoa butter, which produces flavor in a completely different way. It could have been pulverized, I'm not sure exactly how they make it. Some chocolate is definitely pulverized using hydraulic presses and then reconstituted, in which case, as Sarah was saying earlier, they won't have the same fiber benefits, or it's thought not to have the same fiber benefits, et cetera.

But what's interesting is that even if you take, sort of, you know, what people sort of think as being, sort of, you know…

[00:51:19] Professor Sarah Berry: Oh, this is one of my favorites. 

[00:51:20] Spencer Hyman: OK, so we're going to basically try a Lindt, which is the dark chocolate. Now, one of the most difficult things to explain to people is how a dark chocolate can contain milk powder, but it's used as a bulking agent, so when you look at the ingredients here, you will see that it actually has some milk powder inside it.

[00:51:34] Professor Sarah Berry: And this has added sea salt, which is why I like this one. 

[00:51:37] Spencer Hyman: Because again, what salt does is it basically hides the bitterness. So if we just take a little bit of this, but again, what I want you to try and do is basically focus on the BLIC. 

[00:51:48] Professor Sarah Berry: And what percent is this?

[00:51:49] Spencer Hyman: I think this is 69% or 70% or something like that.

When you look at the packaging, you're looking for not just the ingredients, you're also looking for where did the beans come from and where's it been crafted. So what you won't discover is either of those facts on the packaging. Basically because they can't really explain it. 

[00:52:05] Professor Sarah Berry: See, I like the texture of that.

[00:52:06] Spencer Hyman: Milk. You like the milkiness. That's the reason why they put the milk in it. 

[00:52:09] Professor Sarah Berry: But I can't taste the salt now. Strange. 

[00:52:12] Spencer Hyman: But I'd like you to go back now to basically trying the proper milk. 

[00:52:19] Jonathan Wolf: What are we eating now, Spencer? 

[00:52:22] Spencer Hyman: We're back to the dark milk. Because I think I've got Sarah. So Sarah is one of those people who's very interesting. You're into texture and then you go into the flavors. 

[00:52:29] Professor Sarah Berry: Oh I like this one. Have I had this already? 

[00:52:31] Spencer Hyman: Yeah, you've already had it. So that's the one that you said I haven't quite sold you.

[00:52:35] Professor Sarah Berry: But it's a bit, I can taste the aftertaste of the hotel creamery as I call it.

[00:52:40] Spencer Hyman: Yeah, you can taste the chocolate. But now you can taste the flavor. 

[00:52:42] Professor Sarah Berry: Yeah. 

[00:52:43] Spencer Hyman: So you see, this is the great trick that all humans have got this amazing ability. There's no other animal, which basically can get flavor in our mouths, or there's one weird deer which can do it. And flavor as well as looking at the package is one of the ways that you can actually tell if a food's going to be healthy or not.

[00:52:57] Professor Sarah Berry: I like doing the taste testing where it's about the relativity of it. You know, everything when it comes to food I think is relative. And it's all about, also, instead of what, in place of what. And I think this is a great way of doing this in terms of the flavor as well.  

[00:53:13] Jonathan Wolf: So has Spencer managed to convince you to make any changes to your chocolate habits, Sarah?

[00:53:17] Spencer Hyman:  Or have I got to send you some more chocolates? 

[00:53:19] Professor Sarah Berry: He has to send me some more chocolates. 

[00:53:21] Spencer Hyman: See, I was basically trying to avoid any difficulties. So we've got some more chocolates for you here for later.  

[00:53:27] Professor Sarah Berry: You have convinced me that dark chocolate can be nice. 

[00:53:33] Spencer Hyman: And the flavor is a good way of getting into health.

Well, I think you've always said that. I mean, I've learned a lot from you on that and the bioavailability and everything else. 

[00:53:40] Professor Sarah Berry: But I realize there are certain textures I prefer than others. 

[00:53:46] Jonathan Wolf: The thing I'm struck by is that I've been on a bit of a journey with Spencer, who I've known for a long time for probably four or so years.

And so when I first started off, I had an incredibly sweet tooth before I started ZOE. And so I'll be happily eating all the things I'm saying are disgusting, and I'll be like, this is all delicious, you know. Of course, it's got to have a little more than 50% sugar. And interestingly, you know, I started and I thought a 70% chocolate felt really dark and bitter.

And now I'm regularly eating 80 to 90% chocolate and I've got more and more addicted actually to the chocolate taste and flavor. So remarkably, I can now eat a 90% chocolate and really enjoy and I think I love all the flavors and like the taste of it.

It's sort of been a journey and I think it's a bit like when you get into coffee or you get into beer and it all seems disgusting to start with. And then before you know it, you are this really weird, really flavorful sort of hoppy beer or whatever so there is definitely a path there. 

Now I always say to Spencer that I can quite happily eat an entire craft bar of chocolate, even 80%. But I have to admit that you are quite full because there's a lot of fiber in that, isn't there, Sarah?

[00:54:57] Professor Sarah Berry: Yeah, I must say, I couldn't eat much more than what we've just eaten of the chocolate. I've had enough of it now.  

[00:55:03] Jonathan Wolf: But the truth is, that is still tiny, isn't it, compared to a Hershey's bar.

[00:55:08] Professor Sarah Berry: Oh give me a Dairy Milk or a Hershey's, a hundred grams has gone in minutes. 

[00:55:12] Spencer Hyman: So that's the fascinating thing. When we do a tasting, basically, we discover that you have ten bars, you have a couple of grams of each one, so you have less than 20, 30 grams, and by the end of it, nobody wants to go out to dinner. 

And similarly, our subscription, it's four full-size bars, That will last many couples a month. 

[00:55:28] Professor Sarah Berry: I think, Jonathan, something that I'd like to reiterate is, the more I've heard Spencer, the more I've also been reading up about chocolate, about cocoa, about the health benefits.

I really think that we need to not put it all together into one food group. That we need to think of the health benefits of particular kinds of chocolate versus other kinds of chocolate.

But also we do need to consider the different price points, we do need to consider people's different preferences. And I think that Spencer has convinced me, and I'm quite a hard person to convince that yes there's some benefits of giving it a go and seeing how your tastes develop.

I would say, yes, everyone to give it a go, but there will be some people that just don't like this and I think, fine, if they don't like it, stick to the other chocolate, if that's what you want to do. But eat it knowing that it does not have the benefit that some of these other chocolates have and I think that's the key thing to make sure people are aware of.

[00:56:30] Jonathan Wolf: Brilliant. Spencer, Sarah, thank you so much. I'll just do a quick summary. 

I think the biggest thing is if you think about health, you want dark chocolate, you're talking about 75% or something like that level in order to access it. 

It needs to be prepared in a way that is actually keeping all of that amazing complexity from this original cocoa bean. So if it's made by some company that doesn't even tell you which country it's coming from and all the rest of it, and you can see something on the back of the pack that isn't chocolate and sugar, you should be skeptical. 

The reason why it works is because complex. And you've mentioned all these polyphenols in particular. Flavanols is a sort of polyphenol that seems very important as well as the fiber. 

But also because the fat in chocolate is something magical and it's not just magical because it melts in your mouth, which is magic, but also because it looks on the outside like it should be as bad as the fat in red meat, but actually it doesn't have any bad impact on our cholesterol. It's a sort of neutral fat. 

[00:57:31] Professor Sarah Berry: Yes, although I wouldn't say it's a good fat, i.e. if you were to compare it to extra virgin olive oil, it's worse than extra virgin olive oil, but I'm saying based on what you would expect for saturated fat content, a really important point of clarification. 

[00:57:45] Jonathan Wolf: Understood. So we should really be doing a shot of olive oil after dinner, but if we've got to have chocolate, then it's the dark chocolate to go with.

But there's a huge variability in response. Brand new studies which suggest that the microbiome is really important. So I'm now hoping that I have the special chocolate bugs in my gut that I managed to extract the best from it. And I believe that having trained hard for the last few years that I must have it.

That white chocolate might taste great, but it's definitely not gonna give you those same health benefits because it's just got the sort of the fat in it. It's removed the rest. 

And that the reason why you don't eat this dark chocolate in the same way that you eat this mass-produced chocolate, Spencer something you talked about is this bliss point idea that they've got the sugar and the salt and the fat all together in just this right amount that means that Sarah's describing she could be sitting there and just eat this massive bar without almost noticing.

Whereas most of these chocolates, actually, they aren't at that sort of exact combination. So we eat much less, which is why you described that actually you could have one of these craft chocolates and eat it over many days. 

[00:58:53] Spencer Hyman: Absolutely brilliant. Save up, to save the planet, don't scoff. If you're scoffing, you know you've got a problem.

[00:58:59] Jonathan Wolf: Brilliant. Thank you both so much for this adventure through chocolate. 

[00:59:02] Professor Sarah Berry: Thank you. Thank you for all the chocolate Spencer.

[00:59:05] Spencer Hyman: Well you’re going to take them home with you, I hope. I have to send you some more milks now just to try and sort of find your bliss point. 

[00:59:09] Jonathan Wolf: I'm going to eat them all right now. 

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As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolf. ZOE Science and Nutrition is produced by Julie Pinero, Sam Durham, and Richard Willan. The ZOE Science and Nutrition podcast is not medical advice, and if you have any medical concerns, please consult your doctor. See you next time.