Nestle Discovers 'Breakthrough' Method To Cut Sugar In Chocolate By 40% Without Affecting Taste (theguardian.com)

Nestle and its scientists have discovered how to "structure sugar differently" to reduce the amount of sugar in some of its products by 40%. What's more is that it can be done reportedly without compromising the taste. The Guardian reports: The new process is said to make sugar dissolve faster so that even when less is used, the tongue perceives an identical level of sweetness. It plans to patent the process, discovered by its scientists, which it says will enable it to significantly decrease the total sugar in its confectionery products. A four-finger milk chocolate Kit Kat currently contains 23.8g of sugar, a plain (milk chocolate) Yorkie contains 26.9g and a medium peppermint Aero has 24.9g of sugar. If the amount of sugar in each of these products was cut by 40% the new amounts would be 14.3g, 16.1g and 14.9g respectively.

Comments

Like all their other "no change" changes

[linear a]

Like all their other "no flavor change" changes to their chocolate over the decades. This will just cheapen it a little bit more. They used to have good chocolate (maybe I'm showing my age with that remark) but it's bilge now. “There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper." John Ruskin

Re:Texture?

[aXis100]

The main textural components in chocolate come from the cocoa mass and cocoa butter.

Creaminess comes from particle size, and the cocoa mass (and sugar) spends hours and hours in conching mills to get it around 20-30 micron. The mixed chocolate then spends a long time in tempering circuits to promote the right crystal size in cocoa butter fatty acids.

on the other hand ...

[swell]

Many years ago I learned about 'left handed sugar'. This, apparently was a regular sugar molecule, except that it was a mirror image. The beauty of it was that it tasted exactly like sugar but the body didn't know what to do with it so it passed through without harm. Perfect for diabetics, fat people and those who want to preserve their brain cells!

Yeah, I really didn't want to look it up and you probably don't either, so the answer to your question is: it's very expensive to synthesize. The actual question may take some time to calculate.

Re:or how about less sugar anyways?

[Zontar The Mindless]

After living overseas for 15+ years, I've found I can no longer eat American chocolate--it's about 3x as sweet as chocolate made anywhere else. It's like trying to drink a cup of coffee with about 6 spoons of sugar in it. Gross.