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Nestle says it will cut sugar in chocolate by 40%

Alex3917 10y ago
Does this faster-dissolving sugar have a higher glycemic index, and if so, how does that affect glycemic load?
- GordonS 10y ago
  This is a great point. If the glycemic index has drastically increased, then this could actually be worse for your blood sugar levels than the original quantity of 'actual' sugar.
  - refurb 10y ago
    The glycemic index of chocolate is not that high. The fat content of the chocolate delays stomach emptying and absorption of the sugar.
  - weego 10y ago
    Unless you have diabetes markers, glycemic index is almost entirely irrelevant, it's like people that avoid gluten/lactose who aren't intolerant. Studies that made links to glycemic load to overall health have largely since been found invalid. example of newer studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4370345/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4370345/
    - cowpewter 10y ago
      It's still valuable to know. I am a diabetic, and so are a lot of other people. I would choose lower-sugar chocolate if it were available (I don't eat anything but plain dark chocolate now but I do miss Kit-Kats), but if it were actually worse for my glycemic control than the regular Kit-Kat bar, I'm not doing myself any favors.
    - yourapostasy 10y ago
      Thank you for that link. That study period of 5 weeks is not nearly enough to evaluate high versus low glycemic index diets upon metabolic syndrome. All the study showed was no acute impacts (good to know, but not conclusive enough for prescriptive direction). After finding that out from the study linked to, I tried to find a study that tracked glycemic index in meals of participants over 1-5 years, but couldn't come up with any, so if you know of any to link to, I would really appreciate it.
    - acchow 10y ago
      Is this also like avoiding high sodium foods when you have no heart problems?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- heisenbit 10y ago
  Good question. This is what they say: > The new faster dissolving sugar will enable Nestlé to significantly reduce the total sugar in its confectionery products, while maintaining great taste. I suspect GI not much. Sugar is dissolving fast - in any case - that by the time it hits the gut it is ready to be absorbed (once it has been split into glucose-fructose). I wonder if the glucose-fructose split is happening already earlier in the mouth possibly the sweets could taste sweeter (fructose tastes sweeter than sugar). That would be equivalent to turning sugar into HFCS with 50% fructose in the mouth - may taste slightly sweeter. In the end what could matter if this is an indication that Nestle has set course on lowering sugar content in food. Iff
  - cestith 10y ago
    As far as I'm concerned most large-scale commercial chocolates like KitKat could do with 40% less sugar, period. Making it just as sweet with less sugar still makes it just as sweet.
- agentgt 10y ago
  The only way would be to test as glycemic index (but especially glycemic response) varies wildly based on what is packed along with the ride (in some ironic cases fats and proteins raise glycemic response and in others lowers it). Also in practice individuals glycemic response is more complicated than most might think and often times the index number has little correlation (you have to remember the index number is done for a fasted individual... most people eat multiple things during a meal). Finally dissolving fast does not mean it necessarily will absorb or produce a great response. After all sugar alcohols and glycerin readily dissolve quickly in water but have little impact on insulin (albeit perhaps on sensitivity but that is another complicated story). My bigger concern isn't the insulin but the fact that sugar actually has an affect on the brain similar to drugs. New sugars could have a greater addictive impact.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Glycerine is a sugar alcohol.
    - agentgt 10y ago
      Touche. Yes I perhaps should have said sugar alcohols such as glycerine. I'm not sure why I said "and" probably because I think of glycerine is not as sweet I was thinking of maltitol. For example calling glycerine a sugar alcohol is sort of akin to calling cholesterol a steroid or certain vegetables a fruits. It might actually be the pedantic case but I just don't think of glycerine like that.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        Always remember that technically correct is the best kind of correct. And repeat it frequently, so that others don't forget. And to imply that you are very frequently technically correct. And to backhandedly excuse yourself for injecting barely-relevant-but-indisputably-true facts into other people's conversations.~ You can also call it glycerol, if that helps. It helps me to not hear the alt-rock song by Bush every time I'm thinking of the chemical. Glycerol may not taste as sweet as maltitol or sorbitol, but it won't make your bowels explode as violently, either. And it makes your low-sugar baking feel less dry.
overcast 10y ago
Pretty clever way of reducing the amount, by increasing the rate by which it dissolves. Sounds like a win for both the business side(cheaper costs), and consumer(less sugar consumption).
bluejekyll 10y ago
Will it actually have an effect on weight gain and health? They've been showing for instance that things like Diet Coke actually don't help people lose weight, b/c of many other factors in the way the body responds to fake sugars. Will this be similar?
- antidaily 10y ago
  No.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if people just start eating more of this chocolate because it is perceived as less unhealthy, thus negating the health benefits.
- CoryG89 10y ago
  Generally the reasons they think that these diet drinks don't help you lose weight is because they believe the artificial sweeteners used will effect you in some way that sugar doesn't cancelling out any other benefits it has. Presumably, they won't be replacing this reduced sugar with an artificial sweetener.
- bkmartin 10y ago
  Generally, people who switch from regular to diet soda only lose a pound or two when all things are considered. The research has shown that the big deal with switching is that you stop gaining weight. I'll refer you to Aaron Caroll's most recent explanation(rant) from YESTERDAY... https://youtu.be/znh58FZjXt0?t=663 https://youtu.be/znh58FZjXt0?t=663
binarymax 10y ago
There isn't any technical information in the article, but what does "a way to structure sugar differently" mean? Do they mean change it from being sucrose to some other compound?
- CoryG89 10y ago
  There is a link to the Nestle announcement in the article. Doesn't contain much more information but it does say: > Using only natural ingredients, Nestlé researchers have found a way to structure sugar differently. > Our scientists have discovered a completely new way to use a traditional, natural ingredient. No link to the patent application that I can find though. : / http://www.nestle.com/media/news/nestle-research-discovery-sugar-reduction http://www.nestle.com/media/news/nestle-research-discovery-s...
  - cowpewter 10y ago
    :( I mean, isn't technically sucralose (splenda) just a "different way to structure sugar" in that they tack a few chlorines on it?
    - uremog 10y ago
      And "natural" can mean a whole lot of things.
  - JadeNB 10y ago
    momeara (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080704) dug up a link to the patent: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2016173929 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20... .
joemaller1 10y ago
> Its scientists altered the structure of sugar so that it dissolves more quickly. So... powdered sugar?
- stronglikedan 10y ago
  I wouldn't think so. There's a noticeable difference between granulated sugar and powdered sugar to the palate. This new method claims to not affect the taste, so I would think it's something at the molecular level.
- Raphmedia 10y ago
  News articles are saying that the sugar will be "hollow", so there's as much sugar particles that will reach your tongue but they will dissolve very quickly and be less dense. Anyone has more information on the science of it?
  - miguelrochefort 10y ago
    That's actually a great idea. It's crazy to think that we eat food that's densely packed with sugar, yet only a fraction of it gets in contact with the tongue. I wonder if they could design a beverage where the sugar somehow stays on the outside.
    - Raphmedia 10y ago
      I guess that's why we drink fizzy and creamy drinks so much! Personally I think that the future is in manipulating the taste buds themselves. Did you ever hear about the "magic fruits" Synsepalum dulcificum? It's a fruit that has molecules that binds to the tongue. The result is that anything sour will taste like sugar. Lemons will taste like candy. Pop a pill before drinking a bitter non-sugary drink and there you go, you are drinking sugar taste without any sugar!
  - Groxx 10y ago
    > News articles are saying that the sugar will be "hollow" ... So... jet-puffed sugar?
GordonS 10y ago
What will they replace the reduced mass with, to bulk up the product so it doesn't appear smaller? My guess is it sure as hell won't be actual cocoa :/ [1] [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ihtAGGkUggJ:https://www.ft.com/content/9e71ebe2-ab56-11e6-9cb3-bb8207902122+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ihtAG...
- sdegutis 10y ago
  My guess is artificial sweetener, which by technicalities gets to say it's safer than it really is because of number-rounding laws. Or something?
  - CoryG89 10y ago
    I think the idea is that they can now remove 40% of the sugar and still achieve the same sweetness with no other sweeteners needed.
    - sdegutis 10y ago
      I guess I'm more cynical and skeptical of businesses which only have financial incentives in mind to do "good" things like this, but no ethical incentives.
      - themckman 10y ago
        What is an ethical incentive?
        ionised 10y ago
        Nothing that Nestle is familar with.
    - fritzw 10y ago
      If they remove 40% of the sugar they have to replace it with 40% of something else. Candy is sold by weight. Removing the sugar only solves part of the problem
danvoell 10y ago
Is this just called dark chocolate? Kidding aside, I'm hoping they don't replace it with some sort of chemical sweetener, I'm always suspicious of sugar replacements.
- xeromal 10y ago
  It's not a replacement. The 60% remaining is just tastier to your mouth.
- Alex_Butters 10y ago
  you realize every sweetener is a chemical, right? What if they replace sugar with sugar? There are tons of types of sugars that can replace one another. Lots of sweeteners actually come from plants and microbes.
transfire 10y ago
They need to fix the taste, all their candy bars taste like nothing but sugar these days.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dbg31415 10y ago
  I wonder how much of that is due to "arms race" marketing and focus groups. The current generations... our taste buds are shot, we're accustomed to so much sugar in things and HUGE portions. You can have sugar in smaller portions (like Coke, when it came out in 1886 was sold in a 6.5 oz size), and you could probably have larger healthier portions... but the mix is pretty unhealthy. Current generations are kind of ruined... taught to look for bigger and bigger candy bars, trained to like sweeter and sweeter things... how do we keep these toxic preferences from harming future generations? And... what can we do for ourselves? Cutting subsidies on sugar producers... seems like Step 1.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    You know McDonald's 'kids mean' burger? With the 'small fries'? That was McDonald's 'original burger' :) Everything beyond that is 'super size'.
blakesterz 10y ago
>> "A patent is a double-edged sword. Although it protects what you have done it also tells your rivals about it." Maybe this isn't all the big of a deal for what it does to chocolate but if it is used to reduce sugar in other things that are consumed in large quantities (soda?) it could mean less sugar, fewer calories, less carbs and all those good things.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  A patent is more like a nuke, everyone looses.
- CoryG89 10y ago
  Here's hoping that their patent will only apply to chocolate or candy. I would be surprised though.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  Given that they're making sugar that dissolves more quickly, how would this have any effect on soda? In which the sugar is already dissolved.
tonycoco 10y ago
Now I can eat 40% more Nestle chocolate! America!
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  It's actually 67% more chocolate: 1.67 * 0.6 = 1.
- rjain15 10y ago
  Or I can use the same concentrated chocolate paste for other medicinal purposes. http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-812-cocoa.aspx?activeingredientid=812& http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-812...
zwieback 10y ago
Sugar in food has functions other than sweetening, I wonder how this will affect texture, mouthfeel, moisture and shelf life.
petra 10y ago
DouxMatok uses a different principle for the same result, of covering a particle with sugar molecules in a way that increases the sugar surface and thus increase sweetness by 30%-100%. http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Flavour-delivery-particle-can-cut-sugar-by-half-and-is-cheaper-than-sugar http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Flavour-delivery-... I'm curious if both methods could be combined.
hash-set 10y ago
Nestle and Hershey have already turned their products into nothing but shit, so to keep trying to push the envelope sounds exactly like how cable thought they could jam more commercials into the programming and nobody would notice. These stupid MBAs all get their educations from the same few idiots, I guess. Pretty sad that business circa 2016 is just "another pickle from the jar" tricks instead of adding real value into products.
- imjustsaying 10y ago
  I disagree that there is no value added here. Sugar consumption has a public health impact comparable to smoking, alcohol, and air pollution. Even as an individual I seek out things with the least amount of sugar possible. Just ask anyone who switched from regular soda to diet how much value they found by fooling their taste buds.
dbg31415 10y ago
Try the new Nestle chocolates, now 40% smaller!
momeara 10y ago
Here is patent [1]. The key idea is to add a glucosyltransferase from Lactobacillus, which consumes simple sugars and produces complex sugars. It is not clear to me that this will be beneficial for human health. [1] https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf;jsessionid=71B661B463561D0C0F31EE2E222E7487.wapp1nC?docId=WO2016173929&recNum=10&maxRec=3456&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=Pub+Date+Desc&queryString=nestec+sugar&tab=PCTDescription https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf;jsessionid...
- Drdrdrq 10y ago
  This! Sugar at least has known side effects. :-/
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    > Lactobacillus Chances are, you're already eating them in dairy. It's not like we understand the 'side effects' of most things we eat. Any plant or fruit or fermented product you eat is made up of thousands of compounds, almost none of which have been tested for their effects in isolation. (But, you know, I'm pretty confident candy bars are bad for you. This change will not make them any better.)
- pinot 10y ago
  This patent is actually really interesting. Up until now, most exogenous enzyme treatments in food production have been catabolic. This anabolic idea is something I haven't thought would be possible. Table 7 is really the tell-all. Starting with 270g sucrose, the sucrose is converted into Fructose and higher sugars. Only 180g of the sucrose is accounted fo rin that table, meaning the other 90g of sucrose is made into something even higher than they show in the table.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  Thanks for digging that up! Incidentally, most of that link is worthless except to follow your path to it; only the docId is needed: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2016173929 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...
jzig 10y ago
Of course they'll pass the savings on to the consumer, right?
- pipio21 10y ago
  Well, given than cocoa is way more expensive than sugar is...
  - jzig 10y ago
    But they're not adding any more cocoa are they?
verelo 10y ago
My initial reaction was "Great!", then i shared this with my partner and her response was "Fuck nestle. They are just saying what people want to hear" Thinking more critically, I share her concern. The way they've been buying water away from local towns makes me think they just need a positive PR spin to distract us from the real issues. * http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/23/boycott-nestle-water_n_12157042.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/23/boycott-nestle-water...
- huherto 10y ago
  I don't get this outrage over Nestle bottle water. The amount of water that is bottled for human consumption must be minuscule compared with many other usages like household, agricultural and industrial. Furthermore, it is not like the water is wasted. It is actual consumed by humans who live not too far from the place where the water was bottled.
  - mhalle 10y ago
    At the risk of continuing off-topic, the "outrage" over Nestle bottled water in this case was due to Nestle starting to draw large amounts of water at about 1/100th the residential water cost from an region under mandatory water restrictions due to drought. Blame Nestle and/or the local government, but it does seem short-sighted and suboptimal. In general, though, bottled water isn't consumed close to its generation point: it's packaged in plastic bottles and trucked away. There's an environmental cost. And many of the bottles that are consumed locally contain the same water people could have gotten straight from the tap, so the environmental cost is lower but more pointless.
    - greenshackle2 10y ago
      I agree they should pay the full price, and that bottled water is wasteful, but 4 million litres per day is not a large amount. It's equivalent to the daily consumption of around 8000 people. Or equivalent to the water needed to irrigate a laughably small farm.
sitkack 10y ago
I trust Nestle about as far as I can throw them. Will swap sugar for uranium mine tailings, water rights contracts or dead babies.
quadrangle 10y ago
> It claims this can be done without affecting the taste. Ugh, and I was about to be excited that I'd really actually be into these chocolate bars again if they were actually less sweet. Oh well. And patenting? Screw them.
rogual 10y ago
Does anybody care what a company this size says anymore? What relation does PR spin like this even have to reality? They'll do whatever they need to do to make money and say whatever half-truths make them sound good. This is a non-story.
malkia 10y ago
NESTLE: I'm not chemist, biologist or nutritionist, but here is big chance to make something good for the world. If this patent is good for humans, and doesn't change taste much - SHARE IT! With today's social media, this would only bring more people to buy your products, than not.
tn13 10y ago
It might be actually a worse thing to do if they replace it with something else.
desbest 10y ago
It's the sugar that makes milk chocolate taste good, as cocoa powder has a sour taste. I expect Nestle to lose money due to this move.
ourmandave 10y ago
Aw, I'd planned to buy Christmas presents, but now I have to divert all that money (and garage space) to hoarding full sugar Wonka Bars. "Who can make the sunrise?..." Me, even 2 years on, that's who.
partycoder 10y ago
Well: - chocolate production is not sustainable right now - chocolate consumption is increasing Eventually cocoa will become a very expensive commodity.
e40 10y ago
I think this is a great move. I recently went on a low-sugar diet and after a while I went back to my favorite chocolate bar from Trader Joe's. I was appalled how sweet it was and I really can't eat it anymore.
politician 10y ago
The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service recently released its biannual report on sugar, "Sugar: World Markets and Trade". > Global production for 2016/17 is up 5 million metric tons (raw value) to 171 million as gains in Brazil and the European Union and most of the top 25 producers more than offset declines in India and Thailand. Global raw sugar monthly average prices, after falling for over a year and bottoming at less than 11 cents per pound in August 2015, have been trending higher to near 23 cents in October 2016. Despite high prices, consumption is forecast at a record 174 million tons, drawing stocks down to the lowest level since 2010/11. The global sugar deficit narrows from 6.7 million tons in 2015/16 to a forecast 2.6 million. That the price of sugar has doubled over the past year amid shrinking stocks probably explains why Nestle is interested in cutting their use of the ingredient. [1] https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/Sugar.pdf https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/Sugar.pdf
afandian 10y ago
It's cute of them to care about the health of consumers but I'm more concerned about the health of the people that harvest the ingredients. If they really wanted to they could stop using child slave labour.
- Veratyr 10y ago
  Do you have evidence that Nestlé purchases sugar that was produced through child labour? They claim to source the majority of their sugar from Brazil, Mexico and India [0] while the main instances I could find of child labour in sugar production were in the Phillipines, El Salvador and Nicaragua. [0]: http://www.nestle.com/csv/rural-development-responsible-sourcing/responsible-sourcing/sugar http://www.nestle.com/csv/rural-development-responsible-sour...
  - afandian 10y ago
    From Nestle themselves. > No company sourcing cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire can guarantee they have completely removed the risk of children working on small farms in their supply chain. Nestlé is no different, but we are determined to tackle the problem. http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle-child-labour-supply-chains http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle... They have been in business for years. If they wanted to stop in the past, they could, overnight. It would be expensive, but only because of their entrenched business model which they had a hand in establishing.
    - kretor 10y ago
      Even farm products from the US often times are produced with the help of children: "US child labor laws allow child farm workers to work longer hours, at younger ages, and under more hazardous conditions than other working youths. While children in other sectors must be 12 to be employed and cannot work more than 3 hours on a school day, in agriculture, children can work at age 12 for unlimited hours before and after school." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United...
WalterBright 10y ago
I'd buy beef jerky if it wasn't soaked in corn syrup. I examined every brand, and they all soak it. Even bread has so much syrup it tastes like cake to me. I'd buy more chocolate if it was less sweet.
- alirov 10y ago
  I'm not sure about other brands but I just looked at the bag of Krave jerky I have in front of me and they don't use any corn syrup. Their website [1] confirms it. [1] https://www.kravejerky.com/about https://www.kravejerky.com/about
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  Uh, what brands are you looking at? In addition to my sibling who addressed jerky, I generally buy Arnold's/Orowheat bread and it has no corn syrup whatsoever.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    The ones at several grocery stores.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    I checked all of the brands at the store today. Oberto, Krave, Matador, Golden Island, Jack Links, Tillamook, and World Kitchens all list sugar as the 2nd agreement. I haven't looked at them in years, evidently they've switched from corn syrup to sugar.
wkoszek 10y ago
Eh, I remember the days when if I wanted less sugar, I'd just use less sugar, and the word "engineering" and "patenting" wouldn't be right for the food discussion.
andr 10y ago
Read the news with a grain of salt (ahem), as sugar prices have gone up 2x in the past year. http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=sugar&months=120 http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=sugar&month...
- copperx 10y ago
  Ah, the old "follow the money" advice still holds true.
l3m0ndr0p 10y ago
This is great! I wonder how much chocolate they've cut out of their products over the years, especially since they have removed cocoa butter from their products too.
inDigiNeous 10y ago
You should definitely boycott Nestle. They are for example aggressively pushing baby milk replacements for newborns in developing countries: more info here:http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree#evidence http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree#evidence "Nestlé promotes its baby milk around the world with the claim such as it is the ‘natural start’, ‘gentle start’ and ‘protects’ babies. In truth, babies fed on formula are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and, in conditions of poverty, more likely to die. Nestlé has promised to drop the ‘natural start’ claim by mid-2015 following pressure from the campaign, but not the others." Also, they have been calling for privatization and taking away water as a basic human right, instead wanting to sell people water in bottles. Here's a list of Nestle products to boycott: http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestle-boycott-list http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestle-boycott-list It contains some surprising ones, like San Pellegrino which is considered to be a high quality water.
- nashashmi 10y ago
  Poland Spring and Deer Park water are not on there. And obviously Nestle purelife water is not on there.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  I can follow that list no problem except for nespresso. The quality bang for the buck you get with those is so much better than the garbage that passes for coffee in a k-cup.
  - kolbe 10y ago
    It is pretty hard to be moral when soooo much is at stake.
    - inDigiNeous 10y ago
      :D Yeah companies like these strive on the fact that they have the power to purchase many, many companies and conquer markets from many directions. Sadly for example the popular Finnish Penguin icecream was bought by Nestle, but they didn't of course change the name, so many people maybe still believe that it's still being owned by Finnish companies. The product didn't change, so that's good, but now the money is going to a multinational company instead of a local one. So yeah, it's kinda difficult to avoid all of these.
godmodus 10y ago
Doesn't dilute the blood they've on their hands though
Dowwie 10y ago
In 2014, Nestle made $4.1 billion selling bottled water
- lamby 10y ago
  It's almost as if value is subjective and not objective... g
Happpy 10y ago
Sugar is the cheapest ingredient. Why would they replace it by more expensive ones?
- slaman 10y ago
  You might be able to sell more volume if it says '40% less sugar same great taste!'
qq66 10y ago
The strawberry is perhaps the best evidence that the physical layout of sugars matters tremendously. A fresh strawberry tastes incredibly sweet. But blend up a pound of those strawberries and it tastes wretched without added sugar. Since the strawberry has most of its sweetness on the outside, it tastes fine when you're biting into it directly but the blending exposes more of the tart inside.
andy_ppp 10y ago
>> Its scientists altered the structure of sugar so that it dissolves more quickly. Something tells me this is going to be like turning cocaine into crack. Apart from saving them money, I bet you find people selling their grandma's TV for a go on another KitKat. And yes; boycott Nestle for many reasons, mostly because all of their products are terrible for you or other people.
pacaro 10y ago
Ruhlman's "Ratio" is a good approach to this My peeve with the book is that he (IMHO correctly) tells the reader to use weights not volumes for dry ingredients, then in the entire rest of the book seems to promote/use volume measures. https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728 https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/...
formula_ninguna 10y ago
What's a problem not to consume chocolate at all? Instead of discussing what it really means to reduce sugar in it.
rtuin 10y ago
Is this to cover up their child labor palm oil situation? https://www.google.nl/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/30/kelloggs-unilever-nestle-child-labour-palm-oil-wilmar-amnesty?client=safari https://www.google.nl/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov...
Jean-Philipe 10y ago
I always wondered why there's so much sugar in everything. All of my friends, relatives and people I know think that everything is too sweet - cookies, cake, soup, lemonade, ice cream, you name it. Am I weird? Do people actually like the sugar? I just remember, one dad at a kids party once approached me and asked me "do you know why these cupcakes are so damn delicious? I've put TWICE the sugar that was on the recipe!" so yeah, I guess there are people who actually like it sweet... does anyone know of any data on this?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
poelzi 10y ago
I don't care, I only eat good chocolate

Does this faster-dissolving sugar have a higher glycemic index, and if so, how does that affect glycemic load?

GordonS 10y ago
This is a great point. If the glycemic index has drastically increased, then this could actually be worse for your blood sugar levels than the original quantity of 'actual' sugar.
- refurb 10y ago
  The glycemic index of chocolate is not that high. The fat content of the chocolate delays stomach emptying and absorption of the sugar.
- weego 10y ago
  Unless you have diabetes markers, glycemic index is almost entirely irrelevant, it's like people that avoid gluten/lactose who aren't intolerant. Studies that made links to glycemic load to overall health have largely since been found invalid. example of newer studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4370345/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4370345/
  - cowpewter 10y ago
    It's still valuable to know. I am a diabetic, and so are a lot of other people. I would choose lower-sugar chocolate if it were available (I don't eat anything but plain dark chocolate now but I do miss Kit-Kats), but if it were actually worse for my glycemic control than the regular Kit-Kat bar, I'm not doing myself any favors.
  - yourapostasy 10y ago
    Thank you for that link. That study period of 5 weeks is not nearly enough to evaluate high versus low glycemic index diets upon metabolic syndrome. All the study showed was no acute impacts (good to know, but not conclusive enough for prescriptive direction). After finding that out from the study linked to, I tried to find a study that tracked glycemic index in meals of participants over 1-5 years, but couldn't come up with any, so if you know of any to link to, I would really appreciate it.
  - acchow 10y ago
    Is this also like avoiding high sodium foods when you have no heart problems?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
heisenbit 10y ago
Good question. This is what they say: > The new faster dissolving sugar will enable Nestlé to significantly reduce the total sugar in its confectionery products, while maintaining great taste. I suspect GI not much. Sugar is dissolving fast - in any case - that by the time it hits the gut it is ready to be absorbed (once it has been split into glucose-fructose). I wonder if the glucose-fructose split is happening already earlier in the mouth possibly the sweets could taste sweeter (fructose tastes sweeter than sugar). That would be equivalent to turning sugar into HFCS with 50% fructose in the mouth - may taste slightly sweeter. In the end what could matter if this is an indication that Nestle has set course on lowering sugar content in food. Iff
- cestith 10y ago
  As far as I'm concerned most large-scale commercial chocolates like KitKat could do with 40% less sugar, period. Making it just as sweet with less sugar still makes it just as sweet.
agentgt 10y ago
The only way would be to test as glycemic index (but especially glycemic response) varies wildly based on what is packed along with the ride (in some ironic cases fats and proteins raise glycemic response and in others lowers it). Also in practice individuals glycemic response is more complicated than most might think and often times the index number has little correlation (you have to remember the index number is done for a fasted individual... most people eat multiple things during a meal). Finally dissolving fast does not mean it necessarily will absorb or produce a great response. After all sugar alcohols and glycerin readily dissolve quickly in water but have little impact on insulin (albeit perhaps on sensitivity but that is another complicated story). My bigger concern isn't the insulin but the fact that sugar actually has an affect on the brain similar to drugs. New sugars could have a greater addictive impact.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Glycerine is a sugar alcohol.
  - agentgt 10y ago
    Touche. Yes I perhaps should have said sugar alcohols such as glycerine. I'm not sure why I said "and" probably because I think of glycerine is not as sweet I was thinking of maltitol. For example calling glycerine a sugar alcohol is sort of akin to calling cholesterol a steroid or certain vegetables a fruits. It might actually be the pedantic case but I just don't think of glycerine like that.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Always remember that technically correct is the best kind of correct. And repeat it frequently, so that others don't forget. And to imply that you are very frequently technically correct. And to backhandedly excuse yourself for injecting barely-relevant-but-indisputably-true facts into other people's conversations.~ You can also call it glycerol, if that helps. It helps me to not hear the alt-rock song by Bush every time I'm thinking of the chemical. Glycerol may not taste as sweet as maltitol or sorbitol, but it won't make your bowels explode as violently, either. And it makes your low-sugar baking feel less dry.

Pretty clever way of reducing the amount, by increasing the rate by which it dissolves. Sounds like a win for both the business side(cheaper costs), and consumer(less sugar consumption).

bluejekyll 10y ago

Will it actually have an effect on weight gain and health? They've been showing for instance that things like Diet Coke actually don't help people lose weight, b/c of many other factors in the way the body responds to fake sugars. Will this be similar?

antidaily 10y ago
No.
em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if people just start eating more of this chocolate because it is perceived as less unhealthy, thus negating the health benefits.
CoryG89 10y ago
Generally the reasons they think that these diet drinks don't help you lose weight is because they believe the artificial sweeteners used will effect you in some way that sugar doesn't cancelling out any other benefits it has. Presumably, they won't be replacing this reduced sugar with an artificial sweetener.
bkmartin 10y ago
Generally, people who switch from regular to diet soda only lose a pound or two when all things are considered. The research has shown that the big deal with switching is that you stop gaining weight. I'll refer you to Aaron Caroll's most recent explanation(rant) from YESTERDAY... https://youtu.be/znh58FZjXt0?t=663 https://youtu.be/znh58FZjXt0?t=663

binarymax 10y ago

There isn't any technical information in the article, but what does "a way to structure sugar differently" mean? Do they mean change it from being sucrose to some other compound?

CoryG89 10y ago
There is a link to the Nestle announcement in the article. Doesn't contain much more information but it does say: > Using only natural ingredients, Nestlé researchers have found a way to structure sugar differently. > Our scientists have discovered a completely new way to use a traditional, natural ingredient. No link to the patent application that I can find though. : / http://www.nestle.com/media/news/nestle-research-discovery-sugar-reduction http://www.nestle.com/media/news/nestle-research-discovery-s...
- cowpewter 10y ago
  :( I mean, isn't technically sucralose (splenda) just a "different way to structure sugar" in that they tack a few chlorines on it?
  - uremog 10y ago
    And "natural" can mean a whole lot of things.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  momeara (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080704) dug up a link to the patent: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2016173929 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20... .

joemaller1 10y ago

> Its scientists altered the structure of sugar so that it dissolves more quickly. So... powdered sugar?

stronglikedan 10y ago
I wouldn't think so. There's a noticeable difference between granulated sugar and powdered sugar to the palate. This new method claims to not affect the taste, so I would think it's something at the molecular level.
Raphmedia 10y ago
News articles are saying that the sugar will be "hollow", so there's as much sugar particles that will reach your tongue but they will dissolve very quickly and be less dense. Anyone has more information on the science of it?
- miguelrochefort 10y ago
  That's actually a great idea. It's crazy to think that we eat food that's densely packed with sugar, yet only a fraction of it gets in contact with the tongue. I wonder if they could design a beverage where the sugar somehow stays on the outside.
  - Raphmedia 10y ago
    I guess that's why we drink fizzy and creamy drinks so much! Personally I think that the future is in manipulating the taste buds themselves. Did you ever hear about the "magic fruits" Synsepalum dulcificum? It's a fruit that has molecules that binds to the tongue. The result is that anything sour will taste like sugar. Lemons will taste like candy. Pop a pill before drinking a bitter non-sugary drink and there you go, you are drinking sugar taste without any sugar!
- Groxx 10y ago
  > News articles are saying that the sugar will be "hollow" ... So... jet-puffed sugar?

GordonS 10y ago

What will they replace the reduced mass with, to bulk up the product so it doesn't appear smaller? My guess is it sure as hell won't be actual cocoa :/ [1] [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ihtAGGkUggJ:https://www.ft.com/content/9e71ebe2-ab56-11e6-9cb3-bb8207902122+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ihtAG...

sdegutis 10y ago
My guess is artificial sweetener, which by technicalities gets to say it's safer than it really is because of number-rounding laws. Or something?
- CoryG89 10y ago
  I think the idea is that they can now remove 40% of the sugar and still achieve the same sweetness with no other sweeteners needed.
  - sdegutis 10y ago
    I guess I'm more cynical and skeptical of businesses which only have financial incentives in mind to do "good" things like this, but no ethical incentives.
    - themckman 10y ago
      What is an ethical incentive?
      - ionised 10y ago
        Nothing that Nestle is familar with.
  - fritzw 10y ago
    If they remove 40% of the sugar they have to replace it with 40% of something else. Candy is sold by weight. Removing the sugar only solves part of the problem

danvoell 10y ago

Is this just called dark chocolate? Kidding aside, I'm hoping they don't replace it with some sort of chemical sweetener, I'm always suspicious of sugar replacements.

xeromal 10y ago
It's not a replacement. The 60% remaining is just tastier to your mouth.
Alex_Butters 10y ago
you realize every sweetener is a chemical, right? What if they replace sugar with sugar? There are tons of types of sugars that can replace one another. Lots of sweeteners actually come from plants and microbes.

transfire 10y ago

They need to fix the taste, all their candy bars taste like nothing but sugar these days.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dbg31415 10y ago
I wonder how much of that is due to "arms race" marketing and focus groups. The current generations... our taste buds are shot, we're accustomed to so much sugar in things and HUGE portions. You can have sugar in smaller portions (like Coke, when it came out in 1886 was sold in a 6.5 oz size), and you could probably have larger healthier portions... but the mix is pretty unhealthy. Current generations are kind of ruined... taught to look for bigger and bigger candy bars, trained to like sweeter and sweeter things... how do we keep these toxic preferences from harming future generations? And... what can we do for ourselves? Cutting subsidies on sugar producers... seems like Step 1.
- edblarney 10y ago
  You know McDonald's 'kids mean' burger? With the 'small fries'? That was McDonald's 'original burger' :) Everything beyond that is 'super size'.

blakesterz 10y ago

>> "A patent is a double-edged sword. Although it protects what you have done it also tells your rivals about it." Maybe this isn't all the big of a deal for what it does to chocolate but if it is used to reduce sugar in other things that are consumed in large quantities (soda?) it could mean less sugar, fewer calories, less carbs and all those good things.

jasonkostempski 10y ago
A patent is more like a nuke, everyone looses.
CoryG89 10y ago
Here's hoping that their patent will only apply to chocolate or candy. I would be surprised though.
marcoperaza 10y ago
Given that they're making sugar that dissolves more quickly, how would this have any effect on soda? In which the sugar is already dissolved.

tonycoco 10y ago

Now I can eat 40% more Nestle chocolate! America!

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
It's actually 67% more chocolate: 1.67 * 0.6 = 1.
rjain15 10y ago
Or I can use the same concentrated chocolate paste for other medicinal purposes. http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-812-cocoa.aspx?activeingredientid=812& http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-812...

zwieback 10y ago

Sugar in food has functions other than sweetening, I wonder how this will affect texture, mouthfeel, moisture and shelf life.

petra 10y ago

DouxMatok uses a different principle for the same result, of covering a particle with sugar molecules in a way that increases the sugar surface and thus increase sweetness by 30%-100%. http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Flavour-delivery-particle-can-cut-sugar-by-half-and-is-cheaper-than-sugar http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Flavour-delivery-... I'm curious if both methods could be combined.

hash-set 10y ago

Nestle and Hershey have already turned their products into nothing but shit, so to keep trying to push the envelope sounds exactly like how cable thought they could jam more commercials into the programming and nobody would notice. These stupid MBAs all get their educations from the same few idiots, I guess. Pretty sad that business circa 2016 is just "another pickle from the jar" tricks instead of adding real value into products.

imjustsaying 10y ago
I disagree that there is no value added here. Sugar consumption has a public health impact comparable to smoking, alcohol, and air pollution. Even as an individual I seek out things with the least amount of sugar possible. Just ask anyone who switched from regular soda to diet how much value they found by fooling their taste buds.

dbg31415 10y ago

Try the new Nestle chocolates, now 40% smaller!

momeara 10y ago

Here is patent [1]. The key idea is to add a glucosyltransferase from Lactobacillus, which consumes simple sugars and produces complex sugars. It is not clear to me that this will be beneficial for human health. [1] https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf;jsessionid=71B661B463561D0C0F31EE2E222E7487.wapp1nC?docId=WO2016173929&recNum=10&maxRec=3456&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=Pub+Date+Desc&queryString=nestec+sugar&tab=PCTDescription https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf;jsessionid...

Drdrdrq 10y ago
This! Sugar at least has known side effects. :-/
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  > Lactobacillus Chances are, you're already eating them in dairy. It's not like we understand the 'side effects' of most things we eat. Any plant or fruit or fermented product you eat is made up of thousands of compounds, almost none of which have been tested for their effects in isolation. (But, you know, I'm pretty confident candy bars are bad for you. This change will not make them any better.)
pinot 10y ago
This patent is actually really interesting. Up until now, most exogenous enzyme treatments in food production have been catabolic. This anabolic idea is something I haven't thought would be possible. Table 7 is really the tell-all. Starting with 270g sucrose, the sucrose is converted into Fructose and higher sugars. Only 180g of the sucrose is accounted fo rin that table, meaning the other 90g of sucrose is made into something even higher than they show in the table.
JadeNB 10y ago
Thanks for digging that up! Incidentally, most of that link is worthless except to follow your path to it; only the docId is needed: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2016173929 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...

jzig 10y ago

Of course they'll pass the savings on to the consumer, right?

pipio21 10y ago
Well, given than cocoa is way more expensive than sugar is...
- jzig 10y ago
  But they're not adding any more cocoa are they?

verelo 10y ago

My initial reaction was "Great!", then i shared this with my partner and her response was "Fuck nestle. They are just saying what people want to hear" Thinking more critically, I share her concern. The way they've been buying water away from local towns makes me think they just need a positive PR spin to distract us from the real issues. * http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/23/boycott-nestle-water_n_12157042.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/23/boycott-nestle-water...

huherto 10y ago
I don't get this outrage over Nestle bottle water. The amount of water that is bottled for human consumption must be minuscule compared with many other usages like household, agricultural and industrial. Furthermore, it is not like the water is wasted. It is actual consumed by humans who live not too far from the place where the water was bottled.
- mhalle 10y ago
  At the risk of continuing off-topic, the "outrage" over Nestle bottled water in this case was due to Nestle starting to draw large amounts of water at about 1/100th the residential water cost from an region under mandatory water restrictions due to drought. Blame Nestle and/or the local government, but it does seem short-sighted and suboptimal. In general, though, bottled water isn't consumed close to its generation point: it's packaged in plastic bottles and trucked away. There's an environmental cost. And many of the bottles that are consumed locally contain the same water people could have gotten straight from the tap, so the environmental cost is lower but more pointless.
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    I agree they should pay the full price, and that bottled water is wasteful, but 4 million litres per day is not a large amount. It's equivalent to the daily consumption of around 8000 people. Or equivalent to the water needed to irrigate a laughably small farm.

sitkack 10y ago

I trust Nestle about as far as I can throw them. Will swap sugar for uranium mine tailings, water rights contracts or dead babies.

quadrangle 10y ago

> It claims this can be done without affecting the taste. Ugh, and I was about to be excited that I'd really actually be into these chocolate bars again if they were actually less sweet. Oh well. And patenting? Screw them.

rogual 10y ago

Does anybody care what a company this size says anymore? What relation does PR spin like this even have to reality? They'll do whatever they need to do to make money and say whatever half-truths make them sound good. This is a non-story.

malkia 10y ago

NESTLE: I'm not chemist, biologist or nutritionist, but here is big chance to make something good for the world. If this patent is good for humans, and doesn't change taste much - SHARE IT! With today's social media, this would only bring more people to buy your products, than not.

tn13 10y ago

It might be actually a worse thing to do if they replace it with something else.

desbest 10y ago

It's the sugar that makes milk chocolate taste good, as cocoa powder has a sour taste. I expect Nestle to lose money due to this move.

ourmandave 10y ago

Aw, I'd planned to buy Christmas presents, but now I have to divert all that money (and garage space) to hoarding full sugar Wonka Bars. "Who can make the sunrise?..." Me, even 2 years on, that's who.

partycoder 10y ago

Well: - chocolate production is not sustainable right now - chocolate consumption is increasing Eventually cocoa will become a very expensive commodity.

e40 10y ago

I think this is a great move. I recently went on a low-sugar diet and after a while I went back to my favorite chocolate bar from Trader Joe's. I was appalled how sweet it was and I really can't eat it anymore.

politician 10y ago

The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service recently released its biannual report on sugar, "Sugar: World Markets and Trade". > Global production for 2016/17 is up 5 million metric tons (raw value) to 171 million as gains in Brazil and the European Union and most of the top 25 producers more than offset declines in India and Thailand. Global raw sugar monthly average prices, after falling for over a year and bottoming at less than 11 cents per pound in August 2015, have been trending higher to near 23 cents in October 2016. Despite high prices, consumption is forecast at a record 174 million tons, drawing stocks down to the lowest level since 2010/11. The global sugar deficit narrows from 6.7 million tons in 2015/16 to a forecast 2.6 million. That the price of sugar has doubled over the past year amid shrinking stocks probably explains why Nestle is interested in cutting their use of the ingredient. [1] https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/Sugar.pdf https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/Sugar.pdf

afandian 10y ago

It's cute of them to care about the health of consumers but I'm more concerned about the health of the people that harvest the ingredients. If they really wanted to they could stop using child slave labour.

Veratyr 10y ago
Do you have evidence that Nestlé purchases sugar that was produced through child labour? They claim to source the majority of their sugar from Brazil, Mexico and India [0] while the main instances I could find of child labour in sugar production were in the Phillipines, El Salvador and Nicaragua. [0]: http://www.nestle.com/csv/rural-development-responsible-sourcing/responsible-sourcing/sugar http://www.nestle.com/csv/rural-development-responsible-sour...
- afandian 10y ago
  From Nestle themselves. > No company sourcing cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire can guarantee they have completely removed the risk of children working on small farms in their supply chain. Nestlé is no different, but we are determined to tackle the problem. http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle-child-labour-supply-chains http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle... They have been in business for years. If they wanted to stop in the past, they could, overnight. It would be expensive, but only because of their entrenched business model which they had a hand in establishing.
  - kretor 10y ago
    Even farm products from the US often times are produced with the help of children: "US child labor laws allow child farm workers to work longer hours, at younger ages, and under more hazardous conditions than other working youths. While children in other sectors must be 12 to be employed and cannot work more than 3 hours on a school day, in agriculture, children can work at age 12 for unlimited hours before and after school." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_laws_in_the_United...

WalterBright 10y ago

I'd buy beef jerky if it wasn't soaked in corn syrup. I examined every brand, and they all soak it. Even bread has so much syrup it tastes like cake to me. I'd buy more chocolate if it was less sweet.

alirov 10y ago
I'm not sure about other brands but I just looked at the bag of Krave jerky I have in front of me and they don't use any corn syrup. Their website [1] confirms it. [1] https://www.kravejerky.com/about https://www.kravejerky.com/about
vonmoltke 10y ago
Uh, what brands are you looking at? In addition to my sibling who addressed jerky, I generally buy Arnold's/Orowheat bread and it has no corn syrup whatsoever.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  The ones at several grocery stores.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  I checked all of the brands at the store today. Oberto, Krave, Matador, Golden Island, Jack Links, Tillamook, and World Kitchens all list sugar as the 2nd agreement. I haven't looked at them in years, evidently they've switched from corn syrup to sugar.

wkoszek 10y ago

Eh, I remember the days when if I wanted less sugar, I'd just use less sugar, and the word "engineering" and "patenting" wouldn't be right for the food discussion.

andr 10y ago

Read the news with a grain of salt (ahem), as sugar prices have gone up 2x in the past year. http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=sugar&months=120 http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=sugar&month...

copperx 10y ago
Ah, the old "follow the money" advice still holds true.

l3m0ndr0p 10y ago

This is great! I wonder how much chocolate they've cut out of their products over the years, especially since they have removed cocoa butter from their products too.

inDigiNeous 10y ago

You should definitely boycott Nestle. They are for example aggressively pushing baby milk replacements for newborns in developing countries: more info here:http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree#evidence http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree#evidence "Nestlé promotes its baby milk around the world with the claim such as it is the ‘natural start’, ‘gentle start’ and ‘protects’ babies. In truth, babies fed on formula are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and, in conditions of poverty, more likely to die. Nestlé has promised to drop the ‘natural start’ claim by mid-2015 following pressure from the campaign, but not the others." Also, they have been calling for privatization and taking away water as a basic human right, instead wanting to sell people water in bottles. Here's a list of Nestle products to boycott: http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestle-boycott-list http://www.babymilkaction.org/nestle-boycott-list It contains some surprising ones, like San Pellegrino which is considered to be a high quality water.

nashashmi 10y ago
Poland Spring and Deer Park water are not on there. And obviously Nestle purelife water is not on there.
dexterdog 10y ago
I can follow that list no problem except for nespresso. The quality bang for the buck you get with those is so much better than the garbage that passes for coffee in a k-cup.
- kolbe 10y ago
  It is pretty hard to be moral when soooo much is at stake.
  - inDigiNeous 10y ago
    :D Yeah companies like these strive on the fact that they have the power to purchase many, many companies and conquer markets from many directions. Sadly for example the popular Finnish Penguin icecream was bought by Nestle, but they didn't of course change the name, so many people maybe still believe that it's still being owned by Finnish companies. The product didn't change, so that's good, but now the money is going to a multinational company instead of a local one. So yeah, it's kinda difficult to avoid all of these.

godmodus 10y ago

Doesn't dilute the blood they've on their hands though

Dowwie 10y ago

In 2014, Nestle made $4.1 billion selling bottled water

lamby 10y ago
It's almost as if value is subjective and not objective... g

Happpy 10y ago

Sugar is the cheapest ingredient. Why would they replace it by more expensive ones?

slaman 10y ago
You might be able to sell more volume if it says '40% less sugar same great taste!'

qq66 10y ago

The strawberry is perhaps the best evidence that the physical layout of sugars matters tremendously. A fresh strawberry tastes incredibly sweet. But blend up a pound of those strawberries and it tastes wretched without added sugar. Since the strawberry has most of its sweetness on the outside, it tastes fine when you're biting into it directly but the blending exposes more of the tart inside.

andy_ppp 10y ago

>> Its scientists altered the structure of sugar so that it dissolves more quickly. Something tells me this is going to be like turning cocaine into crack. Apart from saving them money, I bet you find people selling their grandma's TV for a go on another KitKat. And yes; boycott Nestle for many reasons, mostly because all of their products are terrible for you or other people.

pacaro 10y ago

Ruhlman's "Ratio" is a good approach to this My peeve with the book is that he (IMHO correctly) tells the reader to use weights not volumes for dry ingredients, then in the entire rest of the book seems to promote/use volume measures. https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728 https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/...

formula_ninguna 10y ago

What's a problem not to consume chocolate at all? Instead of discussing what it really means to reduce sugar in it.

rtuin 10y ago

Is this to cover up their child labor palm oil situation? https://www.google.nl/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/30/kelloggs-unilever-nestle-child-labour-palm-oil-wilmar-amnesty?client=safari https://www.google.nl/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov...

Jean-Philipe 10y ago

I always wondered why there's so much sugar in everything. All of my friends, relatives and people I know think that everything is too sweet - cookies, cake, soup, lemonade, ice cream, you name it. Am I weird? Do people actually like the sugar? I just remember, one dad at a kids party once approached me and asked me "do you know why these cupcakes are so damn delicious? I've put TWICE the sugar that was on the recipe!" so yeah, I guess there are people who actually like it sweet... does anyone know of any data on this?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

poelzi 10y ago

I don't care, I only eat good chocolate