8 ms·

The dark truth about chocolate

116 points by raattgift 9y ago

nkurz 9y ago
That's a surprisingly in depth newspaper article! Rather than another article about how chocolate is a "superfood", or debunking the "myth" of chocolate, this is a look at how our perceptions of chocolate are affected by industry driven science. The closing paragraphs give a flavor of the piece, telling of an social experiment that I'm surprised I hadn't heard about (or at least don't remember): The role of the media in helping chocolate makers exploit our failure to grasp the complexities of nutrition science was laid bare in a 2015 exposé. German television journalists set up a three-week “study” in which they asked one group of volunteers to follow a low-carb diet, another to do the same but add a daily chocolate bar, a third to make no change to their diet. Both low-carb groups lost an average of 5lb, but the chocolate group lost weight faster. By measuring 18 different things in a small number of people, the spoofers made it likely they would find “statistically significant” but fake benefits of eating chocolate. The “peer-reviewed” International Archives of Internal Medicine agreed to publish a hastily written paper within 24 hours of receiving it – for a fee of €600. John Bohannon, a Harvard University biologist and science journalist in on the hoax, put together a press release. Within days stories had been published in more than 20 countries. The Mail Online, Daily Express, Daily Star and Bild were among those that fell for it. More about how that paper came to be here: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_history_behind_the_chocolate_hoax.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_history_behind_the_chocolat...
- gkya 9y ago
  Guardian is a lovely newspaper. I particularly like the Long Reads, almost always interesting. They have a mailing list for that, and also a weekly news one, both just full of nice, useful content.
  - Stratoscope 9y ago
    The Guardian also made one of the greatest television commercials of all time. If you've seen it, you know the one I'm referring to. If you haven't, watch it two or three times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU If anyone here remembers the Software Entrepreneur's Forum that met regularly in the Palo Alto area in the '80s and '90s, Will Hearst gave a talk at one of their meetings and played this commercial as an example of creative marketing. High praise from another newspaperman, and well earned. Tangentially, Will is also a mathematician and programmer. I don't know how much code he writes these days, but back then he was known to be quite an AWK enthusiast.
    - gkya 9y ago
      Wow, thanks a lot!
    - AndrewOMartin 9y ago
      I hope this would be the advert where a newspaper repeatedly unfolded to cover an entire city, backed by some funky brass. The linked ad is much more worthy, but I've always wanted to see the other one again.
  - jnsaff2 9y ago
    The long reads are published as podcasts as well often read by authors. https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-audio-long-read https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-audio-long-read
taxicabjesus 9y ago
> During the 1990s, scientists became interested in the French paradox – the now discredited observation that heart disease rates were low in France despite a national diet high in saturated fats. I joined a local Toastmasters club over a year ago. Last week we had a speech from a member who grew up in France, found his way to an engineering university in Florida, and now lives in Arizona. His latest speech told of how he's lived "the French Paradox". A few years ago he went home to visit family. His aunt squeezed his cheek and sweetly said, "You've become a fat American." The rest of the speech was about how this motivated him to return to his old French eating habits -- 5-course meals, small entrees, dairy, desert. He lost 50 pounds. One of the key points he raised was how he makes an effort to avoid most unsaturated oils. There is no French paradox, because the French are correct to take food more seriously than Americans. That some scientists think there is a "French paradox" just shows how confused they are. IMHO, Ancel Keys' work was really just junk science [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys
- JeanMarcS 9y ago
  French here. I think there are several points in the way we approach food here in France. There is a long tradition of gastronomy. Not saying we are the only country in the world with a good gastronomy, of course not, but it's in our genes. I think we are one of little peoples that are talking about food when eating. When you eat with other people, there is always a moment when you start talking about a restaurant, or a time, where/when you had a great meal. We are also obsessed with our traditional meals or food. For example, close to each dairy farm have its sort of cheese. A lot of them will never cross the US border:-) There are moe than 1200 sort of cheese [1] and even protected ones, meaning the recipes and origin are protected by 'law' [2]. And that's also true for ham, delicatessen (and we love those), meat, poultry, and everything coming from unindustrialized farms (or not too much). That's something we really care about. And because those foods taste something, there is no need to add sugar or other in it. Of course, that's for the tradition picture. But we also eat junk food, microwaved food (even more since the 70's crisis where working or finding work became harder and harder each year). We just went 3-4 decades eating bad, especially in cities, and the obesity epidemy is somthing real in France too. Fortunatly there was a wake up call in the middle of the 2000's and more and more people try to come back to less industrialized processed food. And in conclusion, there's something true for French : we LOVE to eat ! [1] List in French : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ais https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ai... [2] Short list in English : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses
tlb 9y ago
I wonder how long before we start seeing studies about the benefits of social media or casual games. "People with more than 500 Facebook friends live up to 2 years longer." "People who spend more than $100/mo on loot boxes find jobs 17% faster." Just do enough studies and the benefits will show.
- Viliam1234 9y ago
  > Just do enough studies and the benefits will show. Indeed, the latest research shows that people who do more than 200 studies get 15% more benefits.
mkempe 9y ago
It's amusing to see a British paper attacking the health benefits of dark chocolate, given what they sell as "chocolate" in stores. After having had unfortunate opportunities to try it, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Which brands? if you have only ever eaten Cadburys going to a 70+% cocoa might be an unusual taste, and in America big brand chocolate is even more adulterated than it is in the UK
  - mkempe 9y ago
    Sorry I only remember Cadbury's but there were other brands. As for taste in the UK and America, for the American market Lindt chose to adulterate their standard Excellence recipes to adjust to local preferences; consequently some of their dark chocolates sold in the US became inedible monstrosities.
  - icc97 9y ago
    Comparison of th ingredients of Cadury's Dairy Milk in the UK vs US [0]: > According to a 2007 report in The New York Times, a British bar contained (in order) of milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat and emulsifiers, whilst the American version manufactured by Hershey started its ingredients list with sugar. It also listed lactose, emulsifier soy lecithin, and “natural and artificial flavorings". Cadbury's is typically the cheapest brand of chocolate in the UK. The UK got an exception from EU law to create a new type of 'family milk chocolate' that only contains 20% cocoa solids instead of 25% as is required in the rest of the EU to call something milk chocolate [1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury_Dairy_Milk#Ingredients_and_tastes_for_local_markets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury_Dairy_Milk#Ingredients... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate#Types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate#Types
- lozenge 9y ago
  Was this before or after Kraft did a hostile takeover of Cadbury? I'll grant that Cadbury was never as good as European chocolate, but after Kraft the quality took a nosedive.
wodenokoto 9y ago
What should one do, if one wants to try "what the Aztec's called the food of the gods"?
- JeanMarcS 9y ago
  Find a place where people actually grow cocoa beans. That sound stupid, I know, but I'm not sure there are a lot of place else you can taste raw cocoa. I once saw a TV report about a chocolate maker in Belgium who bought beans directly and making all the process by himself. Perhaps some other do that ? I have the chance to live in a carribean island where there's a place where they grow cocoa. So you can test (and taste) it in its raw form. It's particularly bitter ! And eons from chocolate. I was the only one in a group of five to appreciate it. But just a sip :-)
  - ianai 9y ago
    You’re a little off base there. You can in fact make your own chocolate bars at home http://chocolatealchemy.com/ http://chocolatealchemy.com/ Not an ad, just an anecdote that you don’t have to travel far for raw cocao.
    - felipemnoa 9y ago
      >>You can in fact make your own chocolate bars at home And it isn't that difficult really. There are lots of places you can get raw cacao from and recipes for chocolate bars are actually quite simple. The best part about making your own chocolate bars is that you can experiment with how much sugar, almonds, and cinnamon to add. Roast the almonds and cacao beans to your liking, crush them all together until you get a nice dough texture and voila! Chocolate.
  - cwzwarich 9y ago
    Does anyone actually make chocolates from the raw, unfermented beans? Wouldn't it taste pretty bad?
- jordanpg 9y ago
  A good approximation is high quality drinking chocolate (not hot chocolate). Melted very dark chocolate with a minimum of sugar and milk or cream added. You can find it at fancy chocolate places.
jwilk 9y ago
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16673382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16673382
laurex 9y ago
In general, I'd be skeptical of positive claims about any single food as a health solution. There might be foods that are especially bad, but even then, there's rarely a situation where one food, if the rest of the diet was "healthy" (generally defining as non-processed and containing variety among fresh ingredients that include whole grains, produce, and proteins), would be problematic in moderation, unless the consumer was allergic to it. Eating poorly can hurt, but there's not one "simple trick" that can change that. People want some kind of antidote magic bullet to the health issues we have, but food is very unlikely to fill that role. A good article: http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/03/ultimate-conversation-on-healthy-eating-and-nutrition.html http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/03/ultimate-conversation-on-h...
debacle 9y ago
Chocolate keeps me regular.
tootie 9y ago
Just reading the nutrition label on my bar of dark chocolate says it has a significant amount of fiber and iron which makes it better than most other desserts. I don't eat it like I'm eating vegetables. I eat it like it's a treat that is better for me than other treats.
holografix 9y ago
Lindt 78% cocoa surely has a positive impact on my mental health. I find one or two squares at a time are enough due to the richness of the flavour.
- smichel17 9y ago
  Is this an advertisement?
  - holografix 9y ago
    Not at all. Just genuinely like it and 78% seems like the “sweet spot” for me. Where the 70% is a little too easy to over eat and the 85% is just too rich, almost as if it’s a different thing, not quite “chocolate”.
xchip 9y ago
TL;DR: Most heath claims done by scientific studies are fake

116 points by raattgift 9y ago

That's a surprisingly in depth newspaper article! Rather than another article about how chocolate is a "superfood", or debunking the "myth" of chocolate, this is a look at how our perceptions of chocolate are affected by industry driven science. The closing paragraphs give a flavor of the piece, telling of an social experiment that I'm surprised I hadn't heard about (or at least don't remember): The role of the media in helping chocolate makers exploit our failure to grasp the complexities of nutrition science was laid bare in a 2015 exposé. German television journalists set up a three-week “study” in which they asked one group of volunteers to follow a low-carb diet, another to do the same but add a daily chocolate bar, a third to make no change to their diet. Both low-carb groups lost an average of 5lb, but the chocolate group lost weight faster. By measuring 18 different things in a small number of people, the spoofers made it likely they would find “statistically significant” but fake benefits of eating chocolate. The “peer-reviewed” International Archives of Internal Medicine agreed to publish a hastily written paper within 24 hours of receiving it – for a fee of €600. John Bohannon, a Harvard University biologist and science journalist in on the hoax, put together a press release. Within days stories had been published in more than 20 countries. The Mail Online, Daily Express, Daily Star and Bild were among those that fell for it. More about how that paper came to be here: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_history_behind_the_chocolate_hoax.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_history_behind_the_chocolat...

gkya 9y ago
Guardian is a lovely newspaper. I particularly like the Long Reads, almost always interesting. They have a mailing list for that, and also a weekly news one, both just full of nice, useful content.
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  The Guardian also made one of the greatest television commercials of all time. If you've seen it, you know the one I'm referring to. If you haven't, watch it two or three times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3h-T3KQNxU If anyone here remembers the Software Entrepreneur's Forum that met regularly in the Palo Alto area in the '80s and '90s, Will Hearst gave a talk at one of their meetings and played this commercial as an example of creative marketing. High praise from another newspaperman, and well earned. Tangentially, Will is also a mathematician and programmer. I don't know how much code he writes these days, but back then he was known to be quite an AWK enthusiast.
  - gkya 9y ago
    Wow, thanks a lot!
  - AndrewOMartin 9y ago
    I hope this would be the advert where a newspaper repeatedly unfolded to cover an entire city, backed by some funky brass. The linked ad is much more worthy, but I've always wanted to see the other one again.
- jnsaff2 9y ago
  The long reads are published as podcasts as well often read by authors. https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-audio-long-read https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-audio-long-read

taxicabjesus 9y ago

> During the 1990s, scientists became interested in the French paradox – the now discredited observation that heart disease rates were low in France despite a national diet high in saturated fats. I joined a local Toastmasters club over a year ago. Last week we had a speech from a member who grew up in France, found his way to an engineering university in Florida, and now lives in Arizona. His latest speech told of how he's lived "the French Paradox". A few years ago he went home to visit family. His aunt squeezed his cheek and sweetly said, "You've become a fat American." The rest of the speech was about how this motivated him to return to his old French eating habits -- 5-course meals, small entrees, dairy, desert. He lost 50 pounds. One of the key points he raised was how he makes an effort to avoid most unsaturated oils. There is no French paradox, because the French are correct to take food more seriously than Americans. That some scientists think there is a "French paradox" just shows how confused they are. IMHO, Ancel Keys' work was really just junk science [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys

JeanMarcS 9y ago
French here. I think there are several points in the way we approach food here in France. There is a long tradition of gastronomy. Not saying we are the only country in the world with a good gastronomy, of course not, but it's in our genes. I think we are one of little peoples that are talking about food when eating. When you eat with other people, there is always a moment when you start talking about a restaurant, or a time, where/when you had a great meal. We are also obsessed with our traditional meals or food. For example, close to each dairy farm have its sort of cheese. A lot of them will never cross the US border:-) There are moe than 1200 sort of cheese [1] and even protected ones, meaning the recipes and origin are protected by 'law' [2]. And that's also true for ham, delicatessen (and we love those), meat, poultry, and everything coming from unindustrialized farms (or not too much). That's something we really care about. And because those foods taste something, there is no need to add sugar or other in it. Of course, that's for the tradition picture. But we also eat junk food, microwaved food (even more since the 70's crisis where working or finding work became harder and harder each year). We just went 3-4 decades eating bad, especially in cities, and the obesity epidemy is somthing real in France too. Fortunatly there was a wake up call in the middle of the 2000's and more and more people try to come back to less industrialized processed food. And in conclusion, there's something true for French : we LOVE to eat ! [1] List in French : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ais https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ai... [2] Short list in English : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses

tlb 9y ago

I wonder how long before we start seeing studies about the benefits of social media or casual games. "People with more than 500 Facebook friends live up to 2 years longer." "People who spend more than $100/mo on loot boxes find jobs 17% faster." Just do enough studies and the benefits will show.

Viliam1234 9y ago
> Just do enough studies and the benefits will show. Indeed, the latest research shows that people who do more than 200 studies get 15% more benefits.

mkempe 9y ago

It's amusing to see a British paper attacking the health benefits of dark chocolate, given what they sell as "chocolate" in stores. After having had unfortunate opportunities to try it, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

walshemj 9y ago
Which brands? if you have only ever eaten Cadburys going to a 70+% cocoa might be an unusual taste, and in America big brand chocolate is even more adulterated than it is in the UK
- mkempe 9y ago
  Sorry I only remember Cadbury's but there were other brands. As for taste in the UK and America, for the American market Lindt chose to adulterate their standard Excellence recipes to adjust to local preferences; consequently some of their dark chocolates sold in the US became inedible monstrosities.
- icc97 9y ago
  Comparison of th ingredients of Cadury's Dairy Milk in the UK vs US [0]: > According to a 2007 report in The New York Times, a British bar contained (in order) of milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat and emulsifiers, whilst the American version manufactured by Hershey started its ingredients list with sugar. It also listed lactose, emulsifier soy lecithin, and “natural and artificial flavorings". Cadbury's is typically the cheapest brand of chocolate in the UK. The UK got an exception from EU law to create a new type of 'family milk chocolate' that only contains 20% cocoa solids instead of 25% as is required in the rest of the EU to call something milk chocolate [1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury_Dairy_Milk#Ingredients_and_tastes_for_local_markets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury_Dairy_Milk#Ingredients... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate#Types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate#Types
lozenge 9y ago
Was this before or after Kraft did a hostile takeover of Cadbury? I'll grant that Cadbury was never as good as European chocolate, but after Kraft the quality took a nosedive.

wodenokoto 9y ago

What should one do, if one wants to try "what the Aztec's called the food of the gods"?

JeanMarcS 9y ago
Find a place where people actually grow cocoa beans. That sound stupid, I know, but I'm not sure there are a lot of place else you can taste raw cocoa. I once saw a TV report about a chocolate maker in Belgium who bought beans directly and making all the process by himself. Perhaps some other do that ? I have the chance to live in a carribean island where there's a place where they grow cocoa. So you can test (and taste) it in its raw form. It's particularly bitter ! And eons from chocolate. I was the only one in a group of five to appreciate it. But just a sip :-)
- ianai 9y ago
  You’re a little off base there. You can in fact make your own chocolate bars at home http://chocolatealchemy.com/ http://chocolatealchemy.com/ Not an ad, just an anecdote that you don’t have to travel far for raw cocao.
  - felipemnoa 9y ago
    >>You can in fact make your own chocolate bars at home And it isn't that difficult really. There are lots of places you can get raw cacao from and recipes for chocolate bars are actually quite simple. The best part about making your own chocolate bars is that you can experiment with how much sugar, almonds, and cinnamon to add. Roast the almonds and cacao beans to your liking, crush them all together until you get a nice dough texture and voila! Chocolate.
- cwzwarich 9y ago
  Does anyone actually make chocolates from the raw, unfermented beans? Wouldn't it taste pretty bad?
jordanpg 9y ago
A good approximation is high quality drinking chocolate (not hot chocolate). Melted very dark chocolate with a minimum of sugar and milk or cream added. You can find it at fancy chocolate places.

jwilk 9y ago

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16673382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16673382

laurex 9y ago

In general, I'd be skeptical of positive claims about any single food as a health solution. There might be foods that are especially bad, but even then, there's rarely a situation where one food, if the rest of the diet was "healthy" (generally defining as non-processed and containing variety among fresh ingredients that include whole grains, produce, and proteins), would be problematic in moderation, unless the consumer was allergic to it. Eating poorly can hurt, but there's not one "simple trick" that can change that. People want some kind of antidote magic bullet to the health issues we have, but food is very unlikely to fill that role. A good article: http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/03/ultimate-conversation-on-healthy-eating-and-nutrition.html http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/03/ultimate-conversation-on-h...

debacle 9y ago

Chocolate keeps me regular.

tootie 9y ago

Just reading the nutrition label on my bar of dark chocolate says it has a significant amount of fiber and iron which makes it better than most other desserts. I don't eat it like I'm eating vegetables. I eat it like it's a treat that is better for me than other treats.

holografix 9y ago

Lindt 78% cocoa surely has a positive impact on my mental health. I find one or two squares at a time are enough due to the richness of the flavour.

smichel17 9y ago
Is this an advertisement?
- holografix 9y ago
  Not at all. Just genuinely like it and 78% seems like the “sweet spot” for me. Where the 70% is a little too easy to over eat and the 85% is just too rich, almost as if it’s a different thing, not quite “chocolate”.

xchip 9y ago

TL;DR: Most heath claims done by scientific studies are fake