Nestle finds new way to use cocoa leftovers to sweeten chocolate | Hacker News Reader

Nestle finds new way to use cocoa leftovers to sweeten chocolate

bloomberg.com

Cacao pulp is delicious. It is interesting that we use the bitter seeds from the fruit, and mostly throw out the tasty pulp. If you are in San Francisco you can get cacao fruit smoothies from Dandelion Chocolate. I hope the pulp starts showing up in more food products instead of going to waste.

Traditionally the pulp is left on the beans during fermentation to impart flavor, and is basically used up in the process. It's mostly American style chocolate that removes the pulp before fermentation and throws it away, in order to... reduce flavor, I guess?

>>I hope the pulp starts showing up in more food products instead of going to waste.

I'd be surprised if it is truly wasted. Most likely it servers some other useful purpose. Fertilizer or fuel are two uses I can think of.

Good side: nice, new ways to use that waste. Bad side: Nestlé.

Serious question, why is it bad that it's Nestle?

Nestle is one of the worst companies... without getting into the details too much, many of their (business) practices are as anti-human as it gets

I think the majority of the hatred for Nestlé comes from their aggressive approach to selling baby formula in poor countries where (for various reasons) it wasn't appropriate, which probably directly harmed children as a result.

However, according to this page, there are other reasons too: https://www.zmescience.com/science/nestle-company-pollution-...

"aggressive approach" - their sales reps dressed as nurses and went into hospitals. It goes a bit beyond "aggressive".

"probably directly harmed children" - report after report from (respected) NGOs and the WHO concluded babies died. No "probably", beyond "harmed".

Thanks for additional info. (I wasn't trying to downplay Nestle's crimes - more just hedge due to my own lack of certainty about the situation.)

Wow, just read through the link and did some more research on it quickly, this is some crazy stuff. Thanks for sharing

My number one reason to hate them is trying to privatise all drinking water and not believe water is a human right. But baby formula is a close second.

They're baby killers. That's not hyperbolic language.

See the Controversy section on their wikipedia, which touches on just a few of their issues (note that it's the largest section on the page, and is by no means exhaustive).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_cr...

Asides all other replies, look at what they did selling water in drought: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nestle-wat...

That was not only in California.

Have they really been throwing it away? The white 'fruit' is delicious... If you ever see a cocoa tree, try it. It's like a fruit that tastes like chocolate.

Nestle found a way to add sugar to chocolate without saying it added sugar to chocolate and even charge a premium for it.

It's not sugar! It's cocoa pulp Syrup!

See also cascara, the dried fruit left over from producing coffee beans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_cherry_tea

Will this be required to be listed as “added sugars”?

(That it’s a component of cocoa beans doesn’t necessarily mean it’s permitted in chocolate as an unlisted component.)

It would also be nice instead of just focusing on sugar, nestle focused on not using child labor in their cocoa sourcing process.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/business/hershe...

Wow, what a poignant paywall.

As expected, this is pretty misleading.

“The food company is using a patented technique to turn the white pulp that covers cocoa beans into a powder that naturally contains sugar.”

They’re not adding any processed sugar, so they can make the “no added sugar” claim. They’re still adding sugar via another method.

Yeah, it's unclear from the article what the product is actually going to be composed of. 70% dark chocolate means basically 70% cocao and 30% sugar. Is it still going to be 30% sugar? It might not be cane sugar, but it'll still be sugar.

That's really not true. Or at least in europe, 70% chocolate contains 70% cocoa solids. The remaining 30% are mostly butter (cocoa butter or another type of fat) and can contain sugar and milk.

At least in the US to be called chocolate it has to be cocoa butter. Chocolate is an FDA regulated term. Hershey learned this lesson the hard way a few years back as they tried to change over to vegetable oil, IIRC. [1] Apparently in the UK it must be at least 20% cocoa solids.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/business/worldbusiness/09...

Generally, manufacturers include the cocao butter in the percentage of cocao solids. And only low-grade chocolates would substitute another kind of fat.

Ok, we've changed the title to mostly the subtitle.

Those who want no added sugar can always get the 100% dark chocolate.

Basically bakers chocolate. I remember finding some in the pantry as a kid. Hidden candy! Until I took a bite and the bitter crumbly taste of 100% dark hit me.

Since it's coming from under the rind of the cocoa bean, wouldn't it be fructose then?

They probably use enzymes to breakdown some cellulose into fructose which is sweeter tasting than glucose or convert glucose to fructose, so they could add less sugar.

FTA:"... finding a way to alter the structure of sugar to boost its sweetening power" and then go on to say since it's sweeter they can use 40% less.

Reminds me of people adding date paste to health foods instead of sugar. Date paste is only sweet because it contains heaps of sugar...

"Patented technique" sounds pretty damn processed to me.

Just replace "cocoa beans" with "sugar cane" and read it again.

I mean if just exciting a few electrons turns a molecule into an -ose or -ase polymer, then what do you want to call it?

processed sugar has a different colloquial meaning that has nothing to do with whether you found it like that on your farm

I think "natural" is the best most relatable term here

Why is it more natural to extract simple sugars from cocoa beans than from sugar cane, beets, corn, or other plants? It sounds exactly the same to me.

> They’re not adding any processed sugar, so they can make the “no added sugar” claim. They’re still adding sugar via another method.

This sugar is very much processed. The difference is that they changed the recipe to stop removing this sugar.

I wouldn't call it 'added sugar'; it's like using whole milk directly instead of reducing it to 1% milk.

And I guess from the sound of it the current process is more like reducing to 1% milk and then adding back some fat from another source.

> They’re not adding any processed sugar, so they can make the “no added sugar” claim. They’re still adding sugar via another method.

To me the "no added sugar" pretty clearly encapsulates and is understood to be in-line with what is going on here. The most common place I can think of seeing that phrase in on packaging for fruit juice drinks, and I think it's pretty clearly understood that they still have plenty of sugar, and the only thing it really denotes is whether the product is more "natural" (in a marketing sense).

Similar to cured meat with "no added nitrates” but a bunch of added celery powder (which is high in nitrates).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-uncured-ba...

I remember in chemistry we learned the difference between ordinary, reagent grade sucrose and the fancy, organic, fair trade, whole wheat, gluten free sucrose. The fancy stuff was way better for you.

How can sucrose be "whole wheat"? And why would reagent grade sucrose have gluten in it? Sucrose usually comes from gluten-free sources, like sugar beets and cane, yes?

It was a joke...Sucrose is sucrose regardless of the source.

Looks like I'm being downvoted because I can't distinguish your humor from your being misinformed by your teacher.

I thought it was a lesson that that "reagent grade" is different from "food grade", Eq, https://www.spectrumchemical.com/OA_HTML/chemical-products_S... lists 99.9% purity, while commenting: "Sucrose, Ultrapure, also known as sugar, is derived from cane sugar and used as a food sweetener. Ungraded products supplied by Spectrum are indicative of a grade suitable for general industrial use or research purposes and typically are not suitable for human consumption or therapeutic use."

(What is "reagent grade" for sucrose? Sigma-Aldrich's "ACS reagent grade" sucrose is only promising ≥99% purity (see https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/substance/sucrose342305... ).

So I figured there was some common lab impurity in sucrose that your teacher was referring to, which you mistook for, or mis-remembered as gluten.

As you almost certainly know, "organic" and "fair trade" refer to farming and labor practices, which is independent of the chemical content. The latter may be better for your mental well-being, for those sensitive to humans subjected to terrible employment practices.

I'm well aware of the differences between the different grades of sugar. You're still not getting the OP's joke. Purities aside, all sucrose is just as good or bad for you health-wise as any other sucrose.

As you almost certainly know, organic and fair trade refers to farming and labor practices, which is independent of chemical content. This is why fair trade sugar isn't any better for you than non-fair trade sugar. The substance you're eating is the same.

"Purities aside"? My objection - and confusion - is precisely because when you buy "reagent grade sucrose", you don't actually buy 100% pure sucrose - you buy "sucrose with a small amount of impurities." And the impurities that are okay in a lab might not be healthy.

Yes, in retrospect I can see where the humor is supposed to be. But I think it isn't a good joke, for reasons I've described.

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