(Insider) – Whether it’s hot chocolate at breakfast, a candy bar at lunch, or brownies for dessert after your evening meal, chocolate is a daily staple for many of us.
That being said, more and more of us have become seriously concerned with what we’re eating, particularly the effects of processed foods and refined sugar.
And manufacturers certainly aren’t oblivious to this; Swiss giant Nestlé announced on July 16 that it would be launching a “no added sugar” chocolate made exclusively from cocoa beans.
According to the press release, the new candy gets its “sweetness and subtle acidity” naturally from cacao beans and white cacao pulp, both of which come from the cacao fruit.
Like the “KitKat Ruby” launched in January 2018 and the “KitKat Sublime Volcanic” launched in January 2019, the new product will initially be launched in Japan in the fall of 2019.
Nestlé will be looking to offer the new edition in countries across the globe from 2020.
According to the press release, cacao pulp is usually partially used as sugar when fermenting cacao beans — Nestlé has developed a unique technique that transforms the white pulp in cocoa beans into a powder that contains natural sugar.
Dubbed “KitKat Chocolatory Cacao Fruit Chocolate”, the new candy will be made of 70% dark chocolate and will contain 40% less sugar than most candy bars that contain added sugar.
The question is: will this sugar-free candy be any better for your health than regular candy?
It really depends on the resulting sweet substance’s composition — which Nestlé hasn’t yet outlined.
Parisian dietitian and nutritionist Florence Foucaut told Business Insider that people should be wary of new ingredients claiming to be revolutionary alternatives to sugar: “To keep the same sweet taste, manufacturers usually try to find substitutes but that might actually raise the quantity of fat or additives in the candy — we don’t really know what’s in this white pulp once it’s been processed,” she said.
“The concept is great because it meets consumer demand,” said Foucaut, “but they’re riding the market’s current wave because sugar doesn’t have great press right now.”
Rather than looking to chocolates that substitute sugar for other sweeteners, Foucaut recommends that chocolate-lovers turn to dark chocolate, which tends to be lower in sugar and richer in cocoa — the latter of which provides iron and magnesium.
“You should actually avoid ‘light’ versions of products most of the time,” she said. “Nestlé has already made a chocolate with low sugar content but it was higher in fat — which isn’t necessarily good, especially for those with diabetes.”
