Is healthy chocolate ice on the horizon?

The problem with ice cream may not be that it is high in calories, but that it is so polyphenol arm.

We know that a diet with lots of fruit and vegetables protects against heart diseases, cancer and diabetes. These advantages result from the higher polyphenol content of these foods; Polyphenols stimulate the strong antioxidant effect in the body. In separate reviews, both Arts (2005) and Hooper (2008) came to the conclusion that there is a reverse connection between a high absorption of polyphenols from food and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), whereby a diet with a high polyphenol content reduces the CVD mortality by 65 %. Finding out what people should eat and get them are two very different challenges. The natural tendency of most people is to choose calorie, highly processed foods with a low polyphenol content - which we generally call junk food. Efforts to educate the public about a healthy diet have only had a very limited success. Therefore, attention is shifted to whether food formulations can be modified in order to produce healthier versions of unhealthy foods.

This healthy version of chocolate ice cream was produced by reducing saturated fats, replacing milk fat with ground hazelnuts and increasing the polyphenols by adding cocoa tapes and green tea extracts.

Moderary chocolate consumption is associated with reduced cardiovascular diseases in men and women. This protective advantage disappears with high consumers-chocolate consumers who eat daily have a higher CVD risk as non-consumers. ^{3.4 caffeine, theobromine and fat in chocolate are generally held responsible for this two-phase reaction, although it is unclear.}

The inflammatory effect of ice cream was attributed to its high fat content, but the results of a study from 2010 indicate something else. In this study, the researchers gave overweight participants with low -fat ice and persecuted inflammatory markers and metabolic syndrome. They found no benefit for low -fat substitution. ⁶ A study from 2012 could not show that full fats increased milk products of biomarker in connection with inflammation or atherogenesis.

A meta-analysis from 2013, in which the consumption of low-fat and low-fat dairy products was compared, found that the consumption of high-fat dairy products was associated with a certain weight gain, but had only minor effects on other cardiometabolic risk factors. was useful when we hoped. According to a separate study from 2013, fermented whole milk products were not worse than low-fat dairy products and in some ways the better choice. ^{9 So you have to ask whether the replacement of milk fat was even necessary for the improved CVD markers in this current chocolate ice cream study. Maybe it would also have been enough to use simply fermented whole milk products.}

The problem with ice cream may not be that it is high in calories, but that it is so polyphenol arm. If the polyphenol levels are increased in such a way that they compensate for the calories, foods that we traditionally see as unhealthy are no longer harmful.

Other strategies are tested to transform ice cream into healthy foods. An idea that is becoming more and more important is the addition of probiotics - especially bacteria that have been enriched with magnesium. ^{11 Another aspect is to add prebiotic or synbiotic fiber together with probiotics.}

While there are apparently several ways to convert junk food into healthy foods, product development and availability in retail seem to be behind. We would like those in food product development to implement these ideas with a little more speed and enthusiasm into consumer products.

Apparently current government regulations that exist on certain, defined ingredients and certain conditions of these ingredients can be seen as an obstacle to the development of new products. Ice cream is so precisely defined what it contains that ingredient lists on the label are optional. It is unlikely that the chocolate-hazelnut preparation used in this study will ever get into a freezer in the United States in a packaging marked with ice cream.

We have known for years that chocolate polyphenols are responsible for the CVD advantage of chocolate, but we have not yet seen none of the "healthy" chocolate that actually characterize their packaging with polyphenol content. Is this the result of state labeling regulations or the relenty of the company? Until the labels specify the polyphenol content, it will be difficult for consumers to see which products have the greatest benefit. Although we may not know the ideal daily polyphenol recording, it would be nice to know how much is contained in our different foods and to be able to compare the products offered for purchase.