Scientists are working on turning chocolate into a superfood by adding probiotics and prebiotics to improve gut health. Probiotics are healthy bacteria that help with digestion, and prebiotics act as food for these bacteria, helping them grow and thrive. Together, they make a powerful combination called "synbiotics."
One of the biggest challenges in this process is making sure the chocolate still tastes great and has that smooth texture we all love, while also delivering health benefits. Probiotics are delicate and can be destroyed by stomach acid or during processing, so researchers need to find ways to keep them intact.
A team of researchers from India’s
Jaypee Institute of Information Technology has come up with an innovative approach. Instead of using complex methods, they decided to use natural ingredients like corn and honey as prebiotics. They created five different chocolate varieties, including a basic one and four with different combinations of probiotics, prebiotics, and flavor enhancers like cinnamon or orange.
To test how well the probiotics would survive, they ran lab simulations that mimicked human digestion. They found that the probiotics remained active for over five hours, which means they could survive long enough in the body to provide health benefits.
